Nurses are such bad, bad patients.

I started my biweekly NST's this past Friday. I have one scheduled at the office once a week and then one at the hospital Monday a.m. after my 12 hour shift. This probably wasn't the best time to schedule an NST because I've been on my feet, not drinking enough water at work, then I'm going to be monitored. I'm still not thrilled about all this monitoring because it could just show us things that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. I feel that if we knew what babies did all the time, we would have a stroke seeing all the dips and flat heartrates, etc. But I'm trying to be a good patient and not the pain in the ass pregnant labor nurse. And I do trust my doc's judgement. So this a.m., I was monitored and guess what, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes. The little booger was textbook perfect, though. Now if I was a regular patient, I would have had to stay, and I'm sure would end up with some terbutaline to stop contractions and possibly end up not being able to work anymore. Since I wasn't feeling all those contractions, and I had just worked a 12 hours shift, and because I'm a labor nurse, I came home. I felt 1 contraction out of all of them on the monitor strip. But, probably because I knew I was contracting, I started noticing more. I had 7 contractions in a 45 minute period. Not painful, but pretty intense in the tightness. That is outside our general rule of calling the doc if you feel more than 4-6 in one hour. So I just drank a huge glass of water and laid down once I got home. And things are fine. I'm sure I probably did the same thing with my other two kids, but I just wasn't ever monitored. I'm such a bad patient. I would have told anyone else who had that to call their doc, but I didn't. I do plan to not pick up any more extra shifts and to be a bit better about keeping hydrated. And if it continues, I will be a good patient and let my MD know. I have no intentions of having this baby early or taking any chances.