Fire Drill

Jo Ann and I have been anxiously looking forward to a change of pace lately, something to break up the monotony wedged between our weekly ultrasound visits. Opportunity knocked early Friday morning. My parents were down from Murfreesboro to spend a couple days tending to Jo Ann while I was out. While I was getting ready to leave for work, Jo Ann told me she had called Dr. Conrad's answering service earlier that morning. She had had some lower abdominal pains that woke her at about 2 am. Her hope was to be seen in the Dr.s office just to make sure everything was okay. After what seemed like days, and me calling twice more, Dr. Conrad finally called back. As soon as I answered, he told me to "take Jo Ann to Labor & Delivery now". I asked him if the nurse had told him her symptoms (which were nothing like what had been previously described to us), and he told me that she was having contractions. To me, that was exciting...in every sense of the word. So I very calmly ran through the house like a maniac, getting everything together while Jo Ann got dressed. (Not really, it actually went quite smoothly). We drove to the hospital where we were taken right into a room, and Jo Ann was hooked up to begin monitoring. We were told at a previous appointment to go to the hospital when Jo Ann was having 5 contractions per hour; when we got there she was having 3 every 10 minutes. She was given injections of something I can't spell or say to stop the contractions, which actually began to work very quickly. Dr. Conrad had told us that he had been able in previous cases to suspend pre-term labor for up to 2 weeks with this medication. So far it's working on us too. When he got to her room Friday afternoon, he looked over the test results and told her she could go home, which was a huge surprise. We were told before that once she checked in she wouldn't leave till the babies were born and she had healed from surgery. That was quite a relief to say the least. Bear in mind this was Friday Aug. 29, which was the day before Saturday Aug. 30(rolltide) and our room had a TV that seemed no bigger than a wristwatch. Anyway, we went home. But while we were there, Jo Ann was scanned with the hospital's equipment, and we got the best pictures of our babies that we've ever seen. Not only could we see the eyes, we could see the pupils. Incredible.
We were really pleased with the way every bit of it went. Much better idea how to prepare, what to expect, where exactly to go, a great experience all the way round. Like back in grade school when we had tornado drills and the teachers would make us all stop what we were doing when the bell rang three times, and then run out to the football field and stop, drop and roll. And put our heads between our knees. By the way, our babies are 3 lbs.(2), 3lbs. 5 oz., and the little girl is 3 lbs. 10 ozs. Looks like she's beginning to have her way; it was just a matter of time.