Hospital Visit #4

34 Weeks

At my doctor's appointment this week, it was a family affair.  Kids had a snow day (WHY!?!?) and my husband wanted to come to the appointment, plus he didn't want me driving in my condition.

I love my doctor, she's been very strong for me.  She declared me 3cm and 80%, a jump from 1+cm and 60% two days ago.  She could see I was in pain, so she gave me a prescription for Tylenol w/ codeine to help me rest.  She's happy that I've made it this far, as am I.

The next day wasn't as forgiving.  The pain was worse, and the pills didn't do too much.  But I didn't want to go in unless I had to, so I went walking.  I ran errands.  I tried to move around as much as I could.  Let's just make this happen!

And when the pressure started, we went in.

It was late, but I didn't care.  Again, another resident.  Again, she didn't understand why I stopped the Procardia.  She checked me, no change from yesterday, but they wanted to observe me for 24 hours.  So I stayed.

They had a Fetal Monitoring Specialist come look at the baby.  Baby is perfect, placenta is normal and fluids are at a good level. Baby measures large (thanks to 2 rounds of steroids) and while I'm just shy of 35 weeks, baby measures about 37.  Which makes sense, because it hurts.  And my skin is stretching, so the point it looks and feels like I have a sunburn on my tummy.  :(

So with baby measuring further along, you'd think they might be ok with helping labor move along, right?  Wrong.

I stayed for 36 hours, and the doctor that released me on Tuesday released me again on Sunday.

I bawled my eyes out.  The pain is ridiculous.  The contractions might ease up at times, but they don't go away.  They wake me up at night, if I can get to sleep at all.  I can't find a good position to sit/stand/lay in.

I started looking up ways to bring on/increase labor.  So far I've tried spicy foods, raspberry leaf tea, and some at-home acupressure.  I'm trying to find a professional to do trigger point massage to bring on labor.  There are 2 things I find on every list of "bring on labor" that I will not be trying: caster oil and (well, look it up yourself).

Of course I want the baby to be healthy, and to stay in as long as he/she needs to.  But if I'm going to be laboring for over 2 months and trying to stop it, is it so wrong to want things to progress quickly now that the baby is at a healthy stage?