When I found out that I was pregnant, I had already been seeing a Family Practitioner. A very sweet, young woman that was trying to treat my headaches. Unfortunately, she was also pregnant. About 8 months along. She referred me to an OB/GYN in the clinic, Dr. Agbeh. She said that she would be honored if Dr. Agbeh showed up for her delivery.
I made my first appointment with Dr. Agbeh and felt uncomfortable around him. He was very quite, didn't answer many questions, didn't ask many. I saw him three appointments before switching doctors. While I was in the care of Dr. Agbeh, I had some early pregnancy spotting. It was over Memorial Day Weekend and we decided to go into the ER. We didn't know what was normal and were afraid of a miscarriage. After being discharged, we were instructed to make a follow up appointment with one of the Doctors at the clinic. The one available for the appointment was Dr. Bryz-Gornia. He was an odd little man with a bow tie. He was nice and he scheduled me for my first ultrasound, to make sure that everything was fine with the baby.
When I decided to switch Doctors, I decided that I was start seeing Dr. Bryz-Gornia. A friend of mine had heard that I went to see him and told me that her mother saw Bryz-Gornia and he saved my friends little sisters life during her birth. Dr. Bryz-Gornia was very nice, chatty, quirky, and well... he had a bow tie! Unfortunately, visits with him were not at great as I thought they'd be. It was always a 30 minute wait to get into the office with the nurse, another 15-30 minutes before the doctor came in, and only 10-15 minutes total with the doctor. All my questions and concerns were blown off.
I was 34 Weeks and 1 day and taking the bus to my prenatal appointment. It was mid-November, cold, and most likely snowy. I cried halfway to the bus stop because I was having such bad stomach pains. I got on the packed bus and not a single person would get up for the incredibly pregnant woman to sit down. I cried after getting off the bus, all the way to the doctors office. I told the doctor all about how I had been feeling and the pains in my stomach. He told me "There is no way you are delivering early. First time moms do not deliver early. You'll probably go late."
35 Weeks and 2 Days, after feeling like I had been leaking fluid (not urine) for about a week, I decided it was time to go in and have it looked at. I had been reading the [very large] book that I had gotten from the clinic at the beginning of my pregnancy and it was starting to look like Preterm Labor. I called my doctor and he was not in. The nurse at the clinic told me to head over to Labor & Delivery at the hospital. After spending 2 hours in the L&D unit, the nurse came to the conclusion that it is urine. She came to this conclusion after doing a fern test. No fern grew after the fluid they had collected dried.
35 Weeks and 4 Day I went to work in the morning and was still leaking fluids. I went to the bathroom before I left work and realized that I was leaking even more, through the pad I had been wearing and onto my underwear. I called the doctors office when I got home. Of course my doctor was not in and another doctor told me to head over to L&D. Basically the same thing. They did the fern test again and nothing grew. They said it wasn't a leak. I thought I'd be leaving soon after that. When the nurse came back she had a shot for me. She said I had been contracting and she needed to give me a shot of terbutaline to stop them. About an hour and a half later, she came in with more. After I stopped contracting, they let me order some food. I think it had been 3.5-4 hours since I had first come in. If I remember correctly, I ordered some rotini with red sauce. It was OK. The terbutaline was awful. I had uncontrollable shakes and a massive headache. I still remember that horrible headache. Clayton had to wheel me down to the car in a wheel chair because I wasn't stable enough to walk after the two shots. The shot itself stung really bad too. We spent a total of 5.5 hours in the L&D unit. We left with instructions for me NOT to go to work the next day, no sex, no baths, and the likes of that, just in case I actually DID have a leak.
35 Weeks 5 Days I do not remember anything about this day. Just that I didn't go into work. I do remember the assistant manager at my work sounding like she did not believe me when I called her.
35 Weeks 6 Days I went into work in the after noon. I worked until close. I was a cashier at a Dollar Tree store and stood the entire time I was at work, with one 15 minute break. By the time store closed, my back was in a lot of pain. I was hunched over and my lower back felt swollen and numb. The managers wanted me to push the industrial sized vacuum around the store and I said no way! There was always one associate that needed to sit in the office while the money from all the drawers were counted and the rest of the associates would do put back and vacuum. I was no longer in any condition to be standing, so I was the one that sat in the office. I got home around 10PM and stayed up for a couple hours after that.
36 Weeks I woke up at 4:30AM - I remember waking up thinking that I was in labor. I sat at the computer (which was next to the bed) with Microsoft Office Spreadsheet up timing contractions and talking on (possibly Yahoo) messenger to a woman that was on the "mommy board" that I was on. She had 3-4 kids already and had been through this quite a few times! I remember typing in contractions that were 7-10 minutes apart. I thought I remembered going up stairs and sitting at the kitchen table with my MIL, but after reading old posts, that seemed to have happened on Thanksgiving Day (35w3d), not this morning. I also remember talking to Clayton at some point, either at 4:30AM or a little bit later, telling him to go to school because I didn't think anything would happen while he was at school. I could call my mom for a ride to the hospital (since it was a Monday, her day off) and that I'd call him if anything did happen.
At close to 11AM, I called my doctors office to talk to my obstetrician and tell him that I was having contractions and that I'd most likely be having this kid today. I was having contractions about 5 minutes apart, but not painful, so the nurse had me call L&D and go into the hospital. I had some laundry to do, took a shower, straightened my hair, put on make up. I hadn't packed yet.
To be continued...
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