So. It's been a while.
---
I'm not sure how to tell real contractions apart from the false ones. But they keep coming and they hurt and I just want them to go away. I still have a few months before the baby comes.
"How bad are they?" My mom asked. I'm lying on the couch with a pillow between my legs and a washcloth on my forehead.
"I feel like my insides are being squeezed with pliers. If that makes any sense."
"You could be in labor," she said worriedly. "it can happen this early."
"I'm only twenty nine weeks. He can't come yet." I closed my eyes and tried not to think of it. If he comes now, he'd have to stay in the hospital and be hooked up to a bunch of machines and that would just kill me, seeing him like that.
"Brendon, people can go into labor at twenty four weeks. Sometimes even before then."
I heard the front door open and close, then footsteps coming into the living room.
"What's going on?" Ryan's voice asked.
"He's having contractions again," mom sighed. "I think we should take him in and have him monitored."
"I'm not going to the hospital." I argued. "If I go then they'll just keep me and make me have the baby and I can't do it. He's not ready yet." Ryan walked over to me and kneeled down in front of me.
"Are they worse than last night?" He asked. I nodded and squeezed his hand when he laced his fingers with mine. "We need to get you checked out then. Okay?"
"I don't wanna go." I said trying to hold back tears.
"I know you don't. But if we go then we can figure out what's going on. And make sure he's okay."
I sighed and gave in.
-
When we got the hospital and I got checked in, the nurse hooked a heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor to my belly and it showed up on the screen that I was having contractions every three to five minutes. And baby's heart beat was on the speaker.
"How long have you been having contractions?" The nurse asked.
"Almost a week," I said. "but they just recently started getting closer together and hurting more."
"Well it does look like you're in labor." He started typing on the computer and I tried to stop myself from freaking out. "We can try to stop labor until you're at least thirty five or thirty six weeks. Sometimes it doesn't always work and we have no other choice but to deliver the baby."
"There's nothing else you can do if you can't stop it? I'll have to have him? It's too soon. What if something goes wrong? He'll be so small and have to be -"
"Brendon, everything will be just fine. Don't stress yourself out over it." She gave me a small smile before leaving the triage room and then I broke down crying. Ryan was quick to wrap his arms around me and I cried on his shoulder.
"Everything is gonna be fine babe, I promise." He said in my ear. "Caleb will be fine."
-
I've been in the hospital for a week. They stopped labor and I'm not allowed to leave until the baby is born, which should be in the next month unless labor starts up again and they can't stop it. Ryan's been staying the night with me since I've been here. It gets lonely and boring throughout the day though, because he works. My parents come visit but they don't stay long. My dad doesn't like hospitals.
