So a year ago today…that’s when the real action started! Well, sorta. Relatively speaking.

As per my doctor’s instructions, I called the L&D floor that morning to see if they had a bed ready for me. They said they did, and so at around noon, George and I headed to the hospital. We weren’t sure what floor I was supposed to go to, and a helpful (or so we thought) security guard directed us to the twelfth floor. Which was for cancer patients, not pregnant women. Oops. We finally found the floor we were supposed to go to, and I found a nurse, who took me to my room.

Quite a nice room it was, too. Big, almost at the end of a hall. Television, mini-fridge, lots of windows (looking out on the a/c on an adjoining roof), pull out sofa bed, rocking chair, big bathroom. George got me settled in (i.e., set up my laptop so I could use the wireless internet connection.) He went off to run some errands while I put on my jammies and got into bed.

A round of doctors and other medical professionals came to visit. A neonatologist, an anesthesiologist, a physical therapist, and my doctor. Later, some nurses came to monitor the babies and myself.

Aside from the 24-hour urine collections (fun!!!), the monitoring was the worst part of the hospital experience. Scratch that, monitoring was worse that collecting my pee in a jug that sat in a bin of ice next to the toilet. Four monitors on my belly, which was spread with a thick layer of ultrasound gel. Which dried and got itchy. One monitor for each baby, plus one for contractions. And let me remind you that babies move. Even when they’re that squished in there, they move. Off the monitors. A lot. They don’t seem to like being pinned down like that. So they kick them too.

After about 45 minutes of mostly unsuccessful monitoring (they wanted to see 20 consecutive minutes of all three babies’ heartrates simultaneously) a resident came in with a portable u/s machine to take a peek at the babies. Now, see, isn’t a five minute ultrasound so much easier than an hour of wrestling with monitors? Yeesh. Unfortunately, I never got that special treatment after that.

Later that afternoon, dinner was served. Yuck. I don’t remember what it was, but I refused to eat it. George did, though. He’d brought me a salad from Whole Foods.

Aaaand, that was my first day in the hospital. Okay, maybe recapping every single day from here on out will be unnecessary. The first few days were a lot of the same. Monitoring, peeing in jugs, watching television, reading. I got a lot of visitors. It wasn’t too bad for the first five or six days…

Oh yeah, and here is me the day before I was admitted, with some friends who came to visit. MAN, I looked awful. Ew.

Also. Today is our office’s potluck Thanksgiving. Last year it was the Tuesday before I was admitted. It was awesome, I got to cut to the front of the line (one of the bishops let me in front of him) and I think everyone was terrified of me, frankly. Funny story – I was standing by my boss, who was sitting down, and I wanted to warn him about some melted ice on the floor near his chair. I couldn’t lean over to deal with it, so I pointed it out to him. As I was standing, you know, kind of right above it.

He blanched when I pointed to the puddle of water. Ha ha! He thought my water had broken!

Ahh, good times.