At 26 weeks, I began getting contractions. My belly would just involuntarily seize up, as if I was doing crunches or something, without warning, out of nowhere. The contractions would last about a minute each, and stop me in my tracks. If I was walking, I would stop and just breathe into the pain. It was a scary feeling, although everyone said "oh it's braxton hicks" (braxton hicks are known as non-painful, practice-like contractions before a woman goes into labor. they happen for everyone at different times, but usually are only handful of times a day.) My contractions though, were typically 4-5 an hour, and almost with no break were every day, to every other day, from week 23 to 37!!!!
This went on til the end of the pregnancy.
I went to Labor & Delivery on October 2nd and contractions were stopped for the FIRST time, with terbutaline, a shot in my leg. I have some old blogs on this that I will figure out how to post.
All in all, I went to Labor &Delivery 15 TIMES between the last week of October, 25 weeks to 37 weeks when I was finally induced.
I say "finally", even though I KNEW it was WAY too early to deliver, and how important it was for her to stay in there and get bigger and full-term and healthy. I prayed every day that she would be okay, and thank God, she is!!
But it was awful! I could barely go anywhere or do anything because the contractions would start again. All I had to do was stand up, and they would start again. Sometimes they were 10 minutes apart.
I never REALLY knew if I was in labor or not. Sometimes it would be so bad, I would cry myself to sleep. I would try not to wake up my husband and "bother" him, even though he was always wonderful. I think even my doctor was a little like --what's with this girl? Sometimes the on-call doctor was a jerk over the phone. For all the times that I called asking for advice or if I should go to L&D, there would be twice as many times that I didn't call or do anything.
I was put on terbutaline as a pill, at 32 weeks. I was ordered to take 2.5mg every six hours 4x a day. It worked at first, but the side effects were terrible!
I had a racing heart, the back of my head would itch strangely, and I felt like absolute hell! The contractions would ease though, so it was mostly worth it. I think I developed an immunity to it though, because it eventually stopped working and I dealt with awful contractions again. The following is a blog I wrote at 26 weeks after they stopped contractions for the first time....
This is me at 24 weeks....just before this next blog...
went to the doctor, the hospital, actually for the 3rd time, last night. I called my doctor because I was having contractions; my belly was tightening up all day, every 10-20 minutes, even if I was sitting doing nothing. It was very concerning to me. I was also having a low backache, and was winded very easily. I walked around Target to get some things, and felt like absolute crap afterwards. I had been having contractions every day for at least a week. I had gone the previous Monday to the hospital, where they did a lot of steps; they tested my urine, gave me a pelvic exam, with something called an ffn (fetal fibronectin, swab of the cervix). They monitored me for contractions, my blood pressure, and the baby's heart rate. Last week, the ffn came back negative, which was very good news, but I did have at least 4 contractions while I was hooked up there, about an hour's time.
This time, I am not sure how many contractions I was having. They turned the monitor away from me. My belly was very tight and stressed. The nurse came in almost immediately after I got hooked up, asked me a lot of questions, especially about how much I had been eating and drinking, etc. I really liked her.
My wonderful husband came, even though I told him he didn't have to. He really calmed me down. I was extremely nervous about what was going on. It was a good thing he came, because that's when they decided to give me an IV of fluids to hydrate me, and a shot in my leg of terbutaline to stop the contractions. The shot made me nervous, but didn't hurt much at all. The IV freaked me out completely. I had never had one before (that I can recall, although I am sure I did to get my tonsils and wisdom teeth out). It was so weird to feel this cool liquid go into my arm.
I read that this is pre-term contractions, and not pre-term labor. Pre-term labor means there are changes in the cervix, where there has absolutely not been any. Thank God! The most important thing in all of this is that the baby looks great! Her heart rate is wonderful and she is not in any stress at all. Yay! My little pumpkin. She has a lot of time left to cook, so my plan is to do anything I need to do to keep her in there for as long as possible. If I need to drink a gallon of water a day, that's what I will do. anyway, I am a couple days away from the 3rd trimester, yay! The homestretch is coming up.... I am 26 weeks, 5 days....
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