Pregnancy Tales

I woke up from my nap around 3:30 and headed into the nursery to put away some gifts we received this past weekend at my family’s baby shower. As i’ve previously mentioned, when you’re pregnant and towards the end you can get an increased discharge due to the cervix changing. I had experienced this a lot today. As I was putting things away in the beautiful dresser my hubby had just finished i felt yet another lovely discharge bubble. I headed to the bathroom to try to avoid wet undies…i sat down on the toilet and there was a gush. No kidding, a gush. My thoughts, unless some holes got rerouted and i was unaware, my water just broke. It smelt like cleaning fluid. Weird, i know. I cowboy walked out to the garage to get bryan. I opened the door and said, well, you got your wish-my water just broke! He said, what water? I said, MY WATER-THE WATER. He said, O.K.! We called the dr’s office, i had 2 more gushes before that. They told us to head in. I took my time, Bryan was ready to jump in the car! i knew we had time and my contractions were not painful at all. My water broke at 4. We headed to the hospital at 4:30 and we checked in to triage at 5

Look out-we’re havin’ a baby!

OY. what a day.

so, we went in for the 38 week check-up today. i got up at 6:30 and we were at the dr’s at 7:45 a.m. We saw the nurse practitioner and she was great. She thought I was measuring well, had lots of amniotic fluid and said I was at a solid 4 cm. She sent us to the lab for monitoring because I had noted some decreased fetal movement-nothing i was worried about b/c i just figured she was getting bigger…there’s only SO much room! so, off we went. We were there from 8-9. They woke the baby up after a half hour because they weren’t happy with her lack of movement. They put this buzzer/vibrating thingie on my belly and the baby went bizurk! Back to the dr’s office we went to check back in with the N.P. She noted everything looked great and that they were going to be sending us over to L&D b/c i was having regular contractions. WOOHOO!!

We were at L&D for 4 hours. We walked a TON, continued to get contractions but they were not painful. They checked me at 12:45 p.m. but i had only progressed 0.5 cm. so, they sent us home. we got home around 1:30 p.m. I’m going to eat some yogurt, Bryan’s going to get the oil changed in the car, and I’m going to take a nap!

I’ve decided this baby is not going to come until December 17th-when they induce me. SUCK.

We went in for our 37 week check-up on Tuesday. I won’t lie…I was hoping Dr. Moon was going to say, “Oh my, you’re 4 cm! let’s go over to L&D!”. But…much to my chagrin…she did not. Dr. Moon walked in. Bryan said to stop looking happy (meaning me). Dr. Moon figured out quickly that I was quite miserable. I told her I was done. Bryan asked if she could just go ahead and break my water. She kind of laughed it off…he wasn’t joking!

So, she checked me and said, “You’re gonna do this all on your own, darlin’. You’re 3.5 cm!”. Then she looked at Bryan and said, “We don’t need the crochet hook. I’m stripping her membranes.”. I had wondered what on God’s green earth she was doing in there! It was the longest vag. exams I’d had and it was getting pretty uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, I was starting to think she was digging for gold. She sat me up and said, “I gotcha good. You’re gonna bleed.”. The last time someone said “I gotcha good” I got pregnant!

A little explanation on the stripping of membranes…this is when, during  vag. exam, the practitioner sticks one (or in my case, 3) fingers up and into the woman’s cervix and sweeps the finger(s) 360 around the inside of the cervix. This separates the amniotic sac from the muscles of the cervix and stimulates the release of prostaglandins.  This will then cause the cervix to dilate and efface.

The hope was that I would go into labor soon. It hasn’t happened yet…waiting…waiting..waiting…

So, on Wednesday I woke up and was incredibly sore (as I was on Tuesday). Bryan finished the dresser on Wednesday morning so I got all of the baby clothes moved into it and Wednesday night we the rest of the stuff moved into the nursery Yay!

Friday has been a good day. I haven’t been able to say that in quite some time.

After getting a great night’s sleep, I woke up around 7:30 to go pee and fell back asleep until about 9:30. I migrated to the couch and fell back asleep until 11. It was great I noticed that I didn’t feel yucky until I needed to eat and my muscles didn’t ache anymore. Woohoo!

I spent most of the day resting and then went to a late lunch and clearance shopping at Target with my friend, Gina. I know, it’s amazing, I have friends! Now, I’m totally motivated to do stuff. I’ve labeled the tubs of baby clothes, I’ve finished the last of the laundry including baby laundry, I’m getting ready to tackle the rest of the back closet so I can get the remainder of the stuff to Good Will, and I’m thinking about backing some Gluten-free blueberry muffins. Is this was they mean by getting an energy burst??????

Bryan says a major change in pressure is coming tomorrow with the snow. Neeps! We have a lamaze class tomorrow-specifically on breathing- that we have to go to b/c we never learned it in our lamaze classes (retarded, i know) and we’re taking the rocker to the re-upholsterer. Knowing our luck, I’ll go into labor at the hospital! Convenient!

Woke up at 2:30 this morning with cramps. Powerful cramps. I thought nothing of it (I’m use to cramping at this point) and thought, I’ll just lay here and go back to sleep. I was wrong. I noticed that I was getting quite a bit of cramping in what appeared to be a regular pattern and that there seemed to be peaks to them. I was actually having to breathe through them. So, around 3 I rolled out of bed and came out to the living room to count these pains. I noted they were coming every 8 minutes and lasting anywhere from 30-45 seconds. Poly came out to join me around 3:30. About 4am I went to wake Bryan to tell him I needed his help with counting. It sounds odd, but, it’s really hard to write down the time and duration of each pain when you’re trying to focus on breathing and not tensing up! We tracked the contractions until about 4:45am-they were coming every 5 minutes and lasting about 1 minute. I decided to try to get some more sleep (I had only had about 2.5 hours) and stated that if the contractions got stronger, they would wake me up. Bryan agreed.

At 6 I was awoken by an intense contraction. I thought, OK, this might be it. So, I calmly got up and started to pack the rest of my bag. Bryan woke up and I told him what was going on and that I thought we’d be going in. I wanted to take a shower-two reasons-1) I’m back to having night sweats and had sweat through everything and 2) if you’re not in true labor a hot shower or change in position will change the contraction/cramping pattern. Sure enough, I take a shower and the cramping mostly subsides. I continued to get BH contractions but they were irregular. So, back to bed I went.

I spent most of the day down and resting. By the end of the evening my lower abs hurt so bad (I think from all of the cramping) and my low back was killing me. It hurt so bad that I had Bryan take a rolling pin to it! After that, I took a hot bath and just tried to relax. I took my Unisom and went to bed. I woke up on Friday morning at 7:30 and realized I hadn’t woken up all night! It was awesome!!!!!!!! I haven’t done that since I was in my first trimester! Sweet!

I am very thankful that I have a dr. that tries her very best to stay on schedule. On this day I noted that we had been sitting in the waiting room for quite some time… Finally, we got called back and the MA said Dr. Moon was in delivery and wondered if we minded seeing someone else-no problem. She ran her usual battery of tests and, as she was leaving the room, noted that Dr. Moon was back. Woohoo!

Dr. Moon did the group B strep test. It was a painless test-they take a long cotton swab-the same they use for a pap-and swab the entry of the vagina and the perinium. If the test comes back positive it’s not a big deal-many women test positive for it and it does us no harm. However, if the baby is exposed to it during birth it can cause respiratory issues etc. If I am positive, they’ll administer IV antibiotics when I arrive at the hospital to ward off infection for the baby.

After the strep test, Dr. Moon examined me. I was at 80% effacement, a full 2cm dilated, and 0 station. She said, “Oh, this baby is definitely at zero station!”. I was super stoked! She said, “This is good. When you go into actual labor it’s going to go fast!”. Again, super stoked!

Bryan again asked if she could give us an estimation. She made a joke about everyone wanting her to be a future teller-what, they didn’t tell you that in med school!? She thinks we’re on track for the 2 week window. Woohoo!!

We had worship team practice this morning and I started to get ready-a.k.a. got a shower. While undressing I noticed some unusual moisture in my underwear. I immediately thought of an amniotic leak and -at the risk of sounding disgusting-I sniffed from afar and noted it was not urine (they told us amniotic fluid would not smell like urine). I told Bryan and just said I would keep an eye on it. I knew we had 24 hours until infection set in so I wasn’t too worried.

We went to practice and it was business as usual-the baby was hopping around like crazy whenever the drums or bass guitar were going. We got back home and I noted more of this mysterious moisture. It was clear and, again, there was no urine smell. We called the dr. and, of course, they said to come in for a check-I knew they would. I was glad they did. I’d rather be safe than sorry when it comes to infection. So, in we went.

Again, I was hooked up to the tocometer and checked. No further progress was made and I registered a few contractions but nothing major. She ran a “pregnancy-like” test for amniotic fluid and it was negative. Evidently, this was simply my “secretions” changing. Fun new stuff to learn about!  So, home we went. I wonder if they give multi-trip discounts?

Welcome to pre-labor!

Bryan stayed home from work today with a sinus infection and went to the dr. I spent the day feeling super yucky. I was cramping (they seemed to be coming about every 6 minutes and lasting about 20-30 seconds), my low back hurt, I was incredibly nauseated (it was different from my typical nausea), I had had several braxton hicks contractions (more than usual), and my poo had been pretty soft the day before.

At around 4pm I called the dr and left a message. A nurse finally called around 4:30. She spoke with the on-call dr and called me back around 5:30pm. They told me to come in for monitoring-said that had I been 37 weeks they would have told me to stay home but, since I was 35 weeks they wanted me to come in. So, we packed a quick emergency bag and off we went.

We arrived at the hospital around 6pm and they hooked me up to the tocometer. Dr. White came in (the on-call dr) and she was very reassuring. She told us what her course of care would be-they would administer terbutaline and, if it worked, we’d go home in a couple of hours. If it didn’t work-we’d have a baby. She told us that she would not be aggressive in stopping labor but that she wouldn’t do anything to induce it. Bryan asked about steroids for baby’s lungs and she stated the there’s no evidence to support giving steroids after 34 weeks. After checking me she determined that I was 70% effaced, 1-2 cm dilated and 0 station. I thought, “that’s why every time I bend over I feel like her head is going to shoot out!”.

After a few minutes the nurse came back in. Out of curiosity, I asked if anything was registering or if I was just being paranoid. The nurse said, “Oh no. You’re definitely having contractions and they’re right on top of each other. That’s bad and we need to stop that.” She pulled the monitor to show me and she was right-the screen just looked like a bunch of “m”s. The peaks were perfect and hitting around the 60% range. I was given a shot of terb in the back of my right tricep-suck-and within less than a minute the contractions stopped but the cramping continued. Bryan had left to go to the cafeteria to get dinner (it was closing soon and the poor guy hadn’t eaten yet) and by the time he had returned, the contractions had stopped.

I had noticed around 6:50pm that my heart rate was increasing. I felt anxious. I thought that perhaps it was just because Bryan had been gone for 20 minutes and I didn’t know what was going on with that-how long does it take to get food?! When he got back to the room he handed me a bag of pretzels and my hand was shaking like a leaf. It’s been a few years since I took pharmacology and I wasn’t exactly sure but I was pretty sure the side effects of terb were increased heart rate and shaking. Sure enough, that’s what it was. Dr. White came back in around 7:45 and said they were going to send me home. Bryan asked about how long she thought we had until the baby made her appearance. Dr. White thought no more than two weeks. She said, “well, we may see you back in tonight, it may be next week. But, either way, I wouldn’t make any plans for Thanksgiving!”.

Needless to say, Bryan went and bought the carseat on Friday and it’s in the back of the Aztec

Woohoo!!! Let’s get this show on the road!

At almost 34 weeks my in-laws threw a family baby shower. I woke up that Saturday morning and wasn’t feeling very good-nauseous, crampy, just plain yucky. I attributed it to being too over zealous Friday with cleaning etc. Saturday night we went to dinner and as we sat there I noticed things were really uncomfortable.

I began having to urinate non-stop. Literally. I would go and less than 5 second later would have to go again. I noted that getting in and out of the vehicle was difficult as it felt like her head had descended and was sitting right in my pubic arch. I was also experiencing menstrual type cramping in my lower abdomen. Bryan asked if I was OK and I relayed all of the above to him. We both just thought it was my body prepping for her arrival. Sunday night I decided to take some Unisome because I had not slept for much of the weekend. I laid on the couch to rest and fell asleep. I awoke to experiencing menstrual cramps. They reminded me of the cramps I get when my period has just started and the gnashing of teeth is about to commence (I get REALLY bad cramps). This went on for 40 minutes with no reprieve. I told Bryan that had this actually been my period  I would have already taken 3 ibuprofen and would have been really pissed off by now that it wasn’t working-and truthfully, would have followed it up with another 2 ibuprofen.

So, at our doctor’s appt. on Tuesday I mentioned this and she felt that it could be a couple of things. Either the pregnancy was just driving me nuts (her words) or I was showing pre-labor signs. She did an internal exam (only using her fingers, thankfully!) and looked a bit surprised. I was 1 cm dilated (not shocked) and 50% effaced (enter SHOCK!). She also noted that the baby’s head was low. She informed me that she had no doubt I was contracting with the above information and that I needed to take it easy. She wasn’t putting me on bed rest yet but that if this continues I may end up there. I’d make a terrible bed rest patient!

Yes, that’s right. At 35 weeks I’m still puking. I absolutely hate it. And, I’ve acquired a new trick…peeing myself while I puke.

One night when I was in my 32nd week I was in heaving my guts up when all the sudden I thought, Did my bladder just leak? I hadn’t had to pee…I had just gone as a matter of fact. After I was done, I checked and sure enough. I came out of the bathroom with tears in my eyes, looked at Bryan and said, I just peed myself!

It makes sense really…your whole belly tenses when you vomit. Baby’s head is engaged so when I throw up she has no where to go except into my bladder causing it to leak no matter how tightly I squeeze those muscles. So, I’ve resorted to wearing panty liners. Suck.