Hospital

I am writing to you from the hospital where Nathan and I have spent the last two days. Some of you know this, to others it is news, so I'll start from the beginning and try to give updates if there's anything going on. On Monday night around 10:30 I began having contractions every two to three minutes. At first I tried to ignore them but I could not sleep and it made me nervous as I am only 31 weeks pregnant (out of 40) so, four hours later, we finally called the doctor who told us to go to the hospital to get checked out. At the hospital I was hooked up to monitors and given medication to stop the contractions. It didn't really do the trick and between the first and second time the nurse checked me I had dilated from 0 to .5 centimeters...not much but enough that it then became necessary to transport me to a hospital with a level 3 NICU where 31 week babies could be delivered and cared for if necessary.
So I had my first ambulance ride and was checked in at the new hospital. Here I was put on magnesium and monitored closely. The magnesium hits you hard and makes you feel like you've got the flu and like you're very weak. And it hurts going in. But it helped the contractions and by 6:00 PM on Tuesday I thought we were done with them. Not so. At midnight last night they began again in earnest. I had three and a half hours of increasingly intense contractions until the higher dose of magnesium kicked in to knock them out. Since then I've only had one random contraction.
Throughout this all the baby has been fine. His heartrate has been steady and he's been moving all around. We have now had two songorams of him in the last two days. He looks healthy, has plenty of fluids around him, is head down, and my cervix is closed so it appears that he will stay where he belongs at least for now.
Nathan and I are grateful for all of you who have been and will be praying for us. We are also extremely thankful for Pam and Gary (Nathan's parents) who have been caring for Chloe and Luke while we've been here.
As for now they (the hospital staff) say they'll keep me at least one or two more days for observation. But everyone who says that usually ends their sentence with "unless you're here for the duration"....so we will wait and see what's next :)
Janna