It's a little early.. don't you think?

So since this blog is about being a mother and the kids, i guess i could update about the pregnancy since I just had an appointment.

A little back-story and yes it is TMI but I'm pregnant and these things happen when you are pregnant (which if you are not pregnant right now you prolly will be eventually and then you will know what I mean).  So Wednesday evening I lost part of my mucus plug (sounds exactly as disgusting as it is for all you non-mothers), I didn't think much of it cuz something similar had happened while I was pregnant with Lily.  It has a way of regenerating itself and usually doesn't "mean" anything if you lose a little bit here and there.  So I went on with my evening figuring things were totally fine.

I woke up thursday morning feeling "weird", which while pregnant isn't usually a good thing.  People tend to feel "weird or off" right before they go into labor, but I tried to chalk it up to just being up a lot the night before with Lily since she had been sick.  Well around 11am I started having contractions.. again normal during pregnancy, they started out pretty irregular so I figured they were wonderful braxton hicks contractions (practice contractions for non-mamas).  Well by noon they were getting into a pattern, but still weren't hurting.  Now this would be the time *most* people would freak out and head to L&D and I would tell almost anyone to follow the advice that if you have more than 4 contractions in an hour to call your doctor but I have what is called an irritable uterus and these things happen often while i'm pregnant and i've never had issues w/ pre-term labor because of it.  So I ignored them and went on with my day.  I knew I had an appointment at 4pm and I figured i'd mention everything then.

I left for my appointment at 3pm and on the way i started loosly timing the contractions on the way to the dr's office because I knew they would want to know how frequent they were.  I was timing them at about 3-5 mins apart, they still weren't bad though so again I wasn't that concerned.  I got to my appointment and did all the appointment things and then the dr came in around 4:15.  She asked if I was having any "issues" (including but not limited to: contractions, loss of fluid, bleeding, decreased movements etc).  So I very calmly mentioned that I had been having contractions since 11am at about 5mins apart and that I thought I lost some of my plug yesterday.

My Dr. did not find the humor in it as much as I did and immediately yelled at me for not going to L&D.  So she "checked" me and lo-and-behold I am 1cm dilated.. not great.  So she ran a test called the fetal fibronectin test which screens for pre-term labor (or rather tries to predict whether what you are having will produce a baby in the next 2 weeks).  So she sent me and my test up to Labor and Delivery for them to run that test and have me on the monitors for a while to see what was going on with my contractions.

So I got up there and of course they were busy so I had to wait a little while but I was finally hooked up to the monitors and after a 40 min battle with the nurse about not having the monitor on right.. they finally started picking up the contractions that I swore up and down I was having whether they were picking them up on the screen or not.  So after 40 mins of them actually seeing my contractions in a regular pattern of 5 mins apart they had to give me a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions. (second time so far this pregnancy i've had to have contractions stopped with this medicine and it isn't fun - think heart beating out of your chest, headache, shaking and overall yuck feeling).

After I got that shot time went by and the contractions didn't slow down as much as they liked so I was given the pill form of terbutaline on top of the shot and left to wait again. I waited an hour after taking the pill and the Dr. came in and asked how I was doing.  I told her that the contractions were still there but they were a lot less intense, she said that was good enough for her.  Since my fetal fibronectin test came back negative it gives a 95+% chance that I WON'T go into active labor and deliver the baby in the next two weeks, so she was happy with the contractions just easing up.

However i'm not totally out of the woods, I am now on terbutaline pills every 4 hours until the middle of February when I will be a little over 36 weeks, in which case it will be "safe" to deliver. 

So I'm just kind of hanging out hoping that the next 30 days goes by fast and that we can get to a point where if Aiden decides to come out it won't be a problem.