Moving on Up....

So yesterday the first roommate went home. No contractions for a week and no change in her cervix. Lucky bitch.

The upside of that for me is that I get the window "seat" now. I have two huge windows which look out onto nothing more glorious bare tree tops and grey cloudy skies, but I was so excited when they rolled me over, I almost cried. I now have a rocking chair and a built-in cushioned bench, so these are what I have to consider to be the "luxury" accomodations in hospital land. I have a big window sill for my flowers and more room in which to think about moving around. It will be lovely for my visitors to have so many seating options.

I am also graduating from pin-cushion status to that of pill-popper. I apparently have "dainty" veins. Dainty. While the rest of me balloons up and clods around here like an elephant, my veins decide to go all delicate. I have had expert upon expert tying off my arm, smacking my hands and forearms, putting hot compresses on my skin to coax a vein or two up....and, let me count them, 4 failed attempts and two successes at IV insertions since last Thursday. I seriously look like a junkie; it is disconcerting...

Yesterday, when it came time to replace the existing IV (fancy IV-protocol here; only 3 days on any given vein), I tried, tried, tried to put on a brave face. But after the second blown vein, I threw all caution to the wind, gave in to my hormones and bawled like a baby in front of three of the nurses who had come in to pow-wow over my veins. I think there was babbling about how inadequate I felt as a body--first the cervix, then the contractions, now the veins....am I just incompetent overall??!!! Can't a girl get a freakin' break?

It's amazing how nurses kick into "mom" mode when faced with a crazy patient. Aside from the nurse who sat and held my hand after the first shot of terb (yes, I said "first"; there have been more); these three nurses started gushing about how much they hate IVs, too; I shouldn't feel badly for crying, let it out, yadda yadda yadda. And then one of them said the magic words: "I'm going to call the doctor and see if you can get these meds orally".

Ahhhhhhhhhh--it was the longest 15 minutes of my life waiting for the doctor to call back. And literally, one of the nurses had the needle poised at her next selected vein, hovering over my sorry-ass teeny vein and cautioning me to hold still when I heard the other nurse at the station saying, "We can give her the pill? Great." Tears of joy. I am sure that at the nurse's station I am now known as, "that girl who cries in 636-2", but honestly, I don't care. When I am back up on my feet, I will bake them some cookies or something grateful and domestic like that.

Enter my new roommate; out goes the short-cervixed, contracting girl and in comes the pre-eclamptic workaholic who has been up since 7am on the phone, wheeling and dealing. When she's not on the phone, she's wandering around the room, doing things like organizing her closet and blow-drying her hair. Ummmm...I can feel my blood-pressure going up just listening to her. Clearly the concept of "bedrest" has not been well-explained to this woman. Currently, she is enjoying "the price is right" at maximum volume...thank god she's already 35 weeks!

But I digress--I'm becoming a bedrest snob."I can do bedrest better than you can..." Oh my god, I need a life...

So last night husband was invited to the terbutaline party. Apparently my uterus is a "night person" and likes to shake things up when the sun goes down (I have visions of disco balls and the hustle). While we were watchingTV, my uterus decided to par-tay and we had to come at it with the giant needle o' terb. Poor husband; it can't be easy to watch. And what a trooper and sweetheart he is; as I lay there, shaking, he notices, "your skin has really cleared up in the past few days." Can I get a round of applause for the thoughtful husband, trying to take his wife's mind off her shaking body by drawing attention to her "glow". I still think through all of this that I have the easeier end of the deal in this whole thing. Of course, ask me how I feel about that a few hours into labor...

Now that I'm a two-night-in-a-row-er on the terb, the doctors might consider switching me to the oral version as opposed to the big needle. Aaaaah, more pills...I like the pills.