Pre-Term Labor Scare

I think I must have jinxed this pregnancy when I said that everything was going great...


Yesterday, as I was fixing lunch, I started getting a really sharp, intense pain in my left side. At first, I thought it was just a side ache and that it would go away once I sat down, but it didn't and it got more and more painful while I was sitting. It started to make me have a lot of contractions that were fairly close together so I tried to get a hold of my doctor's office but they were out to lunch still and wouldn't return for about 30 more minutes. I ended up calling my Mom who came and picked Ethan and I up since Dan couldn't leave work. We were just going to go to her house which is near the hospital where I'll be delivering but since I was still in so much pain we just went straight to Labor and Delivery.  They checked me into the maternity ward and hooked me up to all the monitors and we found out my contractions were really consistent at about 3-4 minutes apart and lasting about 1 minute each. The nurses checked to see if anything was happening and I was dilated to a 1 and 60% effaced, which was the same as my appointment the day before. I was told I was in non-active labor/pre-term labor but since I wasn't dilated any further and they were going to talk to my doctor and see what the next step should be.  The only good thing was that my contractions were not increasing in intensity. There wasn't any additional pain with each one, it was just the constant pain in my side that got worse when I contracted or when the baby moved.

It's ironic because I talked to my doctor the day before about what were to happen if I went into labor in the following week and he told me that at 36 weeks they stop labor but at 37 weeks, they'll just let you continue. So they gave me a Lortab to help ease the pain and hoped it would help the contractions to slow down if the pain wasn't as bad. By this point, it's been almost 3 hours of constant pain in my side and close contractions.

After about 45 minutes, the contractions started to ease a little and my doctor came and talked to me. They didn't need to give me a shot to stop the contractions since they were slowing on their own. He explained that the pain was from a strained round ligament, which are the ligaments in my belly that are supporting the baby. Since the baby was putting a certain amount of pressure on the muscle, it became strained and caused all the pain and contractions. He reassured me that it was a normal thing for 2nd time mother's to experience (I'd never even heard of it before!) since those muscles had been used that way in my first pregnancy.  He told me to take it easy, not do anything to strenuous in the coming weeks, and to avoid doing anything that might trigger the strain. Then they discharged me from the hospital with some information about what to do if I started feeling the pre-term labor symptoms again.

At home, Dan and I had to make the decision whether or not I'd still be able to watch my sister's four kids while they went to Mexico and we decided that it would probably not be a good idea. Once the Lortab wore off, I was still having multiple contractions and still feeling pain and just watching Ethan would probably start it up again.

So today, I'm resting a lot. I'm a little tired and my stomach is oddly sensitive to the baby's movements. I'm taking the Dr.'s advice and not doing anything strenuous since just walking around the house and doing light work is setting off contractions and twinges in my side. I'm sure trying to keep Little Brother in there as long as possible! I'd much rather wait until my family is back from their vacation before having him! So we hope it works and he can hang in there for a couple more weeks!