Baby sooner than later?

We had an unexpected trip up to the hospital Sunday night. I had some bleeding as we were getting ready for bed, and they wanted me to come in and get checked out. I was feeling otherwise fine--a little crampy, but nothing too out of the ordinary. So a dear neighbor came over to stay in the house while Kate slept (it was 11pm!) while we traipsed up to first hill.

Once we got up there, they put me on the monitor to watch for contractions & monitor baby. The doctor came & examined me, and felt pretty concerned about what was going on. She didn't think the baby looked great on the monitor and wasn't sure why I was bleeding. She ended up saying that we needed to get admitted to the hospital for further monitoring, and that maybe she would need to do an emergent c-section. Todd and I were pretty shocked at that! So our plan was to have an ultrasound to look at our baby & the placenta, and then get admitted to the antepartum unit for more monitoring. I had an IV placed & was given a bunch of fluid too. Luckily our ultrasound looked good, baby looked good, and they couldn't see any obvious source of bleeding. It also showed that my cervix was starting to shorten & that baby boy was breech again! After that, (around 2am) we headed down to our room where they hooked me back up to the monitors. My bleeding started slowing down around 5ish and baby was looking much better on the monitor. By the morning, they decided I could eat and get off the monitor for a bit to walk around and see if the bleeding reoccurred. Luckily everything looked good, so they decided around noon that I could go home and just take it easy.

I had my regular OB appt today and we're holding steady. I am 1 cm dilated and she said my cervix was maybe halfway shortened. I spent some more time on the monitor, just to make sure everything was fine, and baby looked good.

They're still not sure what caused the bleeding--maybe it's just from my cervix changing and this could be the start of labor--or who knows what else...

So, since I'm just at 36 2/7 weeks, they'd like me to try and get to 37 weeks. If he comes before that, chances are that he'll be fine--most often babes will have some trouble with regulating their temperatures or have breastfeeding problems--but overall do very well. but it's still preferred to make it until 37 weeks. So quiet activity at home, no working and we'll try to make it until next week. We'll check at my Tuesday appt to see if he's still breech and if he is, then we'll need to schedule a time to try a version next week too. If I go into labor before then, they'll have to do an ultrasound to check position and if he's breech, then we'll likely do a c-section...or if I have more bleeding, we'll head back to the hospital to get checked out again.

Phew! What a busy couple of days! We're now on standby, ready to head up to the hospital at any time--but who knows what's going to happen. We could be having a baby this week, or I could go another 3 or 4 weeks! Talk about having to just let go of control! It is what it is, and we just don't have that much control over it.

We'll keep you posted as things progress,
much love,
Julie