There is Nothing Normal About Her- Part 1

One week ago at this very hour we were being moved from the admitting room where baby and I were monitored and the nurse was asking for my medical history.

I'm holding back tears just thinking about it.

In the hour leading to the nurse informing me that I was for sure not going home that night, I was comfortable, in no pain, and never had a contraction. I thought I was going home.

Back-up

You're probably wondering why I went in to the hospital when I was not feeling contractions, and was clearly not in labor. However, I did feel a good amount of pressure. Well, call it intuition, call it knowing what she was talking about, call it whateva you want. My sis-in-law, Heather, whom is an RN kept encouraging me to go ahead and call the midwife.

I have to admit, I resisted with a "meh. I dunno. They don't want me to call until 411." (411 refers to contractions coming every 4 minutes, lasting 1 minute for at least 1 hour) Pride was holding me back from calling the midwife. I didn't want to be one of those women that got sent home. I called anyway, something that I wouldn't have done without Heather's encouragement, and headed into the hospital.

 


When I got there, the admitting nurse wondered why I was there and shook her head as she wrote down an arbitrary 20 minutes in the box asking how far apart my contractions were after I said I wasn't having any. I knew that she knew I was going home in an hour.


As I was signing papers, I hoped that I'd have a contraction, or something. Anything to have a reason to stay. There were six other women coming in at the exact same time as me so surely I was going home. Surely, they were not going to keep me. There were others that needed more attention than me.

As baby and I were monitored, Ian and I calmly joked and laughed as we waited to hear what was next. The nurse asked me if I had felt any discomfort while being there. I had to say that I wasn't uncomfortable. Because I was pretty comfortable  The monitor hadn't picked up any contractions, but we'd go ahead with the exam to see how much I'd dilated.

She was a wonderful, calming lady. The kind of  person God had blessed me with after praying that He would place just the right people in the delivery room.

This is what she said as she finished the exam:
"I think you should refrain from telling other women what labor is like because you are 7 centimeters dilated, the baby is at +2 station and I can feel it's head!"

"So I'm not going home?"