It's less than a month until Baby Luke's due date and I'm stuck sitting down. Last week I began having a lot of Braxton Hick's contractions (prelabor contractions). They would occur every time I was on my feet for any length of time...and by any length of time, I mean like a minute or even thirty seconds sometimes. This is still the case. I went in to see the doctor last Thursday and was placed on meds to help calm my uterus to prevent early labor and told to rest...stay off my feet as much as possible. Nothing else was wrong with me or Luke. They hooked me up to a monitor for twenty minutes to check his heartrate and activity and they were impressed with his excellent read-out.
On Saturday I was more uncomfortable than ever. I was quite emotional and was feeling strange feelings in all sorts of places like my lower abdomen. On Sunday, I was still having the achiness and I also developed a horrible, throbbing headache. It was similar to a migraine but without the light sensitivity or nausea. I went to bed with the headache and it returned the next morning so I called the doctor's office and told them about all that was hapenning with my body.
They called back within twenty minutes and wanted to see me ASAP. Scary. I got cleaned up quickly and drove to my husband's office and he drove me to the doctor's office. Well, everything with Luke still looked good. I was good too...urine good, blood pressure good, etc... I had started to dilate, though. I was at 1 cm. I guess that is the cause of the achiness I felt and am still feeling.
Doctor wanted me to continue taking the meds and continue staying off of my feet as much as possible. After this coming Monday she wants to take me off of the meds and let nature take its course since I will be 36 weeks. As of today, I am beginning my 36th week. I am not happy with just letting labor occur this early, so I intend to continue sitting down for a little while longer.
Being stuck sitting down really stinks, though. For one thing, it's uncomfortable. My neck, hips, and back hurt from just sitting or laying and Baby Luke is getting so big that finding a comfortable sitting or laying position is difficult. He is still trying to dig up under my ribs, but as long as he's way up there, he's not trying to come out! When he finally drops, my worrying about him coming too early really is going to go through the roof.
Secondly, because of my procrastination, there is a lot left that I wanted to do before Luke's birth date and now that I can't be up moving around, it isn't going to get done. The house may not be as clean and organized as I want it, I may not have cooked some good food and put it in the freezer, and I may not have completed all the cute projects for Luke's room, but none of this is end-of-the-world type stuff. Luke is not going to know the difference, and Lee and I will manage. But, it stinks that my nesting instinct is kicking in and I can't really act on it.
Sitting down has given me time to read and re-read some parenting books like
Happiest Baby on the Block and
Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. I guess I need to get a copy of
Babywise too because I hear a lot of parents rave about it. At this time I can also be thankful for the return of fresh television programming and my friend and neighbor Marilyn who brings me lunch and watches movies with me on occasion. And, I'm actually posting on this blog again :)
