Wherein we stay in Cache Valley until we have these babies

This weekend, we headed down to Provo for another awesome baby shower. I wasn't feeling the greatest, but I brushed it off and tried to appear my peppiest. I wrote off my uncomfortable feelings as just being tired from the drive. However, Saturday night proved that something was wrong.

I woke up about every hour or so with insane cramps. I've called our dr before during 'after hours' freaking out over cramps, but they ended up being nothing. With twins, everything stretches twice as much and twice as fast, so I REALLY wanted to believe that this was just another "expansion". Since this is my first pregnancy, I didn't want to be one of those women who freak out and run to the hospital at every Braxton Hick. However, by 8 am, I had thrown up a few times and was having lower back/abdomen pains every ten minutes or so. We called an old Primary teacher of mine who's a delivery nurse and she said to go straight to the hospital. So, that's what we did.

I was terrified to say the least. Not only did I feel like garbage, but I was trying to convince myself that if I really was in labor everything would be ok. I was actually grateful that we were in Provo because Logan can't handle babies younger than 32 weeks. Since I'm at 28 weeks, if I went into labor in Logan, we'd have to be transported to Ogden or Salt Lake anyways. As we drove to the hospital, I prayed that everything would be ok, but I was exhausted and scared out of my mind.

To make a long story short, everything is fine. Turns out that any virus or bacteria can cause legitimate contractions. So, I've got a rotten case of the stomach flu and my body decided it couldn't handle that along with pregnancy so it tried to "jump ship" as the nurse put it. They ran several tests that can predict up to 2 weeks in advance if you'll go into labor, and my results were negative. So, the Mangel-babies will still cook for at least 2 weeks, but for now I've got to take it easy. One crazy thing about pregnancy, is that they tell you not to lay on your back, but EVERY procedure deals with you on your back. I guess it only makes sense, but being strapped up to 3 monitors for about 3 hours (on top of the 2 hours we'd already been there) and not being able to move almost put me in my grave. The doctor needed 20 minutes of consistent heartbeats from both babies, but of course they both thought it was a big game and kept moving around every minute or so. I tried to reason with the girls and even bribe them into holding still, but that only got them to dance around more. I even threatened baby a that I'd love baby b more because she was still for about 15 minutes straight. Looks like we'll have some wild girls...

Anyways, this brings me to the title of my post. The nurse at the hospital recommended that I stay put in Logan until after these girls are born. I'm thinking that might be a good idea, because the last 2 or 3 times we've got to Utah Valley, some sort of pregnancy/sickness drama has occurred. Also, I'd like to give a shout out to Josh. Poor guy didn't sleep at all last night because I was constantly getting up, moaning and complaining. He was really sweet to me at the hospital and I didn't give him the credit he deserved. If you ever think you've seen me moody or irritated, you've got nothing on what my husband has had to deal with lately.

So... the moral of the story is that contractions are awful (and I was only experiencing mild ones compared to the final moments of labor) and although many people swear by natural childbirth, I thank Heavenly Father for modern medicine and will gladly be taking the epidural. (Well, that and the fact that I might have to have an emergency c-section and without a epi, your options are a lot more limited) My week of blah was probably a warning from my body for what was to come. Did I do anything other than complain? No. Should I have? Yes. I think it's time for me to stop living in denial and start acting pregnant.