Unexpected Hospital Visit

So Tuesday definitely went differently than I expected! Yesterday I promised the details so here is what happened:

I woke up Tuesday with slight period-type cramps. I thought it was maybe just constipation so decided to wait it out. I had to bring Sassy to the vet for a surgery, so I dropped her off, went home, and the cramping was worse. I gave myself a time limit of 10:00, and said if it wasn’t better by then I was calling the doctor. I drank a bunch of water and sat down with my feet up, and it didn’t help.

I am not one to call my doctor unless absolutely necessary, so you know I was not feeling great if I actually called. I gave the nurse my symptoms and was quickly called back and told to come on into the office that morning. I jumped in the car and drove the 30 minutes to the office, and was seen pretty quickly. When the doctor came in, she told me based on my urine sample from 10 minutes ago, I had a UTI. Lovely. At that time I still had no idea what that had to do with my cramping, so for those unaware, you can learn what I learned:

A UTI during pregnancy can cause cramping and contractions and also can cause preterm labor if untreated. Apparently mine was pretty bad. I thought me going to the bathroom all the time was just because baby M was on my bladder! She also said they are very common in pregnant women, she even had one last year when she was pregnant, and it can be hard to decipher symptoms.

She then checked me, and told me my cervix was thinning out and I was 1-2 cm dilated. The problem was that we didn’t know if I was already like that, or if the UTI was causing me to actively dilate. To be safe (and to knock out the UTI faster), she had me go next door to the hospital to be admitted so they could monitor me and baby M for a couple hours, and give me fluids and antibiotics in an IV drip.

I was hooked up to monitors, and the doctor after a few minutes of looking, told me I was looking ok and could probably go home after the IV’s were finished. Well, about 50 minutes later, the nurse came in and said for the past 45 minutes I had been having contractions every eight minutes (I felt nothing!) and so the doctor wanted to give me a shot to stop labor, just in case. The shot made my heart race like crazy (which they warned me about) and I felt like I could go run a marathon.

Bobby stopped by to see me and give me a phone charger, but had to go back to work (well really, I shooed him back to work, no sense in him sitting there, this was before we knew I was having contractions though). Anyway, 30 minutes later the nurse comes back and said I only had one or two contractions so they wanted to give me a second shot just to be safe, so more jittering and heart racing, but after another 45 minutes  I was discharged. I was there in total from a little after noon until about 4:45.

I was given some antibiotics in pill form to take for a week, and I have another doctor appointment next Tuesday. It was quite the crazy day, and I am glad to be home and not at the hospital with a newborn! The good news is, since baby M was already measuring ahead and since girls seem to do better than boys, that even if I were to have her now she would more than likely be perfectly fine. However, my doctor preferred it if we could make it to 36 weeks (next Tuesday) but I could also not go into labor for another 4 weeks, so there is really no way of telling! I wasn’t put on bed rest, but was told no lifting, limit climbing stairs, no working out, etc. for a week until I go back to see the doctor. Some of you may have noticed I was wearing a hospital bracelet in my bump pics from yesterday’s post.

QOTD: Anyone have experience with a UTI or preterm labor scare?

Who else is a bad patient like me? I kept asking when I could go home!

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