My week in pictures

First, there was something resembling this:


Then there was this (except I'm white, and I did not have a smile on my face):


Followed by 24 hours of this:


Yes, for those of you who remember my tumble down the stairs three weeks ago and my determination to not return to L&D until August -- well, let's just call that a FAIL. At almost 35 weeks pregnant while driving home from a doctor's appointment Tuesday I got into a bit of a fender-bender. And by "got into" I actually mean "caused."

My wonderful husband drove me to the hospital at my doctor's orders as I hung my head in shame and embarrassment, fully expecting to get the all-clear after 4 hours once again. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as smoothly as they did 3 weeks ago. The baby looked great, but the monitors showed that I was having off-the-charts contractions every 15 minutes! Oddly enough, I barely felt a thing, aside from a little tightening here and there (which I've been feeling for weeks now). They hooked me up to an IV to try to stop the contractions, but it didn't work, so they gave me the bad news: I'd be staying for the next 24 hours for observation.

Having occasional painless contractions at 35 weeks is perfectly normal, but they needed to make sure that this wasn't a result of my stomach being jolted in the accident. I didn't hit my belly on anything, thank goodness, but apparently even the pressure from the seatbelt can cause your water to break or your placenta to detach.

I was pretty freaked out and happy to stay and make sure things were OK. The worst part of the whole ordeal was that I was starving and knew I wouldn't be allowed to eat or drink until the following afternoon.

Brad stuck with me until about midnight and then came back at 6:45 a.m. with my toothbrush, phone charger and a whole stack of books and magazines before leaving for work. I was able to get a little bit of restless sleep, but between being hungry, worried and having to pee every 30 minutes thanks to the IV, it wasn't a very good night. Surprisingly, I didn't get to do any reading because the next day was BUSY! Every time I'd get settled into a chapter, someone would come in to check my blood pressure, ask me questions, adjust my monitor or do a cervical exam (and to that, let me just say OUCH). My dad stopped in to see me, too. He actually works at the hospital on a different floor, so he showed up wearing his lab coat and scrubs, which cracked me up for some reason.

My OB was the one on call, so she stopped by to visit me around lunchtime. Well, Dr. P. gave me the best news ever. My contractions had slowed down, and although they had to keep me on the monitors, I was allowed to EAT! It had been nearly 24 hours since my last meal, so I wanted to hug her. Crappy hospital food never tasted so amazing!

Long story short -- the baby and I are fine, and we made it home without further incident. I swore up and down I wouldn't be back until August, and this time I mean it!