Even though my due date is still five days away, this baby has already been practicing giving her parents a few extra gray hairs. Last Wednesday (~1.5 weeks ago) I actually went into labor in the middle of a sexual harassment training seminar at work (fun, right?). I had gone in really early that day because of the training thing, so we both worked full days even though we left 'early'. Anyway, I rushed back to work to finish stuff up, breathlessly told my co-workers I was in labor and sent an e-mail to my supervisor, and hopped on the shuttle to Jeff's work. Contractions were about ten minutes apart when I left so I was pretty sure I had plenty of time. They quickly progressed to every 3-5 minutes, but they weren't super strong/painful. I called my midwives' clinic anyway since they said to call if the contractions are every five minutes, lasting a minute, for an hour (the "5-1-1 rule") and the nurse told me to wait until the contractions were really painful. Ok, fine. I waited a couple of hours and still nothing, and I was starting to get concerned that I was just not feeling the pain or something weird was going on - my neurologist did tell me I have a high tolerance for pain. So I called again and the midwife on call, while very sympathetic, told me I still wasn't ready. She tried to be pretty reassuring but all the stress and frustration that had built up just wasn't making me very patient. I am glad she was so good to me, because I was crying and frustrated and it really wasn't her fault. Jeff recommended I go to bed, and I was actually able to fall asleep. For a while I woke up frequently, always having a contraction, but fell back asleep so I'm not really sure how frequent they were.
When I woke up the next morning...nothing. I was back to the irregular contractions I'd been having for weeks (different from the Braxton Hicks contractions I have been having for MONTHS, and am still having). I happened to have a midwife appointment the next day, and I had made hardly any progress cervix-wise. The midwife was super nice and comforting, and I was a lot more relaxed. Because I was exhausted and had a killer headache, I stayed home from work - after telling everyone there was no baby, of course. The next day, a Friday, I went back to work, and I worked the whole next week. Let me tell you, it is super fun having to explain to like 30 people what happened, when most people (myself included, until last week) think that labor = having a baby. This wasn't false labor, it was the real thing, it just didn't progress.
Ever since then I've been having a ton of contractions and they've gotten pretty freaking intense, but nothing regular. The suspense is seriously killing me, not to mention it's not all that fun having painful contractions at work. I've been so exhausted from lack of sleep (because of course, the worst/most frequent contractions are at night) that I considered not going back to work next week, but I've decided to just take it day by day. Then, today, the baby decided not to move. This is crazy because she is seriously the World's Most Active Baby. The midwives (and my books, and my baby class) have told me to call if I experience decreased movement, particularly after doing a kick count (drink OJ, lay down for an hour, wait for at least four kicks). I was freaking out when I realized I hadn't felt her for hours, but I did the OJ thing and laid down. I put my hands on my belly, poked her, prodded her...nothing. For an hour. By the time I called the midwife on call I was pretty hysterical, and it didn't help that Jeff was at work and I had to wait for him to get home. I was seriously thinking over and over again that if something was wrong, I would never forgive myself for not acting sooner - I had noticed she wasn't moving but was distracted and just figured she was having a quiet moment. The midwife told me it was probably fine but to definitely come in, so Jeff dropped everything at work (potentially ruining the experiments he'd been working on all week...) and we went in. They did a non-stress test, where they strap on some monitors and measure the baby's heartbeat for 20 minutes. The baby passed with flying colors, which was a huge relief. My blood pressure was sky high at first, small wonder, but it did return to normal eventually.
I felt so bad for ruining Jeff's experiments, and I was really kicking myself for not noticing the lack of movement sooner (and therefore doing the kick count and going to the hospital sooner). The midwife assured me that I did the right thing by calling and coming in, but I feel so silly getting so worked up for 'nothing'. We went back to Jeff's work, where he tried to salvage his stuff, and then we went to a sushi place - it was my way of apologizing, sort of, especially since I sort of chewed him out for taking so long to get to me. I am glad we went because I had some AWESOME teriyaki salmon and shrimp gyoza, and now we have found a place in Seattle where Jeff can get the sushi he loves and I can eat something other than the lame non-raw stuff that other places only stick on the menu for weirdos like me. The day was so exhausting, I am already for bed and it's just after 9 pm. It's extremely frustrating being in limbo like this, especially because she's still not making noticeable movements (I likely can't feel them because of my Braxton Hicks contractions, combined with the fact that she's cramped in there and making smaller movements) and it will be hard to make the judgement call in the same situation in the future. My doctor told me that we're probably good for 48 hours. I'm not going to lie, part of me was hoping that they were just going to induce me today and get this pregnancy over with. I have had a pretty awesome pregnancy, but these last two weeks have been ROUGH. Hopefully the baby cooperates and we can get our grocery shopping done tomorrow, and next time she decided to do something dramatic, it will be the real thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment