A Crazy Week

The past week has been quite the roller coaster ride for us. The rib pain I mentioned from my last post got so intense I finally decided to call the doctor. He sent me to the hospital the morning of the 26th for an ultrasound to get a good look at my gallbladder and liver to make sure everything was ok. The next morning I woke up in so much pain. The strange thing was the intensity of it would come and go, but I couldn't find any rhyme or reason for it. Tyler told me to stay home from work and take it easy. He called the doctor's office to see if they had the results from my ultrasound. When they said everything looked normal he made an appointment to see the doctor because I was still in pain. He met me at the doctor later that afternoon. When the doctor came in he wanted to check her heartbeat. When I pulled up my shirt, before he even touched my stomach, he said, "Do you know you're having a contraction?" I looked at him in utter confusion. " Um...no, shouldn't I know when I'm having a contraction?" He told me to feel my stomach and then said "It's hard as a rock." Tyler and I both responded with "That's how it always feels." He decided to check me and found that I was already 80% effaced, but luckily not dilated. When he asked more about the pain I was feeling in my ribs, I told him it came and went but the intensity has been getting increasingly worse over the past week. That's when he decided to send us over to the hospital for a non-stress test. When we got to the hospital, they hooked me up to the machine and sure enough, I was having contractions. They would come and go but there were times they were as close as 4 minutes apart. That was when I realized the contractions were directly related to the intensity of pain I was feeling in my right rib cage. The hospital ran a bunch of blood tests and when everything came back normal, they gave me a shot to stop the contractions, sent me home and told me to lay down as much as possible. The contractions came back early the next morning so I called the doctor and he prescribed me a pill to take every 6 hours to continually stop the contractions.

By Saturday the contractions had slowed down a bit, but I was still in pain and now I wasn't sure if my water was leaking. I know what you're thinking, How do you not know if your water is leaking?? But it gets rather confusing with everything that's going on. I probably would have dismissed it as normal, but with all the contractions, I was worried I had progressed into active labor. So after some debating with myself, I (with the help of Tyler saying, let's just go) decided I'd rather be safe than sorry and we went back to Labor and Delivery. They hooked me up to the machine and go figure, I was having contractions. They ran a couple different tests this time. One was to see if my water was in fact leaking, luckily that came back negative. And the other was called a Fetal Fibronectine test which checks for a protein that is secreted before you go into labor; that one came back positive. They sent me home and told me to stay on modified bed rest until I saw my doctor on Monday.

When I saw my doctor on Monday, he told me he made an appointment for me to see a specialist on Wednesday and that he wanted me to continue bed rest until I saw her. I was hoping for the best when we went in to see her on Wednesday, but also preparing for her to tell me I'd be on bed rest until the baby came. At the beginning of the appointment, the ultrasound tech took a very detailed look at the baby. We found out she weighs 4lbs 9oz and is measuring right on time. The tech tried to get a profile pic and pointed out that she has such little room that the tech barely pushing on my stomach with the ultrasound wand smashed her nose against her face. So below is a pic of her cute little lips and her smashed little nose.

The tech also showed us the back of her head and pointed out that she has hair, which I thought was so cute! So we know that our little one has some hair and is definitely running out of room. And go figure her little bum was right where I've been experiencing all my pain. When the specialist came in, she gave us better news than I could have hoped for. She said everything was fine and that the positive Fetal Fibronectine test doesn't mean much without progression of the cervix and since I wasn't dilating, the contractions were just braxton hicks and chances of me going into labor in the next week was slim. By Tuesday I'll be 34 weeks and they don't try to stop labor at that point. So she said that because of that, I could go off bed rest and even stop taking the pills I'd been given to stop the contractions. As for the pain up by my ribs, she told me no one would be able to give me a definitive answer as to why, but her opinion was that it was due to my small size/frame and there's not much I can do about it. I think she's probably right. Even without any contractions, my stomach is extremely tight and if you look at it from the right angle it actually looks lopsided because you can literally see the outline of her little bum and back on the top right side of my stomach.  I'm just so relieved that nothing was wrong with my gallbladder or liver and that the baby is doing well and will be fine even if she does come at 34 weeks. As we left the hospital, Tyler noted the extra bounce in my step. I was so happy everything was going to be ok. Since I got that great news, my stress level has dropped dramatically and I've noticed a decrease in the intensity and frequency of the contractions even without the pills. So who knows maybe she'll come very soon or maybe she'll come late, as long as she continues to do well, I don't really care either way....ok, a little on the early side would be nice. She really is running out of room and I wonder how long it will be before my body just kicks her out or she decides she'd rather be out than in.