The L&D Chronicles

Pregnancy and me are not really great friends. While I somehow managed to work up until the day before he was born, I was miserable for most of my pregnancy with Alex. I had awful morning all day sickness from the day the word pregnant showed on the test to the day he was born. I gained a ton of weight and carried him so far in from of me, that from about 7 months on I was asked politely by the greeter of every store I entered, "please don't give birth in the aisles"...

34 weeks with Alex

Then there was labor. Two weeks of contractions 5 minutes a part and zero progress toward making the baby come out. I would go into L&D, get hooked to the monitor and told that yes, my contractions were strong, long and close together. I walked the halls of the hospital for hours but nothing happened so I would get sent home and the nurses would say how they expected us back to have baby by the next day.  Finally after my bazillionth visit to L&D with the same exact scene being played out I had a nurse that took pity on me and talked the doc into starting an induction. They hooked me up with an epidural immediately and for the first time in weeks I could sleep. After a couple of hours they broke my water and gave me meds to make my contractions even stronger. 24 hours later still no progress had been made, and with the risk of infection going up quickly, my doctor decided it was time to forcibly evict our baby boy via c-section.

When Alex was born he had the pointiest head! When the nurse asked Matt, "Dad what do you think?" he responded flatly, "its a baby." He tell us now that what he was really thinking was, "its a cone head. My baby is a cone head! OMG! What are we gonna do with a cone-headed baby!" LOL. I guess I forgot to warn him about that, and also that it would indeed go away... My bad! The doc also announced that it was obvious they baby was really trying to get out, but it was likely my body would have never let him go naturally.

At least with Alex none of the real miserable contractions and almost labor started until he was actually full term. Miss Josslyn seems to have a different idea. Since 14 weeks I have been plagued with Braxton Hicks contractions about every 10-20 minutes daily. While annoying they weren't at all painful. That started to change in week 32, when they started to get a bit stronger. The Monday after my baby shower/bbq (at 34 weeks) I suddenly started experiencing contractions every 5 minutes and that quickly turned into every 2 minutes. I did everything I could think of that should alleviate Braxton Hicks, drank a ton of water and layed down on my left side with my feet elevated. After about an hour at 2 minutes a part they started getting more painful and the doctor decided I should go into L&D to get checked out. No changes to my cervix, but super strong contractions were seen on the monitor. The nurses gave me shots to make them stop and after a couple of hours I was able to go home.

A few days later at my OB appointment I was experiencing similar contractions so again I was sent to L&D and given shots to make them stop. I was able to get through the weekend until they started up again on Monday, same song 4th verse. At only 35 weeks, we really want baby to stay in for bit longer so her body has more time to prepare for life on the outside.

Early Wednesday morning I woke up to really painful contractions. Since it was only about 2 am I tried to just relax and go back to sleep, but I was in so much pain. I woke up Matt and asked him to help me get into a warm bath to try to relax. When that didn't work we resorted to calling my step-dad to take me in to L&D (again!). More shots and more fluids and more orders to rest, and I got sent home around 6 am. At about noon the pains started to come back. I drank as much water as I could and spent half my time in bed and the other half in the bath tub. By 8:30, Matt couldn't take my misery anymore and called my doctor. They discussed how important it was to try to get through to 36 weeks, and that I should definitely go back to L&D (despite my pleadings to stay home) just to make sure the baby was handling the contractions and that no changes where being made to my cervix. We talked about how even with these strong, long and patterned contractions that it is unlikely my body will actually go through the whole labor process, but that it is better to still check.

After 36 weeks (this coming Monday) they will no longer give me shots to stop the contractions. At that time, if I start contracting with the same intensity and pattern my doctor may make the decision to go ahead and deliver baby Josslyn via repeat c-section, 3 weeks before my scheduled date. It is scary/exciting to think that in just a few days we could be holding our baby girl.

However, I (not so) secretly hope that the contractions stop and I am able to make it to November 14th with out further incident. I know how much better it is for her to stay in as long as possible, and I don't want her to spend a single moment in the NICU or special care nursery. So that's it. Sometime between Monday and November 14th this baby will be born. We are all hoping she gets as much time as she needs and is as healthy as her big brother was on his birth-day. Think happy thoughts!