I had a week of meals all planned out and groceries bought on Monday, but my newfound organization was about to be sidetracked, as usual, though this time by outside forces...or should I say inside forces... Tuesday afternoon lo and behold I started having contractions every 5...4...3 minutes. I was resting but they were gaining momentum, so my husband drove me off to the hospital as fast as the traffic would allow.

They tried hydrating me, like last time, while running the tests, but that didn't help. I'd been drinking plenty of water and taking it easy all day, so that didn't surprise me. I had just started to dialate a tiny bit, so on with the drugs. I can't tell you how happy I am to not have asthma, because the asthma drug they gave me was awful, but it worked after 2 shots. I tell you, I had my finger on the nurse button the whole time, afraid the side-effects would keep getting worse, but I survived.

So, they stopped the labor and sent me home with another Rx to keep it calm. This one is a blood pressure med, but not strong enough to lower my always-low-enough bp. I've checked it a couple times to be sure. At least I know the symptoms of low bp from experience. I feel like I'm now deeply entrenched in conventional medicine once again, I was quite comfortable sitting on the fence.

The drawback is that labor may not start up again when it's time, which isn't the birth experience I was hoping for. I'll hit the raspberry tea big time, in a few weeks. In the meantime I'll keep worrying about the baby coming too early. That's when you're glad for modern medicine. My husband's grandma called me yesterday to say hello, and told me about her brother who was born at 7 months. They didn't even have incubators, they had to take him home and try to keep him warm...of course he didn't have a chance. Now they have much better odds, though 8 weeks early is still frightening. I'm on bedrest, but getting very good at asking for help.