Never Mind the Good Baby Thing...

I made my first trip to OB Triage last night.  29 and 5--Not too bad.  Towards the end of Nate's baptism yesterday, I started noticing some contractions. Seeing that there were more important things to do (like refreshments and socializing), I chose to ignore them.  Then we got home and my back started to hurt.  So I started timing them.  That's when I realized that they were coming every 3-4 minutes like clockwork.  So I got in the bath, drank about 20 oz of water, and laid down.  Of course they'll stop, I stupidly told myself.  But two hours later, of course they hadn't stopped.  I called the doc on call, who ironically was the same doc who saw me when I started bleeding on Thanksgiving; she said I needed to come in.  Even though the contractions weren't painful, she was worried because I was having some cramping, backache, and bleeding (dang placenta!), along with my history of Preterm Labor.  Luckily my parents are in town for Nate's baptism (I'll post on it soon!), so we dropped the kids at their hotel, told them to eat pizza and watch a movie, then headed for Meriter.

My contractions spaced out a little bit by the time we arrived, but they were still coming and seemed to be getting a little stronger, though they definitely were not painful.  My back, on the other hand, was just killing me.  The triage beds didn't help... Baby was happy as can be on the monitor, moving all over and quite reactive, despite being only 29 wks.  The contractions were strong enough to be picked up by the toco--I don't know why, but I sometimes worry that I'm imagining them (even though I know I'm not), so I felt somewhat vindicated (against myself) by seeing them trace on the monitor.  The med student came in, then left because she was an old friend from high school, then sent in the resident.  The resident was not super concerned because I had a cervical length check (U/S) last Tuesday, which showed that my cervix was very long.  Everybody was so excited about this--It was so reassuring, things are looking great, etc.  Ha.  I got checked for infections as they can cause contractions, but luckily there were none.  The resident then did a speculum exam and told me that my cervix looked closed and fine, but she wanted to check me too.  I was so relieved and feeling good about heading home.  And then she checked me.  She told me I was 1cm dilated--I wasn't too worried about this, as I'm a multip and that can happen earlier/before effacement in multips.  She looked worried, though, so I asked if my cervix was still nice and long.  Then she told me that I was 60% effaced. CRAP.  So I got sent back to the monitor to wait for the lab results and get rechecked in a couple of hours.

Contractions continued to space out.  Unfortunately my Fetal Fibronectin came back positive.  This doesn't really mean anything, but it's not reassuring like a negative.  A negative FFN means that you have less than a 1% chance of delivering in the next 2 wks.  A positive result, though, doesn't mean that you will deliver.  So basically, only a negative result is useful.  The attending came in and talked to me about how I would probably be admitted for 48 hrs. for tocolysis and steroids.  I masterfully convinced her that if my cervix hadn't changed when they checked me again, I should be allowed to go home.  (L&D used to be my career, I'm so reliable, I'll call and come back ASAP if the contractions start up again, etc.)  She looked reluctant, but finally agreed.  Being a former L&D nurse married to a doctor has its benefits, I guess.  There was no further change in my cervix, so I got sent home on bed rest and told to follow up with my doc in the office tomorrow.

I'm trying to stay positive, but in all honestly, this sucks.  There are definitely benefits to doing this with older kids, rather than a two year old, but there are other complications with that, as well.  Nate has to get to and from school every day.  Abbie has to get to and from school 3 days a week.  Nate has choir and soccer practice.  Abbie has ballet and Frontier Girls.  And then there's the fact that I can't just expect Abbie to take care of herself all day.  I just don't know how we're going to do this.  Alan doesn't exactly have a schedule that allows for flexibility (at all).  He has patients scheduled all day, clinics at which he's the only doc, and patients who rely on him.  He can't just go in late and work extra at night.

And now I'm going to end this post before I get sucked into the negative whirlwind that's threatening to take me under.  We'll make it work somehow.  I've done this before; I can do it again.  We'll eat a lot of crock pot meals and the kid will watch a little more Netflix.  We'll survive.  We just need to keep this baby in for a while longer--That's what matters.