The Scoop..

Yesterday was quite the eventful day..we thought we might have had a baby! Bu he stayed in..thankfully! We need just a couple more days...

So it all started at 7:30 am when Dr. H did her rounds...wait, maybe I should back up a day: Monday, was not much fun either. I couldn't sleep AT ALL on Sunday night and so was very sleepy on Monday. I took a nap after lunch (W was out taking care of other things and also not feeling well) and woke up crampy...no contractions yet, just uncomfortable and enough pain to just be noticeable. Since there weren't any contractions on the monitor, I didn't mention it to the nurse. I also hadn't seen the Dr. yet that day and was waiting to mention it to her when she came. No visit on Monday.. For the late evening monitoring, 4-5 mild contractions showed up, but the nurse wasn't too concerned. They get concerned after 4 in one hour (one of the 5 was questionable). I was given my meds and went to bed with an ambien.

Now back to yesterday! I mention all of the above to Dr. H. Given that my 'symptoms' were all kind of new for me, she decided to do a manual exam (I'll try to spare gory details). I had progressed to 4-5cm and 100% effaced. The problem with manual exams this late in pregnancy, and especially for those like me that are trying to go early, is that it can actually trigger labor. So after the exam and after checking to be sure he is still head down (he is), I started contracting. At this point it wasn't painful. My pro-cardia was due at 10 and I hadn't settled down within a half hour, so the nurse decided to check me again (no changes except that my membranes were now bulging). This triggered lots of other labor issues...and I started to get very painful 'cramping'. I say cramping because at this point the monitor wasn't picking up contractions...it really wasn't picking up any activity. But I can tell you that something was happening because I was in pain. For those that know I want to try to go natural..it wasn't enough to warrant any pain meds, just very uncomfortable.

By late afternoon, the pain subsided and I was able to relax..and guess what happens? The monitor starts picking up contractions!! They were still very mild though and very infrequent, so the nurses were not too concerned at this point. Those too, eventually subsided. By 8pm I was taken off all the monitors. Everything came to a dead stop! So far we have been uneventful since late yesterday evening. I am still feeling crampy, but that (according to my nurse) may be due to how far progressed I am...

The Dr has already stopped by this morning for rounds. She will not check me again (see above for why!) unless something else happens (water breaking, contractions, complaints of pressure) and if we get to 7-8cm, she will break the water and let labor happen. At this point we are not taking outside measures to progress (pitocin) or to stop (mag-sulfate) labor... they are letting my body do whatever it is going to do!

So for now, we are back to the 'normal' routine..sitting here doing nothing, NST once a day and contraction monitoring 3x a day. I will not be able to go home until the baby is here (remember my previous post about not going home if I dilate further!?), although Dr is till expecting him to be here soon. We just want a couple more days, to get to 34wks.