Well, this little tater tot is getting grounded as soon as she's born.
Thursday night I didn't sleep very well - waking up every hour or two, having weird pains, and (of course) peeing all the time. It wasn't that I was overly exhausted, or anything, but when I went into work that morning, it wasn't the funnest experience ever. While getting ready that Friday morning, I thought I was getting some weird cramps and just tried to keep an eye on it. The day before I had just been to the doctor and told him about some weird sensations south of the border and he just said it was all normal, without actually telling me how to help or prevent them.
Around 11:00am - I can't take it anymore. I've already had 3 five minute breaks in the break room, laying on my side on the dirty carpet, and rubbing my aching lower back and tummy. I told my manager that I felt something was going on, something didn't feel right and that I needed to call my doctor. When I did, all the operator would let me do was leave a message for my doctor's nurse and, being half-frustrated and half in pain, I called Spud while crying and sitting on a shelf in the stock room. This, of course, scares the crap out of him and he starts making plans to get a ride to pick me up (I had our only car with me) and then drive me home. All I needed to do was give him the go ahead.
Manager lets me go home and starts getting excited that the tater tot may be coming soon (she's never been pregnant before and doesn't realize how scary it is to be this early). Skip ahead to the afternoon, laying in bed, feet propped up, and feeling contractions coming more and more and the dreaded "low, dull, back ache" on the list of pre-term labor signs. After a nap and dinner, it's still going on so I take a bath and we head out to the Labor & Delivery Department of the hospital. It's not that they hurt immensely or anything, but one of the things that they stress to us in Childbirthing Class is that if your water breaks or if you have more than 4 contractions in an hour, then you should call your doctor or go into Labor & Delivery.
They put me on the monitor and turns out I'm having contractions every two minutes. Ha! Who knew? While they were mild (the highest was a 26 out of 100), it was enough of a pattern to scare the nurses. The one who examined me went out to the nurses station and happily exclaimed, "She's thick and closed!" meaning that we weren't having this baby 7 weeks early tonight!
So Spud and I watch Will and Grace, relax and check out the room we may be in soon, while the nurses force me to drink a lot of water to rehydrate my contracting muscles. They flip and turn me from side to side trying to get a good read on the tot's heartbeat and to make me slow down these crazy contractions!
Everything ended up fine and I didn't think that I was really going to give birth just yet, but I just wanted to be checked to see if what I was feeling was actually what was going on. So now I had a "test-run" and will feel a little better prepared when it's "show-time!" I took the next day off of work ("You just lost [X amount] dollars!" Spud exclaimed) and rested in bed for the day. I still felt a couple very mild contractions, but I've been trying to drink a ton of water to help prevent them.
This week's complaint: Slightly swollen fingers and toes.
This week's development: Braxton-Hicks!
Baby's size: Size of a medicine ball or the weight of a pineapple.
No comments:
Post a Comment