An Interesting way to Labor….

I thought I would take a quick moment to recap the last couple of days since I doubt I will remember much of the details for long (seriously, pregnancy memories are really foggy). Yesterday we went to my 39 week appointment at the Birth Center. It was the same basic appointment with vitals and checking for swelling and listening to the baby’s heartbeat. This was also the first appointment when they do a cervical check- since I am a second time mom- they don’t do  one for first time moms until the 40 week appointment. After checking, she let me know that I was already 5 cm dilated and 80-90% effaced. I had my suspicions that this might be the case but was excited to hear that my body has been doing a good amount of work already.

And then, things got a little crazy.  I have been having consistent braxton hicks for a while but nothing rhythmic or close together. After we left the birth center, I started having contractions every 2 minutes. I got home and got in the tub, thinking it was probably just a reaction to getting checked. They didn’t really ease up or slow down. JD and I wanted to make sure that if this was it, Jude was with grandparents- so we called them to have them get Jude.

In the process of them pulling up to get Jude- we discovered that JD’s window in his car had been smashed in. Not much we could do but leave the car since we were leaving for the birth center. Add a little adrenaline and confusion to the mix. Plus my parents were arriving in Denver in several hours. I think JD and my brain were pretty foggy- because we really should have known better than to rush off to the birth center.

When I got there, the midwife checked me and said I was at six ( measuring is pretty subjective so I don’t know if I was really at 6 or still at 5). We waited around for things to heat up a bit until the midwife came in and said she thought that this might be a false alarm but I should try to go for a good walk to see what happens. We went for a 20 minute walk, got lunch, and walked the 20 minutes back with contractions 2-3 minutes apart the whole time.

After the walk, I was still the same with no progression and she sent us on home (One of the ways she suspected that this was not the real deal was because my cervix was still posterior and had not come forward enough- which is what happens in real labor). The whole ordeal was an interesting experience for me for multiple reasons. One of which is that I have had a baby before! I should know when it is really time. However, my body reacted to the cervical check and the irritation to the membranes of my cervix. This produced contractions for multiple hours (they didn’t mellow out until about 5pm) but they never got to the needed intensity to get labor really going. I think I was too worried about making sure we didn’t wait too long to get childcare for Jude and I had a fear of doing transition in the car!

I am having a tough time sleeping at night. I keep waking up from contractions between 1-5 am which leaves me feeling pretty groggy in the morning. Thankfully, I haven’t been dealing with contractions today so I have been able to catch up on rest. Overall, it isn’t really a bad way to labor. My body is working and dilating throughout the days/weeks leading up to D-Day. Yesterday was probably the most unpleasant because it was lots of contractions without progress and a bit of a confusing ordeal.

As of now, it is business as usual. I plan to go about my days like normal…slow, tired and puffy I don’t know when Asher will come but my goal is to be patient and trust that my body know what it is doing. And- I am going to ignore the fact that a blizzard has begun outside and pray that when it happens, we will get Jude safely to the grandparents and get ourselves to the birth center…even if I have to do transition in the car. Ouch!

Anyone want to guess on the day he will come??????

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