Pre-term labor - AGAIN

Well, I had the distinct pleasure of spending a few hours in labor and delivery last night. Thankfully everything is ok, but I did have a little bit of a scare for a short period of time. It all started on monday night, when I was woken up by extreme pains that felt like contractions but were much higher than labor pains and were not the typical Braxton-Hicks contractions. I actually assumed that it was some stomach bug, so didn't worry too much about it. Unfortunately, the pains continued throughout the day on Tuesday, at times with these pains building up on one another in quick succession that made me double over in pain. I had my son at home with me, which made it even more difficult. But, I tried to continue about my day, we went to Costco and my son went for a bike ride up and down the street (I pushed the trike). I took a nap at the same time that my son did, but was unfortunately woken up several times from the nap by the pains.

Finally around 3pm I got a little fearful and couldn't take the pains any more, so I called the doctor. He asked me to come in to the hospital so that they could evaluate me, and I had to call my husband at work and ask him if he could come home early. Thankfully he could... He came home and took care of our son while I drove to the hospital and went into the Labor and Delivery unit. They hooked me up to the machines that measure the baby's heart rate (it was fine the whole time) and my contractions. Much to my surprise, I was having pretty substantial contractions, not of all of which I could feel. They were pretty regular in frequency but not in intensity or duration. They did some tests, including a fetal fibronectin test which would determine if I was going to go into true labor in the next couple of weeks. The tests were all negative, indicating that I should have at least two to three more weeks before delivering, and that I'll most likely go to term. So, the doctor gave me medication to stop the contractions, and they kept me there through dinner (yummy hospital food) and then released me to go home telling me to keep my feet up and drink lots of water.

Ironically, a similar but different thing happened with our first son. I didn't have these substantial pains, but I felt incredible pressure on the pelvic floor at around the same time of gestation. They had me go into Labor and Delivery and put me on i.v. fluids and a muscle relaxer, and monitored the baby. Similar to this pregnancy, they determined that I was having pretty substantial contractions that I wasn't actually feeling, but that could be responsible for the pressure that I was experiencing. As with the incident yesterday, I was sent home and told to take it easy for a day or two, and then I went about my business as usual. My first son ended up going to 39 weeks, so I'm convinced that all is well.

I mentioned this in a previous post - it's amazing how similar and yet how different this pregnancy is from the first. It's an emotional and physical roller coaster, and I'm having a wild ride!