False Alarm

It all started at around 2:00 PM on Sunday afternoon. Mindy was struggling to escape the seductive grasp of our IKEA couch. She had told me earlier not to let her nap during the day because this in turn made it difficult for her to sleep at night. As her eyes began to roll back into her head I reminded her of this point and she looked at me like a crazed zombie (which is of course what we all turn into when we want sleep).

Ladies, I would just like to stop for a moment and point out that this is an unfair situation to put us husbands in. If you want us to do something, don't get upset when we try to enforce it simply because you suddenly change your mind. How in the world are we supposed to know this?

Seeing the obvious "Catch 22" before me I sat confused not knowing what to do and then the first one came. Mindy opened her eyes, looked at me and said, "I think I'm having a contraction!"

This wasn't really concerning until the next one came 5 minutes later, and then 4, and then 3, and eventually down to just 2 minutes apart.

Mindy promptly called her doctor who told her to rest, drink lots of fluids, and come into the hospital if they didn't stop in 2 hours. After drinking enough water to provide our entire family 72 hours of survival the contractions wouldn't go away and Mindy had to go to the bathroom really bad! And so, off to the hospital we went.

We arrived at around 5:30 PM and sure enough Mindy was still having contractions, but thankfully they had slowed down a bit. After being admitted to the hospital the on-call nurse gave her 2 injections of Tributiline Sulfate which eventually stopped the contractions.

Now, I'm not sure what this drug is exactly, but it causes some really interesting side effects. The nurse said it's the equivalent of ingesting a triple espresso, which became readily apparent by the violent shaking Mindy was experiencing, not to mention the fact that she seemed really wired! I would just like to say that Mindy is really funny when under the influence of medication.

Then they did 2 more test, one to determine if she had a UTI (which come to find out is the #1 cause of pre-term labor in the world) and the other to determine if she would be having the baby anytime soon. The good news is that she is not going to be having the baby in the next couple of weeks, the bad news is that she does have a UTI.

They gave Mindy the medicine pictured in this entry and are confident that the UTI is what caused her contractions. She still has had a few contractions here and there, but nothing that would be considered unusual considering her infection. On Tuesday Mindy has an appointment with her doctor who I'm sure will validate that this was just a false alarm. Boy are we glad!