Becca's life - baby news

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November 27th, 2006

11:37 pm

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baby news
So it looks like I'm having a baby tomorrow.

Thursday night, I made Thanksgiving dinner, which turned out well in the end. But I kind of melted down making the mashed potatoes. I'd been stupid and not actually read the directions in the recipe I was using; I just glanced at the list of ingredients and started putting vegetable broth into the bowl of cooked, peeled potatoes. A couple of minutes later I realized that there was definitely too much liquid and read the directions. It turned out that the 2 cups of liquid called for were intended for cooking the potatoes. I realized I'd need to drain that off and then add the soymilk and roasted garlic. And then I turned around to see Ben mashing the potatoes and extra liquid into a glue-y soup. I just started crying, and lay down on the bed with what turned out to be my first real contraction. I was frustrated with Ben for talking on the phone all day (he had LOTS of family to call) and being only minimally helpful with dinner, I was tired and hurting, and I was pissed off that I'd made such a stupid mistake with the potatoes. Ben got off the phone and comforted me for a while, the contraction passed, and then I got up, drained the potatoes, and managed to salvage them (this involved baking them for a little while so they'd dry out slightly). Dinner was nice, and we went to bed happy and well-fed.

I woke up at around 2 in the morning, because I kept feeling tightness in my belly that maybe was contractions. An hour later, I was feeling cramps along with the tightness, and they seemed to be coming every 7-10 minutes. I had a fair bit of bloody show as well. Later on the contractions died out a bit, and I got a few hours of sleep. They came intermittently on Friday, but had pretty much gone away by the afternoon.

Saturday, I played board games with

rubrick and others at A's house nearby. No signs of labor.

Sunday, I realized that I might have sprung a slow leak in the amniotic sac, and so I put on a pad before heading out to the grocery store that afternoon. Fortunately, it seemed pretty unnecessary. Later that evening, we were watching a movie at home with

treboresque, and I got up to go use the bathroom and felt a bit of a small gush of fluid. Ugh. I wasn't sure at that point whether my membranes were really broken or just leaking a bit, but I was unhappy that it was happening before I'd really started labor. I drank a bunch of water, and we made tacos for dinner, and the leaking seemed to stay slow-to-nonexistant. When I woke up in the middle of the night though, I was definitely leaking a lot of fluid. At that point it was about 1am. Ben and I decided to go back to sleep, since we were both tired and since everything seemed okay with the baby. (The fluid was clear, I was feeling lots of baby movement, and I'd tested negative for Group B Strep two weeks ago.)

We slept in a bit this morning, and Ben emailed his work to let them know that I seemed to be starting labor and that he wouldn't be in. We talked about what to do and decided to take a long walk up Albany Hill to see if that might help get labor started. (I was afraid to go into the hospital before starting labor because I really didn't want to be induced.) It was a nice walk, despite us getting rained on a bit. I was getting tightness that might've been contractions, but it never got to the point of being painful or seeming like real labor. We headed home, ate some lunch, did a load of laundry, and tried some nipple stimulation. That didn't start labor either. I keep hearing that sex is good for starting labor, but since my membranes were definitely ruptured (I was leaking the whole time and drinking a lot of Gatorade and water to stay hydrated), I didn't want to risk infection. By late afternoon, I was still leaking quite a bit, and I didn't seem to have started labor at all. I didn't have a fever, and the baby was still moving sometimes (but not especially active), but at this point I was starting to get nervous and so we called the doctor's office.

The doctor I've been seeing happened to be the on-call doctor for her practice this evening, and she recommended that we go into the hospital to confirm that my membranes were broken and do a non-stress test to check on the baby. Since it was rush hour and Ben isn't a very experienced driver, we decided to take BART and the shuttle to the hospital. That worked really well. We went up to L&D triage and got there at the same time as another pregnant woman whose water had also broken before the onset of labor. Since she was only at 37 weeks and I'm at 38.5, she got checked out first. The nurse that did my exam was very nice, and it looked like everything was fine. I got hooked up to a blood pressure cuff and an external fetal monitor. My blood pressure was high at first, but normal 15 minutes later, I was indeed leaking amniotic fluid, I had no signs of infection, and the baby was doing great (heartrate of about 140 with good accelerations). I was also having contractions according to the monitor - they just weren't very strong-feeling or painful. She talked to my doctor on the phone, and I'm supposed to call in at 6am tomorrow and then head into the hospital. If I haven't gone into labor on my own at that point, I'm probably going to be induced.

I'm obviously really hoping to go into labor on my own tonight. In either case though, it seems likely that I'm having a baby tomorrow. Any advice on getting labor started or on dealing with an induction would be appreciated.

Current Mood: anxious
Tags: pregnancy

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Comments

From:	erinmdmd
Date:	November 28th, 2006 06:47 am (UTC)

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Just so you know- your membranes can reseal. You are doing everything right- keep everything away from your vagina and cervix (prevent infection) and stay super hydrated. Vit C can help ward off infection as well, though the best defense is to not touch and introduce bacteria.

I wish you the best of luck in birthing!!

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