Round two . . . a bit more dramatic (part I)

"This has been a very crazy Christmas celebration.

It all started Sunday, just hours after seeing my Dad leave for St. Louis my modified bed rest was about to come to an end.

During the night I started to feel a strange tightening that wasn’t BITB pushing against me or the painless Braxton-hicks that I had experienced before. This was closer to the pelvic bone and contained a little bit of pain. That night I probably experienced this 4 or 5 times.

Monday, I went about my day as best I could entertaining Jackson and trying to mind my bed rest rules as best as I could. I can’t actually remember what I did that day, we were housebound with snow falling and the bed rest, but the point of the story that matters is that I was feeling those kind of painful lower pelvic tightening between every 30 to 90 min.

I started to become a little anxious about them and while getting ready for bed Ross and I reviewed what constitutes false labor, or real contractions, and what might happen to me, and BITB, if this was in fact preterm labor (I wasn’t even 34 weeks yet! Not until Christmas Eve).

After deciding that my “contractions” were normal, especially for a second pregnancy, and most likely B-H since they went away when I moved or drank water, we went to bed knowing I’d call my doctor in the morning just to let her know what I was experiencing.

I didn’t sleep much Monday night as my “contractions” were coming closer and closer together. They weren’t necessarily increasing in pain but would occasionally increase in how long they lasted, and didn’t quite go away like the ones during the day had when I moved around or drank water. I was awake most of the night and wandering around the house to try and shake the contractions. (Oh, and that's when I discovered our Christmas tree had fallen over--at least it went towards the windows and not the center of the room.) I decided I didn’t care what the office said when I called for my doctor, I was just going to let them know I was showing up as soon as I dropped Jackson off at school.

I got Jackson safely to school, with only a few slips on the snow piling on the roads, and told his teachers that there is a possibility that someone else might be picking him up as I wasn’t sure what was going to happen that day.

I called my doctor, informed the receptionist that I was coming and made my way slowly through the unplowed roads to my doctor.

My doctor wasn’t there but I was seen by another in the office who listened to all I had to tell of my recent hospital adventure and of these things that I’m almost certain are real contractions happening. . .

She hooked me up to the monitors and I hung out for 20-30 min while the baby’s heart beat and my contractions were recorded. The doctor wasn’t too pleased with how BITB was reacting to the contractions (shying away from the monitors so the heartbeat would cut out) and said that she would send me to the hospital for a better monitoring of everything (since they have more sensitive equipment). She then examined me and proclaimed that I was now about 4 cm dilated and that I am to go directly to the hospital and most likely will be spending the night there . . .

I made appropriate arrangements for Jackson pick up, headed to the hospital and called Ross to meet me at the hospital."

--Clare