I am not complaining, I’m just reporting.

So I take this medicine every six hours that is supposed to “relax my uterus.” (Sorry for the graphic details, but I feel I must for the sake of clarity.) While it has been great to stop the cramping, there are a few other side effects, such as I get completely flushed and my heart races, and it gives me a headache. So far the headache has been pretty mild. They offer me Tylenol, but so far I have been able to handle it without extra meds. The real problem is that I take it every 6 hours. When I started I was on a schedule of 8:00 and 2:00. That’s not so bad during the day, but they woke me up on Tuesday morning from a sound sleep at 2:00 to give it to me, and I could not get get back to sleep. I asked my nurse the next morning if it was possible to shift the schedule, so she did. Now I’m on a 12:oo and 6:00 schedule. I slept better last night. She still had to wake me up at midnight and again at 6:00 this morning, but I slept pretty well in between.

Yesterday evening my nurse came in with a syringe and said, “Are you ready for your progesterone shot?” “Huh?” I said. Turns out another pleasure of my hospital stay is a weekly shot in my hip of progesterone. It is oil based, and takes forever to diffuse, and it hurt! So last night I had a headache and a very sore hip.

My evening was definitely brightened when I got the news that Amber had her baby girl. 7 lbs., 3 oz., 18 inches long. Brian brought her to my room and I was able to hold her for a few minutes. So sweet, and so tiny!

Yesterday morning Rachel came by to visit me with Jeff’s mom. She was a little tired as naptime was approaching, but she really did a good job of playing and not destroying the room too much. After she left I found that I could no longer adjust my bed with the little buttons. It turns out that Rachel found the on/off switch to my bed. Being the queen, or maybe crown princess of button pushing, she had turned my bed off. No worries, though, the nurse took care of it. Now I can raise and lower my head and feet like crazy. Very entertaining.

Just to keep mixing things up, when my nurse came in this morning she told me she had a student nurse with her, so at least for a while today I get to be a practice model. The student nurse did a fine job.

I had contractions again this morning. I didn’t really feel them, but it showed up on the monitor, so they gave me another pill to relax everything, then left me hooked up for nearly four hours. The only problem was that I couldn’t move around too much, and my back started really hurting. The back pain made them think it was labor pain, but I think it was lying in bed pain. Finally everything settled down, and they took me off the monitor.

When my doctor came I told her about my back pain, and she said she would order me a heating pad and some physical therapy, so hopefully that will make it better.

I’m doing pretty well, though. I can’t say enough positive about my doctors, nurses, and the hospital staff here. They have been super.