Welcome to Labor and Delivery

Yesterday did not go as planned... I thought I'd be dropping off my "sample" (pad from the night before), they'd test the discharge, find it negative for amniotic fluid, and I'd be on my way to work.

Not quite.

The doc tested and found another faint positive, so we moved on to the speculum and two swab tests, both negative. Then she took another sample and headed out to look under the microscope. After about 15 mins, she comes back in and says that it also looked slightly positive, so she convened a quick meeting with two other docs in the practice who were there at the time. They were all stumped as to why some tests are positive and some are negative, so they decided to send me over to Labor and Delivery to get completely checked out.

The nice thing about this OB practice is that it's not only right next to the perinatal group (for detailed ultrasounds, genetic counseling, etc.), but it's also connected to the hospital through tunnels that run over the streets. So no need to go back to the car and drive somewhere, find parking, etc. On my walk over to the hospital, I called my assistant and had her reschedule my calendar for the rest of the day, and then I arrived at L&D.

I haven't had the hospital tour yet, my birthing class isn't until the end of the month, so this was all new to me. The nurse at L&D was really, really nice. Very calm and reassuring, and continually checking to make sure I was comfy. It's basically a triage area with about 5 beds separated by curtains, with a chair, TV and some monitors in each. This is where you go when you first arrive to the hospital, and they check you out and confirm you're really in labor before they admit you and you get your real labor/delivery room.

So she hooked me up to the fetal monitor, and I could hear the heartbeat and all the kicking. They did an anti-stress test where they monitor you from the nurses station and look for the right changes in heartbeats, contractions, etc. Apparently I was having contractions every 2 minutes!! But I only felt one or two of them, they were definitely fake labor. Plus, the baby's heartbeat was perfect, she said. But they hooked me up to and IV to keep me hydrated, and that was probably the worse part of the whole experience. It's hard enough to move around in the 3rd trimester, but with an IV in your hand, it made it even harder to use the bathroom or my blackberry (very cool thing - they are fine with the cell phone and bberry, so I was able to keep in touch with people throughout).

Then after an hour or so, a doc came in and did the same tests for amniotic fluid (speculum #3 in 2 days!), and checked my cervix. No fluid, strong cervix. They did another ultrasound just in case - plenty of fluid. One very interesting thing they found - they baby has flipped! S/he's now heads up, when just yesterday, s/he was head down. So they want me to come back next week to check on the position. I think 34 weeks is the magic number where they want to have the baby head down. If not, they might do version (manually push around your belly to get the baby to turn), or you might end up with a c-section. I need to do more research on this whole topic - breech, version, etc.

So all was good and they released me. Probably about 3 hours altogether. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't really worried at all. It would have been very bad if I was leaking fluid, they probably would have delivered the baby, but I just didn't think that was the case. DH was miserable that he wasn't there - he has come to every single OB appointment, but since this one was last minute, and I thought it was just a drop off, he didn't come. And he has the kind of job where he has to plan his absences, otherwise, it's a big deal to get coverage. Obviously he'll have to get last minute coverage when it's the real thing, but I don't want him to use up a lot of "good will" for false alarms.

So that was my little adventure yesterday, and now I'm back to work, business as usual!