We now have people telling us that they can’t take it anymore. YOU can’t take it anymore? We are so sorry for the delay.
Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30 with some contractions. The kind that involve back pain. The labor kind, as opposed to the Braxton-Hicks kind. I awoke and kept my eye on the clock. 20 minutes later, it happened again. It was consistently every 20 minutes, which made me think, “hmm … is this it?” I had a 9:00 am acupuncture appointment so I got up and went with my very kind husband driving (I no longer trust myself to drive safely so Philip has become my chauffeur - what a guy). Had a good treatment, which helped with my sciatica issues and throughout it all, contractions were happening. Got home, and Philip took off to work (he probably would have stayed had Cranium not just laid off 20 people. He felt the need to go in to assess the damage … not a good week at work) and I went about my day. By 2:00 pm, my contractions were about every 10 minutes. But here is what confused me. The book, our OB, and the class we took said, “If the contractions are 5 minutes apart, and last 1 minute for a whole hour, then it’s time to come in.” Mine are about 10 minutes apart, last about 40 seconds and go on all day, but haven’t grown in intensity since 5:30 am. So where does that put me?! I called the triage nurse. She said I was definitely in early labor, but this could go on for a while so she suggested I take it easy, go for a walk, go out for a nice dinner. She said, that women often labor harder once the sun goes down so that may be the case for me.
Well, it is now the next day, and while I’m still contracting every 10-15 minutes, they are still at a same intensity. The class said early labor could go on up to 12 hours. 12 hours my ass! I suppose the good news is that both Philip and I slept well so if we go into active labor today, we would be in pretty good shape. What’s hard, having never gone through this, is that we are unsure of any and all signs. I kept thinking I was over reacting that when the nurse said this was early labor, I was relived and surprised. And of course, there is no such thing as textbook labor so as you are looking things up, you just get further confused because there are too many variables. This is why a doula is a great thing. She assured me that it’s very common and she would even come over to help us discern when to call our OB if we needed to. I have had high-protein, high-carb meals for the last two days to prepare but that’s now just sitting in my system since I’ve done nothing to burn them. I’ve made a rice ball snack for Philip to take to the hospital, but he might have to eat them for dinner if nothing happens. I am now sick of trying to read in to signs for labor. Does it count when you clean the house, forcing the “nesting” in an effort to go into labor? Does it count when your husband nests? Philip asked people with kids at his office, “it is going to come out, right?” And they all said yes. He then said, “Well, we've waited 5 years, what’s another couple of days?” Indeed. This kid is trying to make a dramatic entrance, perhaps. Or taking its time saying good bye to all of my internal organs and rolling on my bladder one last time.
So we are going about our day today. Cleaning, walking, eating, playing with Trixie. We’ll see if the pace picks up.
We shall keep you posted. We swear.
Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30 with some contractions. The kind that involve back pain. The labor kind, as opposed to the Braxton-Hicks kind. I awoke and kept my eye on the clock. 20 minutes later, it happened again. It was consistently every 20 minutes, which made me think, “hmm … is this it?” I had a 9:00 am acupuncture appointment so I got up and went with my very kind husband driving (I no longer trust myself to drive safely so Philip has become my chauffeur - what a guy). Had a good treatment, which helped with my sciatica issues and throughout it all, contractions were happening. Got home, and Philip took off to work (he probably would have stayed had Cranium not just laid off 20 people. He felt the need to go in to assess the damage … not a good week at work) and I went about my day. By 2:00 pm, my contractions were about every 10 minutes. But here is what confused me. The book, our OB, and the class we took said, “If the contractions are 5 minutes apart, and last 1 minute for a whole hour, then it’s time to come in.” Mine are about 10 minutes apart, last about 40 seconds and go on all day, but haven’t grown in intensity since 5:30 am. So where does that put me?! I called the triage nurse. She said I was definitely in early labor, but this could go on for a while so she suggested I take it easy, go for a walk, go out for a nice dinner. She said, that women often labor harder once the sun goes down so that may be the case for me.
Well, it is now the next day, and while I’m still contracting every 10-15 minutes, they are still at a same intensity. The class said early labor could go on up to 12 hours. 12 hours my ass! I suppose the good news is that both Philip and I slept well so if we go into active labor today, we would be in pretty good shape. What’s hard, having never gone through this, is that we are unsure of any and all signs. I kept thinking I was over reacting that when the nurse said this was early labor, I was relived and surprised. And of course, there is no such thing as textbook labor so as you are looking things up, you just get further confused because there are too many variables. This is why a doula is a great thing. She assured me that it’s very common and she would even come over to help us discern when to call our OB if we needed to. I have had high-protein, high-carb meals for the last two days to prepare but that’s now just sitting in my system since I’ve done nothing to burn them. I’ve made a rice ball snack for Philip to take to the hospital, but he might have to eat them for dinner if nothing happens. I am now sick of trying to read in to signs for labor. Does it count when you clean the house, forcing the “nesting” in an effort to go into labor? Does it count when your husband nests? Philip asked people with kids at his office, “it is going to come out, right?” And they all said yes. He then said, “Well, we've waited 5 years, what’s another couple of days?” Indeed. This kid is trying to make a dramatic entrance, perhaps. Or taking its time saying good bye to all of my internal organs and rolling on my bladder one last time.
So we are going about our day today. Cleaning, walking, eating, playing with Trixie. We’ll see if the pace picks up.
We shall keep you posted. We swear.
Comments
(I busied myself re-reading all of your posts. It was fun. Can't wait to read more.)
So many thoughts with you (and all loving).
xoxo
g.