Current Events... and a night at the hospital

"You're still pregnant?! Where's the baby?"

Okay, so I'm hearing that a lot lately. :) I suppose having a lot of contractions (whether they become more uncomfortable/painful or not) doesn't really say much about when the baby will come. I, myself, am beginning to wonder sometimes if this will indeed be a June baby. :)

Honestly, I think the hardest part for me is not knowing how to trust my body. There are so many weird symptoms and feelings with pregnancy, that I never know if it's (1) normal, (2) a sign labor is imminent, or (3) a problem. ... Sometimes I feel like I'm going a little crazy. Like right now, for instance, I keep getting these sharp pains in my abdomen and upper legs-- Is that just the sciatic nerve? Am I starting labor? Or do I need to worry?

I feel bad for Christian having to go through this, too... for I don't know how rational I am at present. Last Sunday... oh, it wasn't a good day... I was having a horrible headache for a couple hours and I remembered how one of the books said that I should call my doctor if I had a bad headache. Well, I thought they'd probably either tell me to rest some more or if they made me come in, they'd just take my blood pressure and send me on my way. Well, at 10pm I called the doctor and he told me to go into Labor/Delivery to get checked out. We went in (expecting a quick visit) and as soon as I entered the room I knew I was in trouble. The nurse was setting up the room and told me that I would likely be spending the night!!! The night... for a headache! All of a sudden, the headache was not so bad anymore.

Well, so they hooked me up to an IV, put a blood pressure cuff on my other arm (which measured the BP every 15 mins!), and put those two contraptions on my belly which would monitor the baby's heartbeat and my contractions. Apparently, in the last couple weeks of pregnancy a headache can be a sign of a dangerous condition (pre-clampsia) that can only be cured through delivery. I guess it's such a big deal... as in, if I had had it (which I didn't!) the baby or I could have died. But all was well, and at midnight the labs came back and everything was normal... my headache had even disappeared. But... the doctor told the nurse (via a phone conversation) to keep me overnight... just to be sure. :) I was thrilled. We sent Christian home and I didn't end up sleeping a wink all night. I just sat there in the bed, trying to sleep for hours... 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am.... by the time 7am rolled around and the doctor came I was ready to bolt out of there and did not want to be coming back for ANYTHING (labor or not) for the next couple days. :)


Oh, when I was at the hospital the nurse noticed a couple things on the monitor. One was how active the baby was. "He doesn't ever sleep, does he?" I smiled... finally some validation. It's true, he kept moving and jostling all night. Actually, I think he may have night time and day time mixed up, because he doesn't seem to move as much during the day. She also noticed that I had been having a lot of contractions (surprise, surprise) and that, for a while, they were pretty regular. "Have you been feeling these?" Sometimes, I said. I asked her if true labor contractions would start off as strong as these and she just nodded and said, 'yes!' :)

Well, so... we'll see. I've been dilated a bit for the last month (1-2 cms) and effaced quite a bit too (depending on the doctor checking, I'm either 80-90% or 50%). I have my next doctor's appointment on Monday and I plan to ask him how long he plans on making me go before they finally induce me. (fingers crossed! I hope it's not too long)