Last week, a fact really hit home for me – I’m about to have another baby. Of course, I’ve known this for quite some time – roughly seven months now, but the reality of it hit me like a ton of bricks as I lay in a hospital bed hooked up to a fetal monitor with a cell phone pressed to my ear.

The day had started pleasantly enough. I was getting some work done in the morning when I received a call at noon from my son’s preschool that he had a fever and can his teacher give him some Tylenol. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for later in the afternoon. I called to see if I could move up my appointment so I could get to my son quicker. It was almost naptime at school so he would be sleeping anyway while I was at my appointment.

Ok…everything was under control.

At my appointment, I talked to my doctor about how the Braxton Hicks contractions that I’ve been experiencing over the past few weeks seemed to be getting more frequent and a bit more intense. This led to an internal exam as well as a culture to determine if there was a chance of pre-term labor. My doctor also wanted me to get hooked up to a fetal monitor for observation. I asked her how long that might take, as I needed to get to my son who was sick. She said probably twenty minutes.

Ok…everything was still under control…I thought to myself as I listened to my son’s heartbeat on the fetal monitor. But then the nurse came in and explained that the doctor didn’t want to release me because I was having uterine irritability brought on by dehydration. “But I don’t feel dehydrated” was all I could say as I started to get a bit upset. They wanted to give me an IV to get my fluids up to normal levels, and given that they hadn’t received the results back yet from the pre-term labor test, and I had already had two contractions in the short time that I had been hooked up – they weren’t letting me go anywhere just yet.

I couldn’t hold it together any longer. The floodgates opened. My son was sick at preschool – my unborn son seemed to be knocking at the door – and I never felt more helpless in my life.

The nurse, a mother too, was extremely sympathetic and gently advised me to make arrangements for someone else to pick up my son. So as she’s sticking me with an IV in one arm, my other hand was clutching my cell phone calling my husband, who I couldn’t seem to reach on his office or cell phone. Over and over again I called to no avail. (I found out later that he was in a 3-hour long meeting that ran over until after 5pm! Needless to say, going forward, my husband will have his cell phone strapped to his person AT ALL TIMES!) The endless ringing only made me more frantic and I dialed my mom who told me that my dad could handle the pick-up.

Ok…but is everything under control yet?

About a half hour later, the nurse returns to tell me that the pre-term labor test came back negative – whew – so they felt comfortable to release me. I headed home where I was soon reunited with my husband, my dad, and my son, who didn’t have a fever for the rest of the night or any other symptoms of being ill for that matter. Go figure.

Thinking about it in bed that night, I felt that my harrowing day had been a test. All I could think about at the hospital was my sick son at preschool. But, hey lady, my uterus called out, there is another boy who needs your attention right now! Making the jump from thinking about one to two was suddenly a lot harder than I ever expected. It was my first attempt at juggling and I realized I don’t know the first thing about juggling. I guess practice makes perfect – or maybe, in this case – progress is a better word, but there’s so much at stake if I drop one or both of these balls.

So…everything under control? Not even close.

Last 5 posts by MoltoMom

• On the cusp of 3… - October 13th, 2008
• The Trick of the Treat - October 20th, 2008
• Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid - November 4th, 2008
• Judging the Caffeine - November 13th, 2008
• The Birth of a Three Year Old - November 21st, 2008