Psych!

Friday I woke up feeling awful, but that wasn't so unusual since I have felt pretty awful pretty much all week. I went to work and didn't think much of it. I jokingly said to my mom that I thought I was in early labor. I had a regular doctor's appointment scheduled and I just knew he would say things looked fine. During my ultrasound (which showed my fluid as high-normal), I mentioned I had been having some tightening. The ultrasound showed that instead of being head down, which he had been for months, he had decided to try out the transverse position. That means his head was on one side of my belly with his feet on the other side. Now, carrying an 7.5 pound baby like that is probably not going to feel good, which again made me think that my aches and pains were to be expected. I went out to the waiting room and was immediately called back to have a non-stress test done. It is a way to monitor contractions, and sure enough I was having contractions every couple of minutes. The doctor checked me out and said although things weren't 'open' he was afraid I was in early labor and sent me immediately to the hospital to have it stopped. STOPPED??? That was not he answer I wanted to hear, but because I was 3 days away from 37 weeks (considered full-term) they didn't want him arriving just yet. I had a pill, 3 shots, and some kind of medicine in an IV, and the contractions spread out but didn't disappear as hoped. That meant I got to spend the night in the hospital. I am a horrible patient, so that was another answer I didn't want to hear. After no sleep, not getting to eat for 20 hours, and a couple of private crying fits, the doctor came in this morning and said the contractions were not making any change in my situation and I could go home. He scheduled an appointment for me to see him and have another non-stress test on Tuesday morning, as which time I will be considered full-term and will be allowed to stop taking the medication to keep me from going into labor. I was not put on bedrest, so I'm headed back to work on Monday. I've noticed that not moving definitely makes me feel better, but for me moving and feeling bad mean I'm getting a little bit closer. There's no time for slowing down!

Maddie stopped by for a minute to see me in the hospital. I could tell it was making her a bit nervous as they were poking me and I was in a weird bed in weird clothes, but she did ask about Cha-Cha. It was almost as if she knew he had something to do with me being in this place. Now that we came home without Baby Cha-Cha she is probably going to be confused when he actually does arrive. She is already practicing her Big Sister skills. The other day she pulled up my shirt and gave him a hug. She said hello and put him 'night-night' by covering him with a blanket. Then she tried to feed him a cracker via my belly button. Maybe I should be more worried that she will forever think my belly button IS Cha-Cha.

Maddie is growing, growing, growing. She talks all of the time and about everything. We've been working on colors for the last couple months and she was hit and miss, but could consistently get blue, black, and pink. This week I picked her up at daycare and she showed me a picture she had colored of 'yewow duck and back sheepie'. I was impressed, because yellow has always been hard for her. In the car she kept showing me her sucker and saying 'whayt, whayt'. I kept asking her what and finally it hit me....'white'. When I finally said, 'Yes, white sucker.' She looked at me like I was a moron. C'mon mom, don't you know your colors?!

Maddie is still a handful for me, especially in my giant, slow-moving state. Her dad says she gets her firecracker personality from her mama. I'm not sure about that, but he tends to be right about things. When I am finally back to my old self, I will be paying for all the nights of getting to eat snack food and watching Mickey cartoons that has been going on. At least then I will have the energy and ability to bend over to deal with it!

For those of you who know my niece, Lucy, she had quite a medical scare this week with her leg. Luckily, it turned out to be the lesser of two evils. For an update you can check out Tyler and Helen's blog, which is linked from our blog. Even if you aren't intersted in her medical issues, there are pictures of Will and Lucy that are fun to look at. They have to be two of the cutest kids I have every seen.