Maybe? Please?

[beth_leonard]

I've got my Contraction Timer up in the other window. After waking up from my 2 hour nap at 6 pm this evening, I had a slew of strong Braxton Hicks contractions. I've been getting these for months (starting around week 22) but the ones this evening, while still not being painful were certainly stronger than normal. They can last up to 3 minutes and there were 6 in 40 minutes. We started timing them, and they're not that regular yet, but given the pep talk my doctor gave me last week about coming in early and often rather than missing it, I thought I'd call her just to see how early is early.

It turns out she's not on call tonight, her backup doctor is, although she is in town if I go into real labor. She just gets to have a nice evening without answering first-round questions.

The on-call doctor told me to lie down for an hour and see if they stay the same, get worse, or go away. So I did my best to do that while reading Peter stories for family play time on my bed. They seem to have slowed down to about once every 15 minutes. That's not enough to call in my parents and go to the hospital yet, but it is enough to continue keeping track of these things.

My parents are called and available, as is Peter's godmother Wyn, should we decide that this is it and that we need to go to the hospital in less time than it takes my parents to drive here.

Sigh. I wish it would be real labor so we could just do it and get it over with (although next Friday is more convienient than a Tuesday from Jon's work and my parents' work perspective.)

With Peter my water broke and labor didn't start so it was pitocen induced in the hospital. I didn't have to worry about what the early contractions felt like.

--Beth

Comments

[eilonwey.livejournal.com]

Good luck --- I hope this is it! I'm holding my thumbs for you!

Features I'd like in a contraction timer

[beth_leonard]

When I tell the contraction timer that a new contraction has started, I want it to immediately spit out how long it's been since the last one started. I don't want it to wait until that contraction is over to spit out that informtaion.

I should also be able to go back and edit previous entries if I forgot to mark the end of a contraction.

Ah well, on my long to-do list of things I never did was write my own.
--Beth

[beth_leonard]

At this point we're thinking this probably isn't it, but I've got the computer by the bed and I just have to hit the space bar when something happens. For the last two hours the data has been:
duration, time-between as min:sec, newest at the top.

1:25 16:04
2:57 18:38
5:54 14:14
0:37 13:27
2:18 33:59
1:07 11:46
0

Things are feeling less strong. I've got my regular OB appointment tomorrow at 10:15 am, so we'll have her check things out then too.
--Beth

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

I've never really had to worry about what early contractions felt like, either. Both times, I had a gradual (but not very steady) increase over a few weeks from hourly B-H to what could probably be considered early labor, except that it never went anywhere and would sometimes go back down to hourly B-H -- until suddenly, without warning, my water broke and all of a sudden I was definitely in active labor. The hardest part for me was trying to stay constantly well-rested, since I wanted to be well-rested at the start of labor, which might be any time. With T., I ended up with labor starting right at bedtime, and it worked out anyway, so I think I won't worry about it as much this time.

I hope the waiting doesn't wear on you too much. My mantra with D. was: "They all come out sometime!"

Newt

[eilonwey.livejournal.com]

Too bad, but your body is definitely getting ready with all those contractions, even if they were just practice ones. Hopefully really soon, now!