a mini-vacation away from home

Once again, I find myself laying here in the hospital, not in false labor (although the Braxton Hicks contractions are still going strong), but with high blood pressure. While nobody loves overnight stays in the hospital, I gotta be honest, this hospital is AMAZING!!! I'm staying in a brand new wing that opened about 3 weeks ago. The rooms are all singles and set-up like a hotel room... private bathroom complete with shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and a hair dryer. I have a flat screen tv, dvd player, small desk, wireless internet, and a couch that folds into a twin bed where Nathan slept last night. This area of the hospital is perfectly quiet... no intercoms, beepers, or alarms going off. The food is amazing too! I had chicken caesar salad for lunch and roasted turkey with gravy, cranberries, mashed potatoes, carrots, bread, and ice cream for dessert. Every meal comes with hot tea, juice, and milk. After spending the past month being woken up by a sick dog every night, I think this hospital stay is a mini-vacation! Not only are the accommodates excellent, but they hook me up to the fetal monitor 3 times a day so I get to lay here in my quiet room and listen to my daughter's heartbeat. Nathan got to experience it for the first time last night. There is something so relaxing about hearing the constant whoosh, whoosh heartbeat and knowing your daughter is healthy and thriving. Plus, the fetal monitor tracks my contractions. Nathan enjoys looking at the print-out and telling me how high up the page the contraction peak reaches. My record so far is 90% of the way up the grid. Luckily, I would still classify these contractions in the annoying and semi-uncomfortable stage, which is why this isn't real labor. I've been here in the hospital since yesterday (Friday) morning. I was sent to Triage by my OB after my blood pressure was higher than normal and I had a pounding headache. They are evaluating me for minor pre-eclempsia, a condition that can be dangerous to both myself and baby if it becomes severe. So far, it's been 24 hours and my bp is still higher than it should be. I guess we'll see what they say this afternoon when their 24 hour observation is up. In my opinion, this baby was full term yesterday and she'd be just fine living outside my body, so inducing labor and allowing my body to get back to normal would make my kidneys the happiest. We'll see what the docs say. Either way, it sounds like my OB doesn't allow her renal disease patients to go to a full 40 weeks and will induce them around 39 weeks to take the stress off their kidneys and blood pressure. That would mean I will have a daughter by Halloween if not much sooner! :) ... gotta run, time to enjoy my breakfast in bed!