Dehydration

We had quite a scare yesterday.  I've had "intestinal distress" since Friday night and was planning on calling the OB today if it didn't clear up.  Yesterday morning I woke up around 7 and started having contractions.  I was in bed and started counting them.  I got to 5 in 45 minutes and somehow drifted back to sleep.  When I woke up a few hours later I shook it off as me being paranoid and got out of bed.  On my way down the stairs I was struck with a particularly painful contraction and yelled out to Tom that we needed to go to the hospital.  (In the back of my mind was the info diarrhea + contractions = preterm labor.)  A quick call to the doctor confirmed this and off we went.

The whole way there I was telling Tom I thought I was over-reacting, that they were just going to tell us to go home, that everything was fine.  Meanwhile, I was still having contractions.  We got to the labor and delivery floor, spoke to a nurse, and were put in a delivery room.  They hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor and contraction monitor.  I was having contractions every 10 minutes.  These weren't gut-wrenching painful, but they were still painful.  They took a urine and blood sample and started me on an IV.  Apparently, I was dehydrated from the diarrhea and that triggered the contractions.  I didn't feel dehydrated.  However, after a few hours on the IV the contractions slowed down to every 20 minutes, then every half hour, then every hour, then gone!!  After a few hours without contractions they sent me home.  The nurse told me they get a lot of women during the summer who go into preterm labor because of dehydration.  I feel we were really lucky to get to the hospital early enough to stop the contractions.  And yes, I'm now drinking water by the gallon.