Heartbreak Warfare
Title courtesy of John Mayer, the lead track on his new album "Battle Studies" It's an awesome album, and a great song. I especially love this verse:
As of yesterday Missy was in her 39th week, one week away from her due date. She had her weekly appointment with her OB/GYN last night and I came along because its so close to the end, and I wanted to be there in case anything happened. My sister-in-law and brother got sent to the hospital directly after an OB appointment in her final week, so I figured better safe than sorry. So, we go to the doctor, he does his usually examination, and tells us that Missy is now 75% effaced, but no dilation. An improvement of about 25% from last Thursday's appointment. The doctor also broke out the ultrasound machine to monitor the baby's fluid levels, and all looked good. But, he also used a separate machine to listen to the baby's heartbeat and he didn't like something he heard. Something about an irregular heartbeat, either the baby's heart was skipping the occasional beat, or something to that effect. As a result, the doctor told us to head to the hospital so that the situation could be monitored more closely.
Thankfully he told us the chance of Missy being induced that night was very, very slim, so that made us a little calmer. Regardless, it definitely wasn't how we saw the night going down, that's for sure. I, for one, had a Ranger game I wanted to watch! (They did win 8-2, which was sweet!) We drove to the hospital, parked and went to admitting. After signing a few forms they took us up to labor and delivery. After waiting there for a few minutes, a nurse brought us into a room for obstetric evaluation. They got Missy into a gown, into a bed and hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor and another one to monitor any contractions Missy might be having. The nurses came in every so often to check the print outs from the machine, a med student came in to take a history, and eventually a resident came to talk to us. After being on the monitors for about an hour and thirty minutes or so they sent us home. Everything on the monitor looked fine, no problems with the babies heartbeat whatsoever. Missy had been feeling some cramps throughout the day and it turns out they were actually minor contractions. They're not regular enough, or strong enough to be considered labor, but they're the early part for sure. The resident also did another exam and found that Missy was slightly dilated, at about half a centimeter, so only 9.5 more centimeters to go!
And that was our evening. We got home and made sure we were ready to go when it actually is go time! I plugged in my digital camera, camcorder, laptop, iPhone and everything else I could so that it's fully charged. When it is go time I plan on just throwing that all into my laptop bag and bringing that with me to the hospital (they have free Wi-Fi throughout the place!).
So that's about it. Any day now... I hope... the waiting is killing me! I can only imagine how Missy feels!