HOW IT ALL STARTED....

Well, we have had an interesting week! Last Tuesday (December 1st) Jenny and I went to see Dr. Rumsey for her monthly check-up. She had been bleeding a bit, but didn't think anything of it because it was similar to what happened with Phoebe's pregnancy. Dr. Rumsey wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay. The ultrasound found her cervix to be a little short (I guess it isn't supposed to be short). Rumsey suggested we spend the night in the hospital to monitor everything. Jenny immediately broke down and I was fairly concerned at this point. He said it was simply precautionary and most likely everything is fine. Well, we checked into Dupont Hospital and she was hooked up to the monitors and low and behold, Jenny was having contractions! This obviously freaked us out considering Jenny was only 27 weeks pregnant!!! At this point the nurses kept monitoring Jenny until Rumsey finished his office hours and came over to check on her. He decided to give her a dose of Teridol (strong muscle relaxant) to stop her contractions. This worked immediately and Jenny was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon. Everything seemed to be okay at home until Thursday night. Jenny's contractions resumed that evening and we headed back to the hospital. Dr. Stafford was on call and he gave Jenny another dose of Teridol. He also checked her cervix and she was 1 cm dilated. The Teridol worked again and he let her go home Friday morning. Well, Friday evening the contractions came back (with vengeance) and were occurring every 5 minutes! So of course we headed back to the hospital (FOR THE THIRD TIME!!!) and this time Dr. Weise was on call. She checked Jenny's cervix and it was 4 cm dilated. Needless to say we were a bit worried! Poor Jenny has basically been having contractions for 4 days now and was emotionally and physically drained! Dr. Weise decided to give her Magnesium Sulfate (another extremely strong muscle relaxant) to stop the contractions. It worked for about a half hour and they slowly came back. I never want to experience trying to sleep on the couch in her hospital room while she is moaning and crying every 10 minutes the entire night! Talk about feeling helpless!!! So it is now Saturday morning and Dr. Weise came back in to check her cervix and it was still only 4 cm dilated. This actually was quite refreshing and encouraging, considering she hadn't changed all night. Dr. Weise said many moms get to 4 cm and stay there for a long time. So Jenny's spirits we up and it also helped that family and friends were visiting on and off on Saturday (Jenny loved the company). So it was about 5:00pm and I decided to head home to give Phoebe a bath and let Jan (Jenny's mom) come up and be with her. I had just put Phoebe down for bed and got the call......