38 weeks and the neverending pregnancy.

The irony of this pregnancy (besides the obvious that I had preterm labor at 33 weeks yet am somehow still pregnant at 38 weeks) is that something that will bring me so much joy and happiness in a "short" while is currently causing so much {physical} pain and moodiness.  How many times have I said that this pregnancy is very different from Delia's?  I know I sound like a broken record but only because it's true.  Everything was so easy and effortless with her.  Despite knowing that this is it for me when it comes to using my body has a baby maker, I wonder if I had another pregnancy if it would be just as hard on me or not. 

I saw my doctor twice this past week. This is the point where things may start to get a little gross and detailed but I don't think anyone who reads this blog would care.  On Tuesday I asked her to strip my membranes, knowing it might not do anything.  I was 1.5 cm and still about 50% so she obliged.  She instructed me to go home, do what you can do at this point to naturally bring on labor (walk and have sex) and come back on Friday.  I did that and also noticed some other changes in my body so I was pleased to find out on Friday morning that I had progressed to 2 cm, almost 80% effaced and the baby had moved down a bit to -2 station.  Unfortunately, nothing monumental has happened since and 2 and a half days later, I'm still pregnant. 

I'm sure some of you (and I know other people in my life) are wondering why this upsets me so much when I haven't reached my due date yet.  I will tell you.  One: I am beyond uncomfortable.  Daily I have a variety of pains that I can't escape.  The rib burning and back pain is the worst and it brings me very close to tears some days.  Two: I've prepared myself mentally to have an early baby because of the preterm issues.  It's very hard to turn that around in your head once it's no longer a possibility.  Three: I am a giant, hormonal mess and I have lost all control.  My daily mood swings are ridiculous.  I go from being somewhat happy to okay to completely depressed within hours.  Just today I had a near breakdown over a slush from sonic.  Four:  I don't want to be in the hospital on Thanksgiving.  That one is just sort of a tag-along but it's true.  I was really hoping to have this baby before then and right now I feel like that's not going to happen.  I also don't want to be induced.  I have this great fear of induction.  I haven't had the conversation yet with my doctor and I'm also afraid that even though she might say 41 weeks is okay, I will crack and ask for it to be sooner because I'm so ready to get this baby out of my body.  What's most amazing to me is that when I see that precious little baby face for the first time, all of this will seem like it was nothing. 

So here I keep going....trucking along until it's my turn.  Please don't tell me soon though.  I can't handle that phrase anymore. 

37 weeks and my water broke! uh, just kidding.

So I made it 37 weeks (yayyy....please note my sarcasm).  37 weeks is generally considered full term in pregnancy however I've sort of been considering myself that since 35 weeks.  I really hit a low this week.  At my appointment on Tuesday I found out I've had little to no progress despite all the contractions I experienced over last weekend.  I really thought that something would have happened and I barely made it out of the doctor's office without crying.  I am just So. Done.  In addition, this little guy has made a habit of hanging out only on the right side of my belly.  He likes to keep his feet up in my ribs and it's resulted in a constant burning throughout the day.  I can't even sit straight up comfortably.  Standing helps but I also can't stand all day.  It's a very frustrating place to be in. 

My sister has been walking with me at the mall every few days.  We do about 1.5-2 hours each time and each time I contract constantly and have pressure.  Then it all stops after I get home and drink some water.  It's such a tease.  On Friday evening we went out again.  Just before 8 we decided to leave for home and as I was pulling my coat from the back of the car and standing in the parking lot, my water broke!  It was this uncontrollable gush of fluid that soaked me from my waist to my feet, even my beloved Toms.  I just sort of stood there in the dark parking lot, with a small puddle beneath me, and didn't know what to do next.  My sister came back out of the car and asked why I wasn't getting in.  I told her I either peed myself A LOT or my water broke.  She rushed over to my side of the car and confirmed what I thought, water.  So she got in the driver's seat and we took a quick trip back to her house for towels.  I called Seth and let him know what was happening and then called my doctor who said to just go over to triage so they could check things out.  I really couldn't believe this.  My water didn't break at the start of labor with Delia and I already had an epidural when they did it in the hospital.  I drove home and experienced a couple more small gushes just before getting in to the house.  Seth already called his parents who were on their way to stay with Delia.  I packed up the rest of my bag and thought, "well, this is really it....finally after all this preterm stuff".

It was a busy night at triage and we had to wait a little while for a bed.  Once you're settled they do a test to confirm that it is amniotic fluid leaking by swabbing and then looking at it under a microscope.  They asked me a lot of questions and I very quickly got the feeling that they didn't think my water had broken.  After looking under the scope, the midwife came in and told me it was not fluid but discharge and they were sending me home.  I was shocked.  I told her again how much had come out of me.  I knew it wasn't pee and I had never heard of discharge soaking your pants down to your feet.  It was a gush of liquid, not some little trickle.  I was (and still am) so upset.  I couldn't believe I was going through this after everything else.  She said sometimes there are pockets that can build up and release (again, never heard of this before) but would do an ultrasound to measure the fluid just to be sure.  A resident came up to do the ultrasound and he said I had an abundance of fluid (maybe a little more than average) and a healthy looking baby.  So that's it, I wasn't in labor and home I went.  I was angry, emotional, upset and I cried. 

I know these last few weeks are a drop in time but they feel so long when you are going through them.  I always remind myself so that I don't say something foolish to a pregnant woman at the end of her pregnancy.  I find that people very quickly forget how miserable they were and lack the sympathy that we overly hormonal preggos need.  Soon this guy will come and I will have him in my arms.  I just really hope I don't have to go through any more false alarms.  Emotionally, I don't think I can handle it. 

36 weeks and hurricane sandy.

It's been an interesting week.  Monday morning I had my weekly doctor appointment and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed that there had been no progress.  It's good though because it means the pills were doing their job.  My GBS test results were negative (no IV meds needed during delivery) and my 3 hour glucose tolerance results were all normal draws (I knew it!).  So I'm glad all that nonsense is over.  Tuesday was the day to stop the procardia.  I think my 11:30am pill was the last one I took and I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  They said I would experience a "tsunami of contractions" but I didn't know how soon it would start.  To top it off, Hurricane Sandy rolled in and we lost our power on Monday night.  On Tuesday Seth, Delia and I took ourselves over to my sister's house who still had electricity to spend the day.  We spent Tuesday night at home and while watching a movie on the laptop, I started to experience some contractions.  Nothing a few bottles of water couldn't help though.  On Wednesday, still without power and a house becoming ever colder, Delia and I went back to my sister's (Seth's company opened up again).  Since Wednesday was Halloween, we took Delia trick or treating that night and I decided to join in on the walking in hopes that it would help move things along.  Our power returned Wednesday night but we stayed at my sister's house since we had already planned on it.  I'm so thankful that we could crash with her but I was happy to be able to go home on Thursday.  Unfortunately, we didn't do much to save anything in our refrigerator or freezer so upon my return home, I basically just cleaned out the whole thing.  That was not on my list of nesting tasks but I suppose it needed to be done anyway.  I also did some laundry, general cleaning up and made a trip to the grocery store (with Delia in tow) to restock some essentials.  I overdid it, as I usually do, and I was having constant contractions throughout the day.  As fast as they were coming, they still weren't "real" labor though and after I finally took a break, sat down and guzzled water, they tapered off.  I was able to rest a bit on the couch which turned out to be beneficial because I was so stuffed up overnight that I didn't sleep much. 

I am admittedly miserable.  I'm never comfortable, I can't do anything easily and I'd much rather have this little guy on the outside instead of the inside right now.  I know I'm weeks away from my due date but I really hope he comes early now that I know they won't stop him.  I plan on trying some natural induction methods this weekend.  

Picture update:

36 weeks.

36 weeks, 3 days.  I only added this because it's the one time I've managed to put boots on this pregnancy.  Noteworthy of course. 

35 (almost 36) weeks. still preggo.

Well, we made it through the hard part.  At my appointment this past Monday, my doctor officially released me from bed rest.  She said, "Not to sound rude, but I don't care what you do from here on out."  Most people will think 35 weeks is still too soon to have a baby and I admit, I'd like him to cook a bit longer, but I feel much more comfortable now than I did 2 weeks ago.  The steroid shots have developed his lungs to that of 37 weeks gestation (which is generally considered full term).  I am still taking procardia but I am now on an every 6 hour cycle instead of 4.  On Tuesday I will stop them completely.  My contractions have not completely disappeared and now that I'm actually up moving around a little more they have increased.  The worst is yet to come though.  Apparently when you stop taking this medicine, contractions will hit like a tsunami.  This could last for a couple days.  Now I'm just concerned that I'll be so used to it that I won't know when the real labor actually starts!  My water didn't break on its own with Delia and I can't assume that it will this time.  Then at least I'd have a sure sign.  I sort of feel like a first time mom all over again since this pregnancy has been drastically different from the first.  I barely had any braxton hicks then and when contractions started, they were the real thing. 

Without the help of my family staying with me (my sister Kelsey and my mom) and all the wonderful meals that were brought to us by friends, I would not have been able to follow the bed rest restrictions.  With a 20 month old, it's pretty impossible to sit on a couch all day.  We've had such great help and I'm very, very thankful for that.  Seth and I are so fortunate to have family that's close and friends that care. 

If I could guarantee his health, I'd have this little guy today.  I'm so uncomfortable.  I don't sleep well between taking the pills, going to the bathroom and general pregnancy aches and pains.  I'm really looking forward to the benefit of all these things.  Just a few more weeks, right?

34 week belly.....he dropped causing more reasons to be uncomfortable.

35 weeks belly

heading to week 34 and preterm labor.

So yeah, I never thought I'd be one of these people.  High risk pregnancies are not uncommon.  I know people that have experienced them and I feel horrible saying that I've never paid much attention to it.  I had a perfect uncomplicated pregnancy my first time around.  I'm young, generally in good health and there never seemed a reason to worry.  I didn't think I'd be joining this club.

Here's the story:
Probably around the time I last posted, I had started experiencing some braxton hicks (BH) contractions.  Again, not uncommon in your third trimester.  Unfortunately I seemed to be experiencing them more often than I should have been.  I let it go for quite some time, pushing it off to the back of my mind and continuing on with my very hectic life.  A week ago Friday while sitting at work I had been feeling okay and was hit by several BH right in a row accompanied by sudden intense back pain.  Normally I wouldn't think anything of the back pain as that's been present for most of my pregnancy but I had a mother to be massage earlier in the week and my back was actually feeling quite good.  My sister said she thought it was time I called the doctor.  We go to the same OB/GYN and her having 4 kids herself, I trusted her judgment.  I know she's like me and tends to push herself more than she should so if she thought I should call, then I should probably call.  My midwife was on call as it was already after hours and she told me to leave work, take some tylenol, a nice hot bath, drink a lot of water and rest.  Doing these things seemed to help some and I went on with the weekend as normal.  Monday morning was my scheduled appointment.  We discussed the contractions I'd been experiencing and the Friday night incident.  She decided to check me and do a fetal fibronectin test since I was still pretty early along.  The check proved that my cervix was still long and closed (great news) and the test results would take a few hours to come back.  I was informed that if I did not hear from her, the results were negative and everything was fine.  The downside to this appointment was that I failed my second 1 hour glucose tolerance test by a few points and they wanted me to take the 3 hour one plus I was slightly anemic and needed iron supplements. 

Side note:  A fetal fibronectin test is a better indication that preterm labor will NOT occur.  It is usually used to rule out this possibility.  If positive, that really only means that there is a chance the woman will experience preterm labor in the next 2 weeks. 

I did not hear from my midwife on Monday afternoon so I assumed the results were negative and everything was peachy.  On Tuesday morning she called me.  She said the lab did not contact her with the results and she followed up that morning.  My test showed positive (a chance I could experience preterm labor) and because I was still early at only 33 weeks, they wanted me to to get steroid shots to help develop the baby's lungs.  I was sent over to the OB triage unit at the hospital for the first shot and monitoring.  The shots must be given 24 hours apart so I knew I would have to make a trip on Wednesday as well.  So Tuesday was fun.  I spent about 5 hours in l&d.  Once hooked up to all the monitors they could see that I was contracting quite often, even ones I didn't feel.  I was put on IV fluids and given two doses of some other medicine (can't remember the name) to help stop the contractions.  This medicine made my heart race like crazy.  I was checked again and had no change in cervix.  After the second injection of this medicine, they agreed that I could go home. 

Tuesday night I was awake all night with consistent, long BH.  They weren't necessarily painful but they were strong.  I didn't call because I knew I was going back in the next day, but perhaps I should have.  I was back at triage around 12:30-1 on Wednesday, hooked up to monitors, getting more shots and just hanging out.  I was checked again and was 30% effaced and 1 cm.  Not good because that means it happened overnight.  My OB came in to see me and decided she wanted me to stay for monitoring until at least 8pm.  They were going to continue with fluids and try some meds to stop contractions.  It became apparent pretty quickly that these methods weren't working so the next step was magnesium.  I've heard some things about this and I wasn't excited.  Apparently it's very beneficial for the baby but not a party for the mom.  It made me hot, weak and gave me flu like symptoms.  I did fairly well on it for the first 12-15 hours but after that I was starting to lose my positive attitude.  I couldn't get out of bed during that time so that means a catheter :( and I couldn't sleep.  I was on magnesium until about 4:30pm on Thursday and then they started an oral medicine called procardia.  My contractions had not been eliminated completely but they had definitely spaced out.  My OB felt that should they be held at bay overnight during observation, I would be allowed to go home.  Friday I was released with a prescription to take procardia every 4 hours and bed rest. 

That leaves me here, living by an alarm.  I'm really not allowed to do much but go to the bathroom.  Fortunately we have one on each floor.  I can't do steps more than 2-3 times a day.  It's really hard to stick to these guidelines but Seth has been amazing and my sister Kelsey is staying with us for the week.  My doctor would really like me to get to Tuesday - 34 weeks - and then work on making it to the following Tuesday at 35 weeks.  She said she won't keep restrictions on me at that point even though it will still be early.  It will give the baby sufficient time to have the steroid shots do their job and there will be a greater chance he won't spend any time in the NICU.  Of course there could still be issues but I'm trying not to think about all of that.  I'm leaning on the support of all my wonderful family and friends.  I know that other than following the doctor's orders, this is out of my control.  Some women experience these things and then go on to carry full term.  I honestly don't believe that will be the case for me because I do still have some contractions, although not consistent.  I have a strong feeling that once I'm off the meds and moving around again, things will kick into high gear.  A preterm baby is never anyone's expectations but it happens.  I just want him to be as healthy as possible when he does finally arrive.     

Hopefully these aren't the last few pictures!

what week am I at again?

With this pregnancy, I find myself constantly forgetting how far I am without actually thinking about it first.  I guess that's what happens when you are working a full time job, taking care of a toddler, trying to still be a decent wife AND deal with extra, outside things.  Man, it was so much easier the first time around.

I'm 30 weeks, 5 days.  More than 3/4 way there.  Tomorrow I have a doctor appointment and then I go every 2 weeks.  At 35/36 weeks I start going every week.  When I think about it in those terms, I realize how close I am to the end.  I find myself somewhere between excited and anxious.  Excited to meet my little boy and be a mom to a newborn again.  Anxious because we aren't ready for him to arrive at the moment.  I still have nothing to report on the progress of his room other than the fact that I ordered some super adorable crib sheets and a matching blanket. 

I know I talked about it last time but I am growing increasingly uncomfortable.  I'm sitting for many hours a day at a desk and typically end up with a sore back.  Seth just gave me the go ahead on a mother to be massage so I'm looking forward to scheduling that.  I'm thinking sometime the first or second week of October.  The acid reflux really picked up too.  It was getting so bad that it was keeping me awake in the middle of the night.  I called my doctor and they gave me several over the counter things to try as well as raw cauliflower (?) and papaya.  I bought the zantac and started taking one before bed.  It's made a huge difference and allows me to get several hours of sleep in a row.  He is just as active as ever.  He tends to prefer my right side and occasionally will curl (what feels like) his whole body up on that side.  It does not feel good at all.  I also know he's getting bigger in there because I've had moments where I'm unable to breathe properly because of how he's situated.  These are the wonderful aspects of the 3rd trimester.  :)   

I also had to go buy two new pairs of jeans.  I needed the ever so attractive full panel this time since I am carrying more in front and lower.  Most of the pants I had from Delia were under belly and they were very, very uncomfortable.  I wasn't thrilled to have to spend money but it seemed necessary to get me through to the end.  

And of course a picture recap...29 weeks

30 weeks.

weeks 26-28.

Did I mention that all of a sudden my pregnancy seems to be in fast forward?  Going back to work full time leaves less time to actually bask in the moments that are left.  This makes me sad as we will go from a family of 3 to a family of 4 in less than 3 months.  I know I'm not the first mother ever to be concerned about how their firstborn (and currently only) child will react to a sibling.  I'm glad that Delia is young enough not to have been an only child for too long yet worried enough that she will feel pushed to the side.  While she can't possibly understand how special of a place she holds in my heart, I hope that she will always feel my love.  She MADE me a mother.  Any additional child will just add on to this wonderful experience.  Thoughts on this topic come and go, but I'll just leave them there for now. 

As far as the pregnant part, it's beginning to get pretty tough.  I feel large (which I sort of am since I have gained 30 lbs), I tire easily, and most movements are difficult.  Sitting in a computer chair 8-10 hours a day is not comfortable.  Walking for long periods is not comfortable.  Sleeping is not comfortable.  This little guy is quite the mover and his little jabs and kicks are sometimes painful.  As I type this he's been kickboxing right behind my belly button which is the WORST spot to do that.  I don't know why but it really hurts.  I try to push back at him in hopes he will move positions but it doesn't seem to be working.  He is much more active than Delia ever was and I never considered her to be a lazy baby.

We still have a ways to go with being prepared for his arrival.  At the moment he doesn't have a place to sleep.  I'm starting to feel anxious about this, but I should know from previous experiences that it will all be worked out before it needs to be.  I just like to feel ready and I don't yet.  Knowing I have less time to do things does not help the cause.  I really need Seth to get motivated though because he has to do most of the work.  I guess I'll just keep on nagging, haha.  Hopefully by next update I will have something to report.

Picture recap:

26 weeks.

27 weeks.

28 weeks - 3rd trimester!