Happy New Year! The beginning of this week was lovely and relaxing, and the end has been incredibly frustrating.
On Saturday, I thought THIS WAS IT. We were having a baby – and a New Year’s baby! I started having contractions around 3pm. They started off maybe 30 seconds long and were 5-7 minutes apart. We knew to hold off on going into the hospital for a while at that point. So, we rested and watched football and Yellowstone, and kept timing the contractions.
The pain wasn’t too bad, especially as long as Jack was rubbing my lower back, but it was intensifying a bit by 6pm. I had to focus to breathe through most of the contractions at that point. So, Jack went to get us dinner, and we kept waiting. By the time we decided to go to the hospital around 10pm, my contractions lasted a minute or a little longer and were 3-4 minutes apart. Nothing was excruciating, but I did lose my train of thought and need to stop talking when one came on, which didn’t happen last time.
Long story short, I was 4-5 cm dilated when we got there… and an hour later I was the same, despite having the same contractions the whole time. I said if it was an option, I wanted to go home and try to sleep in my own bed. My doctor was fine with that, and the L&D nurse said she expected we’d be back by morning.
(We weren’t.)
On the drive home, I had some more intense contractions that lasted longer, and I thought about having Jack turn around, but they were spacing out a bit, so I figured we’d just wait until they were closer. I dozed through contractions the rest of the night, and they continued through about 11am. And then almost totally stopped. Jack and I were both really frustrated and I was super discouraged. I made us pancakes and then, frankly, wasted most of Sunday pouting about not getting to meet my kid yet. And about having 20 hours of contractions that led to basically nothing.
Then, around 9pm on Sunday, I started having the worst contractions I’d had yet. Jack had gotten ice cream at the store earlier as an It-Sucks-We-Don’t-Have-a-Baby-Yet treat, and I sat down to try to eat it and relax through my contractions and I simply couldn’t.
They were immediately long and strong, about a minute long, and eventually sometimes 2 minutes. I could not sit still through them like I had been mostly able to on Saturday. I was feeling a ton of downward pressure in my pelvis, so even sitting between contractions was pretty uncomfortable. All I wanted was a break so I could have a heating pad on my back or let Jack rub it for a few minutes, but that break didn’t really come. Between the big contractions, I felt like I was getting aftershocks, so it was almost hard to tell when one stopped and another began. I paced and groaned and talked myself through each one, but the intervals didn’t feel right. Sometimes they’d be 5 minutes apart for a while, and then 8 minutes would pass with nothing happening, and then they’d be 3 minutes apart for a while. And repeat.
Neither of us wanted to go to the hospital again and come home without a baby, so we resolved to wait until we were sure this was it. We both had a gut feeling it wasn’t, even though I was in a lot of pain.
This lasted till about 4am, when I fell asleep. When I woke up again around 6, I noticed that I had been attempting to track contractions in my sleep but been so tired I kept falling asleep during them, so the timing was way off. By the time I woke up for real at 8am on Monday, I was having only occasional contractions.
So, back to work we both went.
Previous Updates
I’m Pregnant! + The First Trimester
At 38 weeks pregnant, baby girl is supposedly the size of a watermelon.
Symptoms
I’ve been alternating between feeling starving and super nauseated this week.
I’m taking a lot of senna and magnesium, though I will say I don’t really feel like I need it at this point. My stomach has been really upset the last 4-5 days.
My sciatica has sucked this week, especially first thing in the morning and right before bed.
I am thirstier than I have ever been in my life and also often so nauseated that it’s hard to drink.
My sleep has been better this week. I’m exhausted, and I’ve been sleeping and resting a lot.
Baby girl has dropped quite a bit, so I don’t get out of breath quite so easily anymore. She still likes to kick me in the ribs occasionally, though.
Food
Dinners this week have included:
- Skillet Ricotta Pasta with Roasted Broccoli (we added smoked turkey sausage but it’d also be great with shrimp)
- Pork chops with bacon fried cabbage and mashed potatoes
- Steak, asparagus, and roasted potatoes Jack made to cheer me up on Sunday
- Lime Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
- Takeout
- Pesto Zuppa Toscana + sourdough
Snacks included dates, apples, cottage cheese, cereal, Greek yogurt, cheese and crackers, and sourdough toast with peanut butter.
Exercise
I’m still following the Expecting and Empowered pregnancy guide, so that covered three of my workouts last week. I’ve been doing a little pelvic floor and/or flexibility work most days. And a lot of bouncing/sitting/swaying on a balance ball because if there is the smallest chance it helps start/progress labor, I’ll take it.
I’ve been taking the dogs on walks, too, when it isn’t super rainy, as it has been much of the last week.
Stories
I have every “you might be about to go into labor” symptom the internet has to offer and all I want is for it to be true. That’s all. Send labor thoughts.
I cannot wait to meet her and watch you grow as a mom. So excited!
Thank you <3 Also very excited, as you know!