After learning that we were moving along and we needed to get to the hospital soon, I ran to my neighbors to let them know what was going on. Both my neighbors behind and to the side of us had volunteered their help to watch our daughter should we need to go to the hospital at the drop of a hat. Out neighbors to the side weren't home, so I ran to the back and found them hanging out in their back yard. Being retired, this was pretty typical. So I told them the situation and they happily came over to watch her. We had just put her down for a nap, so they just needed to hang out and watch TV while she rested.
On the way to the hospital, my wife was shivering pretty severly and I was getting nervous. This really never happened with our first, so I was nervous something was wrong. She felt very cold, which was somewhat atypical for her. She is generally a little bit colder than I, but it was 70 degrees and she was turning on the butt warmers in my car. Unusual.
We rushed into the parking ramps at the hospital and parked the car in emergency services and made our way to the Labor and Delivery Unit at the hospital. The same department where my wife works.
We wer escorted into a triage room where doctors can assess the situation and see whether they patient should be admitted for labor or sent home. My wife was hooked up to a monitor and was strapped across her belly so that the baby could be monitored as well.
After a couple minutes we became worried. Both my wife's and the baby's heart rates were a bit high and we weren't very happy with the looks of it. My wife was also running a fever over 100 degrees, which meant we needed to get things moving. Her water hadn't broken, but the doctor decided that due to the health concerns of her fever, it was best to induce labor and get the baby cared for. It wasn't going to be much, but we just needed everything to be monitored and checked since we came in hot.
Next we were moved from triage into an actual birth sweet. These rooms are cool. They are very big, with a couch, table and some chairs, as wel as a TV with lots of channels for the mother and her family members to wait out the labor and delivery which can take a long, long time.
We were moving along quickly by induction. Since my wife's water hadn't broken, the doctors had to do it for her. This sped things up as well. The Tylenol she was given was kicking in and she was starting to feel better, too.
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