MGH was only a few minutes away, but every little bit of traffic stressed me out. They checked us in to the pre-delivery area of the the Blake 14 ward. While we were waiting for a room, we heard another expectant mother moaning loudly which freaked Ali out. She had to cover her ears and I eventually gave her my iPod to drown out the sound. The monitors still showed the Ali's contractions were still very small so we most likely could go home. However, when they finally checked her cervix, it was 100% effaced (thinned out) and the baby was at 0 station (right up against the cervix).
They eventually moved us to a large room with a great view of Cambridge and the Longfellow Bridge, not that we really cared about that at the time. Our nurse Judy looked like she was headed to a club, not ready to deliver a baby. She had a Caribbean accent, long black hair, and wore lots of make up. But she was a wealth of knowledge and funny stories and was great at helping us remain calm.
Because Ali was 34 weeks and 5 days into the pregnancy, they wanted to treat her with beta-methasone over 48 hours, a steroid used to stimulate lung development in premature babies. But to do this, they would have to also give her the "mag", magnesium sulfate, to suppress the contractions. Unfortunately, this drug had bad negative side effects like fever, nausea, and dizziness.
We were completely stunned at this point. We were moments away from going to Florida and now, if the Mag didn't take, this baby was coming out! We had barely prepared for the baby ( though we did have the car seat). Judy kept us pretty comfortable, telling us stories, and explaining what could happen.
The Mag took effect and Ali was feeling all the horrible symptoms. However, the contractions kept coming and she was definitely feeling a lot of discomfort. After an hour or so, Judy came back and turned on the baby warmer without saying anything to us! We were pretty stunned. Did she think the baby was coming soon? She later told us she just wanted to be prepared because anything can happen.
Fortunately, the contractions did start to subside later that evening. But Ali was feeling horrible from the magnesium. We both stayed the night which was not very comfortable. Ali's bed was rock hard and I slept in a lazy boy next to her bedside. Even though it was New Year's, we weren't even awake at midnight to even say Happy New Years.
Minutes went by like hours and by the morning, we were both in a sleep deprived haze. At noon, they gave her the 2nd shot of beta-methasone and all we could to do was wait another 24 hours. My mom and sister came and visited a few times and we spent a lot of time on the computer and phone, and watching bad movies on basic cable.