37 week update

Well this has been a very eventful week! I went to my doctors on Tuesday for my normal weekly checkup and everything checked out normal. My doctor checked my cervix to see if I had made anymore progress as I have been having nightly contractions up to that point and I had a minor change! I was now 2cm dilated! I left that appointment and almost immediately started feeling cramping and by the time I made it home, started having contractions. The contractions were not horrible, but enough that I noticed them. I just kind of mentally kept track of them until after supper, and then sat down and used a contraction timer to time them. They were coming nice and steady in a pattern. I timed them from a little after 7pm until maybe 10 or 10:30. At that time, Hans was wondering if I wanted to head into L&D, but I decided that I would try and take a shower to see what that did to them. The shower was nice and relaxing, but I continued to contract the entire time at the same rate as I had been all evening. I was just still hesitant to head in because not all of them were super painful, so I didn't know for sure if they were doing anything. So after my shower I decided to lay down and see if I could get some rest.

I was able to fall asleep and only wake up a couple of times. Sometimes I woke up because I needed to use the bathroom, and a couple of times I woke up because of the contractions. Shortly after I woke up for the day, I started to time the contractions once again and they were back to their normal pattern. I did have sometimes that they would back off for 30 to 45 minutes at a time, but they would start right back up and get back into a normal pattern. Around 2pm, I had finally had enough painful contractions all together that I called Hans at work and said that I thought we should head into the hospital to be checked.

We got to the hospital and checked in around 2:30pm. The nurses got me all settled in and checked me. I had progressed to 4cm! That was a nice change from just 24 hours earlier. They got me hooked up to the monitors to see how little man was doing and to monitor my contractions. They did this for 24 hours and would normally have me on the monitors for 1 hour then off for an hour. While I was not on the monitors I was up walking, sitting on a birthing ball or using the jacuzzi tub! After 24 hours, my insurance required that they either fully admit me to the hospital for delivery or send me home (I was still just in the hospital as an observation patient) Since I had only progressed another CM and my contractions were still doing the weird patterns of coming and going every hour or so they send me home and told me to come back when the contractions were strong again or my water broke.

So we have been home since Thursday afternoon, and I have been constantly contracting. It isn't fun, but I am dealing with it as best as I can. We went on a nice long walk last night around the neighborhood and then again today to see if that would help kick up the contractions. So who knows, we might end up with a baby in the next couple of days and he might just be causing me lots of problems already and not come until closer to his due date! Only time will tell!