The Unexpected

I'm writing today from a hospital bed. I've been here for three days but it's still surreal, mainly because I feel like there is absolutely nothing wrong with me.

My view these days. Grow, baby, grow!

I woke up on Monday morning feeling wonderful. We had just enjoyed a fabulous Fourth of July weekend, complete with plenty of good friends and barbecue. We've been settled in our home for weeks and Lyla, the book and I were getting along swimmingly. Finally, I thought that morning, things are calm. 

The calm before the storm, I think they call it.

I had a routine doctor appointment on Tuesday that I honestly thought would be 20 minutes, in and out. I tried to think of questions for the doctor on my way but I sincerely had none. I was rounding into my 30th week of pregnancy, feeling great and exercising regularly. I had felt no painful contractions, just a few Braxton Hicks that made me smile with daydreams of our sweet girl's arrival.

Warning: While I promise to keep this tasteful, we are talking about childbirth. If you're uncomfortable with the word "cervix," you might want to stop here. But I promise that's the only thing I'll mention.

When I got there, the ultrasound technician showed me a problem on the scan—funneling, she called it. She said the doctor wouldn't be happy about it.

She wasn't.

My doctor—who frequently has several patients ahead of me and can take half an hour to see for a routine appointment—followed me from the ultrasound room to the exam room without letting the nurses in to check my blood pressure first. She sat down and said, "I need to make this fast, because someone is waiting for a C-section right now. Your cervix is shortening very quickly. You need to come to the hospital."

"Okay," I said. "By when? Tomorrow? Do you need to run some more tests?"

"If you didn't have your daughter here, I'd tell you to follow me there right now. We need to get you on monitors. You need medication. You're having contractions and we need to get them stopped." I tried to process the news, but it continued in a jumbled mix of medication names and dosages for me and the baby that we couldn't possibly need because I felt fine.

"Okay," I said, confused but willing. "Will I see you when I get over there?"

"I hope so. If not tonight, definitely first thing in the morning."

"I'll be there overnight?"

"Several nights. On Friday, we'll do another ultrasound and see if the cervix has lengthened and the funneling has stopped. If it hasn't, we'll keep you longer. If it is—and you're not going to like this—you'll go home and be on strict bed rest until you're 37 weeks. That's almost eight weeks from now." She looked at Lyla. "That isn't going to be easy. It's time for you to call in the troops. Can you get help?"

I nodded. I was sure I could, but it all seemed like ... a lot.

"They'll be waiting for you in High-Risk OB. Get some things together at home and go over to the hospital as soon as you can." She looked at me for a moment. "Are you okay? What are you thinking?"

I wasn't think much of anything. "I should have washed my hair this morning."

And with that feeble reassurance of my fragile mental state, the doctor smiled and left the room. I looked down at my baby—my sweet 19-and-a-half-month-old baby, who I would now carry to the car one last time before she turned 22 months old.

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I cried when I put Lyla in her car seat.

"I'm not going to be able to take care of you for a while, Baby," I told her. She looked at me with those big hazel eyes. "And I'm ... I'm so sorry."

It was all I could get out before the tears came. But I had to call Ryan, and my mom and my sister, and I had to deliver facts so it was time to pull myself together.

Ryan didn't let me pack my own bag. And I have to say here that I could already tell this bed rest thing was going to be terrible. If I'm flat on my back with the flu, sign me up for maid service. But when I feel completely painless and capable, please don't ask me to make my husband take off work to pack my hospital bag. I felt so useless and lazy. It went against everything in me to sit—no, lay—on the bed and describe to Ryan the precise location of the pajama pants I wanted. Ryan gave me a priesthood blessing. Then he carried my bag, the diaper bag and Lyla to the car. I walked.

We checked into the hospital a few minutes later and learned more about that monitoring and those medications the doctor mentioned. Medications to stop the contracting, steroids to stimulate Baby Girl's lung development (just in case). Belts around my belly that came with the added bonus of listening to her heartbeat. They monitored contractions, which I was still having, even though I didn't feel a thing.

Lunch today, day three of the hospital.

As I asked more questions, I learned this seven-week bed rest was to be taken quite literally. Acceptable positions include laying in a bed, laying on a couch, sitting up to eat, and going to the bathroom or taking a shower.

I am not to lift, walk around, ride in a car or even leave the house. No cooking, no cleaning, no playing on the floor with Lyla.

Just chillin' in the hospital. As families do.

"Can we do this?" I asked Ryan, after the reality sank in.

"We can do anything," he said.

And isn't that the irony? I'll do anything, but what I have to do is nothing.

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I've had friends and family ask for updates, so I thought this little corner of the Internet might be a good place to give them. And for all the things I can't do, one thing I can do is type.

The update up to now is this: I've had two non-stress tests in a row that show no contractions. Zero! The ultrasound tomorrow will give final word, but the doctor said this morning she's going to count her chickens and hope I can go home tomorrow. I really, really want to go home tomorrow.

The morning after I got here I listened to Elder Holland's talk "The Ministry of Angels." It brought a lot of things into sharp focus for me—things I needed to understand. Already, not 12 hours after my appointment, angels from my family and from our ward had reached out to us. I felt angels watching over us. And I realized that I am married to an angel, and I gave birth to one.

We are going to be okay. I'm confident we'll take this little one full term. Getting there might be a little complicated, but we can do it. With our Heavenly Father and family and good friends, we can do it.