A Recap of September 15, 2014

One year ago today, our lives were about to change completely and drastically. My heart is racing now and I'm getting a little bit of anxiety just thinking about it! I don't remember anything in particular about the day time, except that I got a call from my OB-GYN saying that I hadn't passed my first glucose test. It was so high that they wanted to do the second test immediately, so they scheduled me to come back in at 8:00 the very next morning. I remember feeling very sad about failing the test and not looking forward to doing a 3 hour fasting test. 

Jacob came home after work, and he realized he had forgotten a notebook he needed at the store. We decided to go back together after dinner to Valley Station to get it, then came back home to watch our Downton Abbey DVDs and eat burnt popcorn. :) Not long into that, I started to feel very strange. I thought I was having "stomach pains," and they HURT. We decided to go to bed early to see if that would help. NOPE. It didn't at all. It got worse, and I tried anything and everything to get relief, all while just trying to hang on until my 8:00 appointment, where I could ask my doctor what was wrong with me. But at 3:00 in the morning, after no sleep, I could no longer bear it. I finally called the on-call doctor and told her my symptoms.  She told me to get to the hospital immediately and she would meet us there...because it sounded like I was having contractions. "Contractions" was not even a word in my vocabulary yet because I wasn't even in my third trimester. I was 26 weeks and 5 days. I'm not really sure what I was thinking at that point, but we left the apartment in our pajamas (and left all of our necessities at home) and headed to the hospital. I called my parents on the way and left a message to let them know what was going on. They called back and expected that everything was fine and maybe I was just exaggerating. :)

When we got to the hospital, we walked in from the parking garage with another couple that was pregnant. They had bags with them and looked excited, so I asked them if they were about to have a baby. They replied, "We hope so!" with an excited laugh. They asked if we were. I said "I hope not!" with an anxious one. It seemed like it took forever to get signed in, but finally the doctor came to see me. She talked to me for a few minutes and then checked to see what was going on. Her face dropped and she looked very concerned. I knew it wasn't good news. She then said, "You are 6 centimeters dilated. I'm so sorry. There's nothing we can do now." Reality hadn't really hit me yet, and I asked if we would be able to go home and get some things. She said something like, "Oh, you're not leaving the hospital. Whether he comes in an hour or waits until full-term, this is your new home." At that moment, I really struggled to figure out what emotion I was feeling. I was absolutely TERRIFIED, but I couldn't help but be excited that we were soon going to meet our son, all while being completely flabbergasted that I was stupid enough to have labored up to 6cm without knowing what was happening. I had only really known one person who had had a preemie, so I texted my friend Hillary and asked her to please be praying. I had seen her son Tobin come home successfully, and thank God for that and for me being naive, or I would have had a breakdown over what was about to happen. 

And then, it was just a waiting game…..