I'm going to put up a few posts over here rather than at Phred/Fwed because my in-laws read that blog as it's mostly about the kids - but there are some things they just don't need to know!
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I have been lucky so far this pregnancy not to have experienced the series of contractions that I did starting at 25 weeks in my first pg. I've had plenty of sporadic contractions, to be sure - I noticed them starting at about 12 weeks. But nothing serial, that lying down or drinking wouldn't fix. Until yesterday that is. They started at about 12:45, I actually noticed them while I was standing in line to get lunch. And they continued. And continued. About every five minutes apart. I hadn't had much to drink since the morning, so I swigged about 20oz of water, and lay down on the floor of my office for a bit. Nice to have an office, I must say! They did stop while I was lying down, but started back up again as soon as I got up. I tried lying down again for a longer time, and they disappeared again - as long as I was on the floor. I decided to call my doctor's office after about three hours of this - they had been telling me to call if I had more than four in an hour, and at this point I was running at 10-12/hour. I wasn't overly concerned, as these felt just the same as all the other contractions, and I wasn't feeling any other labor-ish symptoms. I was a little annoyed, though, when it took the nurse an hour to call me back! We discussed a little, she eventually said that I should go home and call again later if they were still continuing. I almost agreed to that, but then figured I that at work I was only 5 minutes away, and I'd rather just go in at that point and get checked out than have to deal with going in later in the evening when it would be much more of a trek. She agreed that it would be reasonable for me to come in, so off I trotted.
When I got to the office, I was again kept waiting quite a bit longer than I would have expected. When they finally took me back they followed standard procedure - pee in a cup, weight, BP, and listen to the baby. I was still having contractions, but they were a little further apart at this point. Funnily enough, I often have one just as I'm lying back on the table and the nurse always comments about how "that's the baby". I don't have the heart to tell her that no, it's actually my uterus (it's doing the same thing this time as last, when I get a contraction it's all bunched up on my right side). Anyway the doc showed up a few minutes later, took a swab and checked my cervix. Long and closed, as I had suspected, but it was nice to have the confirmation. So off home I went.
I have noticed a lot more contractions today, including an almost constant one the whole time I was walking back from lunch. I think I must have just hit the point where my uterus is saying okay it's time to get ready now. Hopefully I'll be able to continue to manage the contractions just by drinking and lying down when needed (I did spend another few minutes on my floor today when I was tired of the effort).
Interestingly, when I was at the gym this morning doing my little weight lifting routine, I didn't notice any contractions at all. Perhaps I need to stop working! ;-)
