fire drill

to continue documentation of my pregnancy drama...

For some reason, my body doesn't like being pregnant. I tend to have a lot of early contractions, which is something that began earlier and earlier with each pregnancy. They are usually random and don't mean anything with regards to onset of true labor. Usually it starts with a strange wave of nausea, feeling uncomfortably hot and then the tightening of my stomach. Sometimes it's mild enough I have to feel my stomach to actually check that it's a contraction and not just the baby's movement. So it's uncomfortable but not a big deal (and more common than you might expect). I've heard it called non-progressive labor or an irritable uterus but I best explain it by saying my body simply doesn't like being pregnant. I've talked with the doctor about it and he's given me guidelines to watch for but he isn't too worried about it.

But this weekend, we did have a minor scare. The contraction were 10-15 minutes apart through most of Saturday and then more mild in the evening. Through the night, several woke me up, being more uncomfortable than usual. Then on Sunday morning, they were 10 minutes apart and more intense than normal. I sat through our first meeting at church and then went home to drink more water and lay down (my typical way of getting them to relax). I finally called the doc hoping for some reassurance that the heat or my recent travel or fatigue may be causing the sudden increase in discomfort. Instead, he strongly recommended going to the hospital. Now more alarmed and concerned that the baby might be in distress, we headed to the hospital.

I'm about 32 weeks along (far too early for this baby to come) so they hooked me up to the monitors and ran a few tests. Most importantly, the baby is fine. It was comforting to hear her heartbeat and know that she is okay. I was just beginning to dilate (but it's also my third baby so that's not strong evidence for being in labor) but the monitors were picking up contractions even more frequent than I realized. So they gave me some drugs to stop the contractions, monitored me for awhile and sent me home with a prescription and orders for "limited activity". The drug is relatively new and is considered more effective (and with less side effects!) than the drug I was given for preterm labor with our first baby (that drug made me shake and caused pressure on my heart). Plus, I can take it at home to avoid more fire drills.

The nurse reassured us that there was apparently nothing we did to trigger it (I'm not dehydrated, it wasn't the heat or activity level, etc). So we don't know why we had a spontaneous little fire drill but we feel confident that the baby is fine and with this new medication we can keep her cooking until she's more ready to join us. I think perhaps she was just eager to join her friend since my cousin gave birth on Friday to a beautiful baby boy. (Congrats!)