By this time my contractions were about 3 minutes apart. The awful bumpy city roads made them get closer and closer together and I began to have to moan through them. I asked every minute how much longer and began to be afraid I was going to deliver in the car, right in the middle of rush hour traffic.
When we got to the hospital my husband parked on the wrong floor. We didn't realize it until we were at the door. We had to go back to the car, which I fussed and whined about, drive up another floor, then get out. I was trying not to panic as I tried to get through each contraction. I was repeating phrases to comfort myself like "OK, OK, OK, OK" and "Lord help, Lord Help, Lord Help" etc. Finally, we checked in, were called back to a room, and I was hooked up to a machine. It was crazy watching the contractions fill up the monitor with their tall peaks. I begged right then and there for an epidural but they said they wanted to give me fluids first because I was severely dehydrated. This made no sense to me since in the hours before I came I had drank 64 oz of water and gatorade, but, 3 liters of fluid later I was feeling a lot better and contractions were spacing out. Finally, I could get through the contractions without panicking and I began to think maybe I would get sent home. My mood improved and I sipped on Sierra Mist. Contractions spaced out to about 20 minutes apart. After about an hour at this spacing suddenly they began picking back up. 7 minutes apart, 6 minutes apart, 4 minutes apart, then the resident on duty came in and explained to me that since contractions were spacing out they were going to send me home. I said, "Ummm?" while gesturing to the monitor. She looked at it and said, "Well, they have been spaced out so I think you probably haven't made any progress." I said, "I really think you should check me. This has been my pattern for five days now. I have awful contractions, then they space out, then they pick back up again. If you send me home this will only continue." My fear was I was going to get home, have contractions all day off and on again, get further exhausted, and then my fever would spike again in the middle of the night. We had already had to call a church member in a panic to watch the kids, I didn't want to have to do that again.
The resident finally, and grudgingly, agreed to check me. As she did her face registered surprise and she said, "Oh, well, this throws a wrinkle in our plans, looks like your about 3-4 cm." She left to call my doctor and I breathed a sigh of relief that, for now, I was staying. Unfortunately, my relief did not last long. The next couple hours were a whirlwind of confusion and wrong diagnosis. First a nurse and then the resident came flying into my room saying some of my labs came back and "your baby is making you sick". As I sat there trying to make sense of what they were saying the resident came in and told me I had preeclampsia. I was getting a little irritated that I still was not seeing my doctor and was having a very hard time believing anything the resident was saying. But she insisted it was an emergency and that I needed to be delivered immediately. I got scared and insisted that after being up all night with such an awful fever and body aches that I did NOT have the energy to get through labor and if they were going to induce me I wanted an epidural. She left and an anesthesiologist came in. What he said next made my next 24 hrs of hospital stay just awful. He lectured my husband and me, as if I was asking to jump off a bridge, on what a terrible idea the epidural was, that "in your condition" it was an awful risk. He said due to my low platelets that one slip could cause a terrible spinal hemorrhage which could leave me paralyzed. I sat with my mouth gaping and I began crying and said, "Sir, you don't understand, I have been in labor off and on for five days. I haven't slept, now I've been up with this fever and body aches, I DO NOT have the strength to do this. I have done this four times at home, I know what labor is like, I am begging you to help me." He said, "I'm sorry but I'm the anesthesiologist and I refuse to do this, I can ask my colleagues but I know they will all agree with me." And then he left. Minutes later the resident and nurse came back, grabbed my bed, and we were off to labor and delivery.
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