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| My doctor said I was at 4 cm on Friday. He also stripped my membranes. I've been having contractions around 6 minutes apart for over 2 weeks now - not Braxton Hicks. I've had Braxton Hicks contractions since week 20. These are the real deal, painful, catch-your-breath, have-to-do-my-breathing-exercises contractions. Cate's due date is a week from today. I really didn't think we'd make it to her due date, but now I'm starting to wonder.
I guess at this point we're just waiting for my brain to finally catch up with the rest of my body and start with the oxytocin. Or for my water to break. Oh yeah, about that - the doctor said I had a contraction while he was checking for dilation (I could have told him that). He said that during the contraction, my bag bulged out of my cervix quite a bit. So I could be part of that 10% who don't have to have their water broken at the hospital. As nice as that would be, now I'm completely paranoid that I'm going to ruin any surface I sit on.
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| Our Baby Cate is due August 2nd, but I've been having Braxton Hicks since week 20. Within the last week or so, those contractions have steadily gotten stronger and stronger. When I went in to see my doctor for our weekly appointment on Friday, I asked him to check me for dilation. I could tell he didn't think he would find anything, but I was 1cm and 75% effaced.
Sunday night my contractions started at 10 minutes apart and got down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds (and stayed there for 30 minutes). After they had been right at or under 5 minutes for an hour, we started getting ready to go to the hospital. We made one last check before heading out the door and discovered that my contractions were 6 minutes apart. By the time I went to bed, they were back to 11 minutes apart.
On Monday, I thought I might be leaking amniotic fluid (and the contractions were back to fiveish minutes apart) so we went to the hospital. I had progressed to 3cm and 90% effaced. The nurse said I would need to walk around the floor for an hour and be to at least 4 cm before my doctor would admit me. We SPRINTED around that hospital for the next hour. Can you tell I'm ready to get this kid out? Contractions were all the way down to 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
When I got back to triage, we watched the contractions go from around 4 minutes all the way back up to 7 minutes. It was so disheartening. I hadn't progressed past 3cm and 90% effaced, so they sent us home. These contractions are getting much worse, and my belly is so sore. I tried to go to work today, but I only made it to noon. Now I'm at home resting and trying to time contractions. They're right around 5 minutes apart, but we've been here before - it might mean nothing.
We're considering going in just to see if I've progressed past 3cm, but I'm not sure I can handle being turned away from the hospital yet again. Any suggestions?
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| I'm reposting this from a year or so ago. It means even more to me now that I'm pregnant.
I have been holding off on this topic for a long time, but I think it is time to go full-force: My husband could have (and, by some standards, should have) been aborted. Christine was 17 when she found out she was pregnant. She went to a very strict Catholic school, and he was the eldest of 5 brothers. He was already heavily dependent on alcohol and he was probably a drug user by that point, too. Three strikes, already: she was too young to deal with the consequences of parenthood, he was a role model for his younger brothers, and the baby might be deformed from his dad's drug and alcohol usage. Not to mention that in the early 80's, no one was standing outside of Planned Parenthood and preaching about God's love for the unborn - there wasn't enough publicity about abortion yet. My own mom took a friend to an abortion clinic in the late 70's because she had no clue what it really was (they left as soon as they understood). It makes me sick to think that this is the exact circumstance that pro-choice activists would promote as the ideal situation for a woman to 'take control of her own body' and have an abortion. What sick-o conservative would want this poor teenage woman to have to deal with the consequences of one night of fun? Me. I would. Chris and Paul Sr. married and had two more children. It didn't end up all rosy - Paul Sr. was a great daddy, but he still had to battle his addictions; and when they divorced a few years later Chris had to support the children on her own. The consequences of that 'one night of fun' still impact the family today, every day. Paul passed away a few years ago from complications of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. Chris still deals with side-affects from the daily stress of her 20's. Paul II is the best thing that ever happened to me. My mother-in-law and I don't have the best relationship in the world, but I am daily indebted to her for choosing life. If you are considering abortion as a way to end your problems, please - don't just think about your life. Think about your growing child's life. Think about all the thousands of people he or she will touch as he or she grows up. Think about your child's children, and how happy you will be to see them sitting on their daddy's knee in 30 years. Think about the people like me, and how radically different my life would be if that scared 17 year old girl hadn't chosen life in the spring of '82.
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| When we went in for the first ultrasound, the doctor said I was pretty dead-on with my guess at a due date. See, we chart and use Natural Family Planning (and did for almost a full year before we got pregnant)...so even though we got lucky on our first try, I had a pretty good idea of when conception actually happened. But the month before we conceived was really weird and I was 10 days late. So I guess there was some room for error.
I had a check-up this week. The doc said 'Next time I see you, you'll be telling me you can feel the baby!' I told the doctor 'Nope. I can for sure feel him.' He said 'Oh? So you're feeling the fluttering?'
Well...I've been feeling the baby for weeks now. He/she actually woke me up last weekend with a lazy slide across my belly. My husband felt the baby's head early this week, and the kid is on a pretty strict schedule of moving a lot at 11:30 AM and 3:30 PM every single day. He/she is actually moving around quite a bit right now.
So all of this gets me thinking...could I possibly be off in my due date guess? Or do babies in the 18th week usually move with this much force? When did you start feeling less of a flutter and more of a serious 'Mommy, I'm here!' movement?
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