Week 36

Cravings:

I'm hungry!!

Other symptoms:
Tired but can't sleep. Heartburn. Starting 9/20, more contractions.

Things bugging me:
No.... I am calm, cool, collected, mellow, and trying to keep that BP down.

Current weight: 166.8 (Had jumped up to 168.something after I ate everything in sight last weekend, but it went back down, thank goodness!)


Renovations:
P is still working on the loft. The one side is done and sealed and we moved all the crap onto it, so now he's working on the other side. I think he's almost ready to start laying the floors on that side, and I *think* it'll go quickly once he does, so that's cool.

Nursery = DONE!! Done, bitches!! I hemmed the curtains this weekend, and Preston hung them, and that was the last last thing that NEEDED to be done before The Kid makes her entrance. DONE!!!


Other stuff:
We hardly left the house this weekend, and it was everything I thought it could be. :-)

P actually got released from work early on Friday, so we spent the day together. Did the few errands that needed to be done with the goal of not leaving the house again. It felt like such a nice, loooooong day. Then Saturday I told him the curtains were my only goal, so we watched tv all day and figured out my new sewing machine and hemmed and hung curtains. Sunday he worked on the floors. I helped a bit, and folded laundry, and sent him out for food.

We were invited to the Astros game on Saturday, but I refused, and glad I did: they lost 11-1!! More than that, though, I was asleep on the couch before it was over - I can't imagine how miserable I'd have been if I had tried staying awake *at* the game! Good decision. Difficult, but good.

One more thing:
About those contractions... I think they started Monday morning early. Possibly when I was on the bike, or perhaps at work. In the beginning I just thought my pants were too tight (not unreasonable at this point). I kept tugging at them, trying to get them off my belly, etc, but I didn't notice any sort of pattern. At some point I think I might have realized that I was having BH contractions, but I still didn't think anything at all of it. But when I went to lunch at 2, they were hurting bad enough that I would stop eating and pet my belly through them. At some point at lunch I realized I had had waaaaaaay too many contractions in only a 30 minute lunch. So when I got back to my desk, I started timing them.

My notes look like this:
2:37
2:40 (?)
2:43 (S??)
2:46
2:50
2:53
2:56
3:01
3:05
3:08
3:13

HOLY SHIT!! At that point I busted out my app that counts contractions so I could get some better actual times for spacing and duration. Turns out they were coming every 4ish-6ish minutes, lasting 25-40 seconds.

Well, now what? All the websites say to call your doc if you get more than 4 Braxton Hicks contractions per hour. I sure as hell qualified for that. But if these were real contractions, I didn't think they were strong enough or long enough to warrant a call to my doc. Surely nowhere near the 60 second duration that was required...

I finally let the clock make my decision: it was almost 5, and any call I made after that would have to go to the doc on call through the answering service, etc. Easier to just call my own doc before 5. So I called. She said (sort of) what I expected. Lay down, drink water (she really doesn't believe that I drink 100+ oz. per day), call again if they get longer and stronger. She defined stronger as "taking your breath away". Interesting: there were one or two that were that strong, but not all and not consistently. She did move up my appointment from 4pm to 8:15 am, saying she wants to get me on a monitor and figure out what is up.

So.... we'll see. This morning they are coming 5-10 minutes apart, but a little longer: 45 seconds-ish.


Update:
Had my belly check this morning. I went in, and they put me on the monitor. The monitor was actually really cool: I could listen to The Kid's heartbeat, I was supposed to push this button every time she moved, and the machine would watch for contractions. Well, I didn't have one for the longest time, and I was afraid that I was going to look like an idiot. Then I got this huge pressure like she was pushing up at me, and I started clicking the button until I looked over and saw it graphing a contraction, and I realized it wasn't The Kid, it was really a contraction! I felt really vindicated... the whole monitor experience was really relaxing and cool.

When the doc came in after 20 minutes she said, "Well, the baby looks good, and you're really having contractions!" Yay!!

Then I went for my internal exam. I'm 1 cm dilated, 60% effaced, The Kid dropped a bit, but is still really high. Probably like a -4 station.

BP was still high - diastolic around 90... but no other factors for preeclampsia, so still just a wait-and-see.

Overall, really really excited that I've progressed so far! Let's get this show on the road!!