An overnight stay in Labor and Delivery

Since when does the stomach flu land one in the hospital?

...when there's a baby involved, evidently!

Last Sunday (3/30) I woke up just fine, but by noon couldn't keep anything down. After my loving (and a little frightened) husband tried ers, toast, water, and Gatorade, we finally called the on-call doctor who prescribed Zofran (anti-nausea). I took it, waited about 10 minutes and threw that up also. The doctor told us that the only other option was to head to the ER to get some fluids and make sure the baby was OK.

So we headed to the hospital, bucket on my lap, and surprisingly got right in at the ER. After hooking me up to an IV to get fluids, they tried Zofran again (through the IV), which did nothing. So they tried something stronger: Phenergan. Which also knocked me out! I barely remember anything from that point on, except when the ER nurse came in and said they were taking me to Labor and Delivery. I sat straight up (probably turned white AND green) and started questioning why I needed to be in place where babies are born! Our baby isn't ready yet! He assured me that they wanted to monitor the baby's heart rate and movement and to see if I was cramping or having any contractions.

During all of this, Bill was right by my side, helping me to the bathroom, calmly (at least on the outside) reading his book and getting whatever I thought I wanted!

We got settled in around midnight, and the L and D nurses hooked the monitors up right away for the baby and I. Although I was cramping a little, everything was just fine with the baby and me. By about 4AM, I finally felt better and was able to sleep longer than 30-45 minutes at a time. I had some water, Sprite, and half of an English muffin. Once I was able to keep that down and another hour of baby monitoring, I was released. It was determined that I had the stomach flu: something I normally wouldn't even call a doctor about! But when there's someone helpless growing inside me, everything changes. I guess this is God's way of getting us ready to have our mind tuned into someone else from now on!

The nurses brought in a bed for Bill, so he was able to stay with me all night (he'll have the same kind of bed in our room when the baby comes). It wasn't the most comfortable thing, but he was glad to be able to stay with me.

We got home Monday morning (obviously not going to work!) around 10 and I slept most of the day. Bill brought me food when I felt like eating and by that night, I was feeling much better!

We both went to work the next day...

Until about 9AM. Bill came home with guess what? The stomach flu! He was home the rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday. This is from a man with an iron stomach! I guess it was a pretty bad case going around. I didn't feel like such a wimp after that!

The up side of all this (besides that everyone is just fine now!): We got to see first hand what the rooms look like, the little bed that the baby will be in, and how the monitoring will go!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our little one and for the parents to be!

I'll post more pictures of my expanding belly soon, although we may have to get a wide angle lens for it! I exploded over spring break (2 weeks ago) and had some trouble getting back to being on my feet for work last week!