Still, no baby and I am 40 weeks 3 days now, so I guess she’s going to be fashionably late.
A couple days ago, I woke up at 5:30 with abdominal cramps or what I like to call diarrhea cramps so I went twice, yes TMI I know. And both times it was excruciating to get out of bed. Lifting your legs, moving your pelvis in any direction was extremely painful to me. Once I got out of bed, my back started hurting and I could barely move my legs forward to walk to get to the bathroom. At this point I am wondering what is going on and if this is the start of labor. I literally felt like I was 100 years old with how much I was hobbling everywhere. At 3 pm that day, I decided to I call the OB advice nurse and they told me to go to the hospital and get checked out just to be safe.
I arrived, got examined and the nurse said I was at 5cm and in labor according to the contraction machine. Thing is, all I feel is mild cramping in my lower abdomen above my pubic bone. I am not sure if those are labor pains as this is my first, but it certainly seems like it. I have not really experienced any of these Braxton hicks tightening and painful contractions that start up and go down that people talk about, so hopefully I am one of the lucky ones? At least, I hope so.
So they decided to admit me and put me in my room. The delivery doctor came an hour later, which happened to not be my original OB (go figure) and decided to check me again. He said I was more of a 4 and didn’t feel like I was in active labor because of how calm I was. Told me to go walk for a little bit and they would check me again and if I haven’t progressed, they would send me home. I walked for maybe 45 min cause I was waiting for my husband to get back from picking stuff up at home. Once I did that, the new nurse checked me who BTW was the most gentle with my lady bits. (my god some of those doctors are rough) and said I was still at a 4 and 85% effaced. I asked about the contraction machine and how far apart they were and she said 4-5 minutes.
I was like, so how am I to know when I am supposed to come back if these are mild and they’re coming that often and I’m at a 4? She’s like oh you’ll know. Yes I know labor is painful, but not everyone experiences that same amount of pain according to these labor stories I have read.
As I said before, I want an epidural if I can’t handle the pain of full-blown labor. I honestly feel like I won’t make it there in time if I’m not even feeling too achy at 4cm dilated. Obviously I’ll feel them more and they’ll be a lot worse once my waters have broken but still, I don’t like pain and my anxiety of labor makes my little one’s heart rate jump through the roof. She was at 170-180 from her usual 140s half the time I was there at the hospital. I feel like it would calm me down and make me less stressed which in turn will not stress her out too much either.
Then yesterday I woke up feeling kind of moist, so I went to the bathroom and noticed I may have just had my bloody show. Either that or it’s from the 3 vaginal checks the previous day, 2 of which were rough. I don’t have a clue honestly since either or can cause similar things. I didn’t really have any contractions or pains to go along with it so I’m assuming it was just the latter cause both of my sisters said once they had theirs, they went into labor that day. /shrug
Here’s hoping today may be the day, so I can get this little girl into the world and out of my belly. This whole labor thing is giving me way too much anxiety with not knowing what’s going on with my body!
