At first they only came every once in a while, but by 20 weeks they were every 20 minutes. No break in between, and quite scary. Contractions aren't supposed to happen this early, and we are taught to be afraid of these sorts of things. But in fact, the uterus is a muscle designed to contract, totally normal. Unfortunately you can't expect a hormonal pregnant woman to bring this to reality and accept it.
We found out April 22, 2011, what would have been my due date with our angel, that we were indeed having a little girl. This was exciting and scary. I don't know what to do with a girl, as silly as it sounds as I am a girl, and I never thought in a million years it would happen. I always saw myself surrounded by a houseful of boys. Not that I didn't want a girl, but I didn't believe it still. I didn't want to be one of those people who go out and buy all pink only to come home with a little boy who can wear none of the clothes and sleeps in the pink trimmed bassinet with his butterfly room. But I was convinced after several ultrasounds with full crotch views. She wasn't a modest fetus, which was a good thing but hopefully the modesty grows as she does. =)
With the fun contractions came fun cervix checks. Every 2 weeks at first til there was a slight change, then every week. Also my amazing OB did ultrasounds to check the length of my cervix, which stayed good. We also had to do a test called Fetal Fibronectin. A negative test shows that your chances of going into labor in the next 2 weeks are very very low. We like negative tests. But after all the weeks of negative, I was shocked to find out that one had come back positive at 26 weeks. That was a little too real for myself to handle. I freaked out. I knew what to do with negative tests, relax, positive ones I had no idea how to react, so I cried. Like a baby. I know that positive ones, don't mean anything. No meaning that labor will come NOW!!! or even soon. But it was still frightening. I was immediately sent to Labor & Delivery for a non stress test and a few other tests. The OB that I have been seeing the whole time wanted to give me the steroid shots to get the baby as ready as a 26 week old could be. But the OB on call talked us both out of it. Thank goodness.
Other pregnancy fun things had come and gone. Like nausea, that finally went away but would still poke its ugly head back up every once in a while. Heart burn that was the temperature of the third ring of Hell. My pelvic bone separated to the point I would cry just to roll over in bed. And my wonderful heart issues. When I am not pregnant, I am in pretty good shape. I eat fairly healthy and exercise some. When I am pregnant I get amazing heart palpitations. Like the organ is trying to rest and then plays catch up. That happened with my previous two pregnancies so not many thoughts of it. But this pregnancy brought a new fun thing. Tachycardia. My heart rate was insane. Anything under 120 beats per minute is acceptable. Mine went way up several times. Stayed in the 150's and hiked all the way to 180's on a few occasions. To say the least I felt like crap. This problem was only made worse when they would try to stop the contractions. There was an oral pill, Procardia, that resulted in 180's and me feeling like death. We stopped that, they didn't do much for the contractions anyways. And once I went in to L&D and had several big contractions so they gave me the shot to stop them, for the life of me I can't remember the name of it. That sucked. Shot my heart up so high they wouldn't let me leave til it went back down. And finally it did. That one stopped the contractions for a whole hour. They continued throughout the pregnancy, and towards the end it was every 10-15 minutes, all day every day. At least 2 months of that. As for why I was never on bed rest. There was no change to the cervix so much as it required it. My pulse rate did require me to miss work several weeks. But the contractions were just another huge part of my pregnancy. My "normal".
All of this continued, with many trips to L&D, many cervix checks, a few trips to the cardiologist, and many worried nights. Until I was "far enough" along that I knew it would be okay, not ideal but okay, for her to meet us.
And then 5AM September 6th, GUSH! The contractions stopped.
We found out April 22, 2011, what would have been my due date with our angel, that we were indeed having a little girl. This was exciting and scary. I don't know what to do with a girl, as silly as it sounds as I am a girl, and I never thought in a million years it would happen. I always saw myself surrounded by a houseful of boys. Not that I didn't want a girl, but I didn't believe it still. I didn't want to be one of those people who go out and buy all pink only to come home with a little boy who can wear none of the clothes and sleeps in the pink trimmed bassinet with his butterfly room. But I was convinced after several ultrasounds with full crotch views. She wasn't a modest fetus, which was a good thing but hopefully the modesty grows as she does. =)
With the fun contractions came fun cervix checks. Every 2 weeks at first til there was a slight change, then every week. Also my amazing OB did ultrasounds to check the length of my cervix, which stayed good. We also had to do a test called Fetal Fibronectin. A negative test shows that your chances of going into labor in the next 2 weeks are very very low. We like negative tests. But after all the weeks of negative, I was shocked to find out that one had come back positive at 26 weeks. That was a little too real for myself to handle. I freaked out. I knew what to do with negative tests, relax, positive ones I had no idea how to react, so I cried. Like a baby. I know that positive ones, don't mean anything. No meaning that labor will come NOW!!! or even soon. But it was still frightening. I was immediately sent to Labor & Delivery for a non stress test and a few other tests. The OB that I have been seeing the whole time wanted to give me the steroid shots to get the baby as ready as a 26 week old could be. But the OB on call talked us both out of it. Thank goodness.
Other pregnancy fun things had come and gone. Like nausea, that finally went away but would still poke its ugly head back up every once in a while. Heart burn that was the temperature of the third ring of Hell. My pelvic bone separated to the point I would cry just to roll over in bed. And my wonderful heart issues. When I am not pregnant, I am in pretty good shape. I eat fairly healthy and exercise some. When I am pregnant I get amazing heart palpitations. Like the organ is trying to rest and then plays catch up. That happened with my previous two pregnancies so not many thoughts of it. But this pregnancy brought a new fun thing. Tachycardia. My heart rate was insane. Anything under 120 beats per minute is acceptable. Mine went way up several times. Stayed in the 150's and hiked all the way to 180's on a few occasions. To say the least I felt like crap. This problem was only made worse when they would try to stop the contractions. There was an oral pill, Procardia, that resulted in 180's and me feeling like death. We stopped that, they didn't do much for the contractions anyways. And once I went in to L&D and had several big contractions so they gave me the shot to stop them, for the life of me I can't remember the name of it. That sucked. Shot my heart up so high they wouldn't let me leave til it went back down. And finally it did. That one stopped the contractions for a whole hour. They continued throughout the pregnancy, and towards the end it was every 10-15 minutes, all day every day. At least 2 months of that. As for why I was never on bed rest. There was no change to the cervix so much as it required it. My pulse rate did require me to miss work several weeks. But the contractions were just another huge part of my pregnancy. My "normal".
All of this continued, with many trips to L&D, many cervix checks, a few trips to the cardiologist, and many worried nights. Until I was "far enough" along that I knew it would be okay, not ideal but okay, for her to meet us.
And then 5AM September 6th, GUSH! The contractions stopped.
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