Updates!

Oh, I've had a fun week. How about you?

At two o'clock in the morning on Tuesday I woke up with regular contractions. They lasted for over an hour, so I called the doctor. They said to wait until they get stronger and closer together. I laid down on the couch to do just that, but instead the contractions slowly went away. I dozed for a few hours and then got up for the day, zombie like. I was still having some contractions, but they were nothing like what woke me up.

One trip to the doctor's office later, and they said there was no way to know for sure if it was was false labor, or pre labor. To be clear, false labor is exactly like labor, only it never progresses to full on labor. Pre labor is like active labor, but it can calm down or take a while (several days) to progress into full labor. I still don't know what to classify it as, since I am still having contractions pretty regularly. And yet somehow, still pregnant.


Yesterday I went to the OB's office for a check up and an ultrasound. Apparently I have lots of amniotic fluid, so that's...uhh...good. They hooked me up to the fetal monitoring unit where it measures my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. But when the midwife came in, she didn't like the numbers for the baby's heartbeat.


See, here's the thing.


My baby is ACTIVE. He's a belly ninja crossed with a Jack Russell. He has distinct periods of being asleep, but other than that he's kicking my ribs, pushing against my uterus, and generally rolling around in there. Again, it's like gestating a pissed off house cat. He also doesn't like anything on his belly. He always wiggles around during ultrasounds, when they use a little fetal heartbeat monitor (a much smaller machine than the one they hooked me up to yesterday), or even if someone is just touching my stomach. 


When they hooked me up to the fancy fetal heartbeat monitor it has a plastic disc they place over where the baby is. It then stays there for 20 minutes while they get a reading of his heartbeat. There's also a second plastic disc for my contractions. I think you can see where this is going. He kept moving off the monitor at first, and then even when he stayed put, he still wasn't in the best position for it. At the end, the heartbeat reading had all sorts of weird stuff going on. Stuff where the baby's heartbeat kept dropping to scary-low numbers.

They sent me over to the hospital as a result, so the hospital could monitor the baby more closely. They gave him an ultrasound and monitored both of us for what seemed like eternity, but everything came out fine. I am still having pretty regular contractions, so the nurse was hopeful that it would progress into labor over the weekend. You and me both, sister.


If not, I am scheduled to be induced next Thursday, which actually means staying overnight at the hospital on Wednesday. I would really rather not be induced, so I am praying the baby decides to come before then.

For my part, I am trying those old wives' tales to induce labor. Reflexology on my feet and Eggplant Parmesan so far. I am leery of spicy food because a) I hate it. It upsets my stomach something fierce and I am a big fat wimp. About the only "spicy" food I can really tolerate is mild curry b) when you're having contractions, you're also super nauseous. At least, I was on Tuesday. So I think nausea + spicy food is probably a bad combination. 


Also, I am so not doing castor oil. The OB said it doesn't really work, and besides....ewwwwww.


So I am going to start the sure fire way to get the baby to come: start a big project. Babies have a devastating sense of irony, and if I start a huge project--and I mean, really start it--I'll go into labor. I've been editing, but not really the down and dirty making scene cards, print out the ms and tearing it apart. I didn't want to get too involved only to have to set it aside for a few weeks while I adjusted to being awake every 2-3 hours.

But forget it. It's time, I am sick of waiting, and the gloves are coming off.

How was your week?