In Kelly’s Words – Pregnancy Update: Still Here….

So…. what does someone do for 3 weeks in the hospital?

I would ask the same question if I knew someone was in the hospital for that amount of time and not really “hurt” or “sick”. The good news is that I have been feeling well and the baby has been doing well – I feel like a broken record saying this!

(If you haven’t read some of my previous blogs, I was admitted to the hospital on March 30 at 33 weeks pregnant with some minor complications, you can see my last blog here.)

So what do I do? The short answer: get poked and prodded, do KBF work, and befriend stuffed animals…

I get monitored every 4 hours, which means I get hooked up to a machine that monitors contractions on me, my heart rate, and the baby’s heart rate. This tells the nurses and doctors if I’m having any contractions and if so how the baby is doing with them. It also generally gives a sense of how the baby is doing based on her heart rate. Since I need this monitoring every 4 hours (2a, 6a, 10a, 2p, 6p, 10p), I have to be woken up over night to get it! Everyone keeps telling me to get caught up on sleep while I’m here but that’s not so easy while getting woken up every 4 hours, sleeping in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar bed, and buzz of general hospital noise!

I feel very lucky that Zeke works from home, so he has been able to move KBF command center to my hospital room. He comes in each morning and stays until shortly before I go to bed. I spent much of the first week writing thank you letters for Inspire!Boston. Almost all of the second week was spent reviewing adaptive sports grant applications. The third week included a KBF Board Meeting and a bit more relaxing!

We get lunch and usually some kind of take out for dinner – the hospital food is not great… We try to get outside most days for a short walk – it’s nice to get some fresh air and feel the sun! We have also found a loop within the hospital that we walk occasionally to get out of the room and stretch our legs – so to speak! And Sudoku! I used to do Sudoku when it first got big back when I was in college. I haven’t done it for years until I got to the hospital 3 weeks ago. It has become a great way to pass the time (I’m crushing Mediums….)!

And I have befriended a 5-foot tall stuffed giraffe (we call her “Rafi”) that is at the gift shop. It’s about as tall as I am in my chair and is outside the gift shop every day and then every evening is behind the closed glass door looking out. We noticed it there one evening when we were walking around and thought it was too funny. Sometimes we add a little extra loop to go by the gift shop to see how Rafi is doing. We know this is strange, but you gotta keep it light being in the hospital this long!

It’s really exciting – and sort of terrifying – to think that we are going to have a baby soon. We feel as ready as any new parent feels, I presume, which means our confidence waxes and wanes! Everything is set up at our house so we are ready to go home with a new baby. While I’ve found a routine and ways to entertain myself, I’m definitely ready to be out of the hospital.

Look for news soon!