Tuesday, October 4th, 2005

Time	Event
12:29a	ouch! And here I thought I was done with being paranoid for a little while, ah well ;) Today hasn't been so great. ( TMI ) In addition, the Braxton Hicks contractions I've been feeling have gotten stronger, starting last night. Still not "painful" but bordering on it... its a weird sensation, I think closest to a calf-muscle cramp, but without the pain, just the tightening/twisting feeling. However, today I've also started getting cramps that are more like menstrual and painful. Not as bad as actual menstrual cramps, but I've been having a lot of them over the course of the day. I haven't been tracking time of contractions, but I don't think I'm near 4/hr on average. I do think I might occasionally get 4 in an hour, but that's only at night when trying to fall asleep or at other occasional odd times of day: most of the day I don't feel any. And I'm sure this is probably all pretty normal: just things adjusting around in there or something, but still, I do qualify 3 out of 5 bullet points on the "When should I call my doctor or midwife?" section of this page. I tried giving her a call around 9pm, and she didn't answer so I sent her an email, but she's always telling me that I should call rather than emailing because sometimes she won't check email for a couple of days, and since the cramps are still hitting, I will definitely give her a call tomorrow. Its reassuring that Tovar seems to be doing fine. He's been becoming a bit more active lately, often kicking when I'm sitting down before meal time or when I first wake up after a long sleep in addition to late at night. It seems like he's most prone to kicking during the day when I'm hungry, so I hypothesize that he's communicating that he's hungry, but I could easily be reading patterns in the noise ;) Also reassuring that his kicks are generally still up high, his favorite spot being left side upper quadrant. (4 Comments | Comment on this)
9:23p	Impromptu camping trip After yesterday's excitement, Shannon was woken up a couple times an hour with cramps/contractions. Today Shannon called her midwife, and then her obstetrician, who had her to come in immediately. Upon inspection, she was 3cm dilated and having contractions, perhaps 10-15 an hour, so he sent her off to Stanford's Lucille Packard Children's Hospital. Having been unable to contact me by phone, S dashed off an email to me and got poked w/ IV's while having semi-painful contractions. I showed up around 4pm, just before they started giving magnesium sulfate to slow contractions. She felt like she had to pee whenever she had a contraction, so once the Mg was started they inserted a catheter, which was painful but effective. They didn't want to let her eat b/c of nausea from the Mg, and the possibility that she would go into labor and end up needing a C-section. Not letting moms eat is one of the things Henci's book says is dumb, so after the Mg had gone for awhile and she was tolerating it fine, we pushed a bit and they gave in and started the hour-long process of getting food. Oh, and the general story was "We'll try to stop her from going into labor. If she does go into labor, at 26 weeks the baby has a good chance of surviving". He would have to stay in the neonatal ICU until around the due date, but we could visit and breastfeed. During this period we also got in touch w/ our midwife Rosanna, who is out of town and doula Sandy, who agreed that if Shannon went into full labor she could be available. Not knowing how long this impromptu hospital camping trip would last, but with it seeming like it might be days, I was antsy to go fetch gear, so I headed back to the ABL to grab books, movies, comic books, cards, games, laptops, and snacks (ie the essentials of life). The magnesium has definitely weakened the contractions, but there are still 4-7 an hour. They checked her cervix again and it was unchanged. Hopefully tocolytics and bed rest will stave off labor - Shannon's mom was in bed from 6 months on (and was at 3cm at 3 months). If 3 months of bed rest is what it takes to go full term, then hey, we're all for it. (20 Comments | Comment on this)

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