What a week

I'm 33 weeks along today. It's all becoming a bit more real, and if I'm being honest with myself, a little emotional, too. In June, when this little one was conceived, I was grieving. I had basically given up on ever carrying a child. Dan and I had just returned from a cruise a month earlier where after waiting until I was more than a week late, I had taken a pregnancy test in the confines of our tiny little cabin bathroom. It was negative...again. I decided right then that I was giving up. I told myself that I needed to come to terms with not being able to get pregnant (at least without medical intervention). I was throwing in the towel...only this time, I meant it.
We decided to seek out more medical help, but in the meantime, we were going to pursue adoption. Having a child that I carried was important to me, but so was giving someone else a home. The cost scared me, but I didn't want to wait three or four years down the road. I wanted to get the process started. So we scheduled a meeting with an adoption agency in Sioux Falls. Just a few days before that meeting, we found out I was pregnant. I was immediately scared.
We had tried for three years to get to this place. I was scared of miscarriage and I was scared something would go wrong. In a way, I still am, although I've learned that I need to leave the stress somewhere else and enjoy this pregnancy. I deserve it. Dan and I deserve it. We're so excited about the next few months and what it will bring.
On Wednesday, I thought it might come sooner than we were expecting.
I went in for a scheduled non-stress test. Baby was great. Heartbeat was nice and strong and he was moving around a bunch, which pleased the nurse. But then she came in and asked me if I was feeling strange at all. I was feeling some tightening in my belly, but I didn't think it was anything to worry about.
I had been experiencing contractions (I figured just braxton hicks) since Monday night. On Monday, they were about an hour apart and lasted about a minute each time. And they were really painful. At one point, I had trouble standing. Then they quit before returning on Tuesday. That afternoon at work was interesting. The contractions were coming every 15 minutes or so, and they were still pretty painful. But by Tuesday night, they seemed to have quit, and by Wednesday morning, I was just feeling the tightening every couple of minutes. No pain. Just a little discomfort.
I wasn't worried...until the nurse told me that they were real contractions (not braxton hicks) and that I should have called my doctor as soon as they started happening. "Honey, these are normal if you're 37 weeks along, not 33," she said. She called down to my doctor, telling her on the phone that my contractions were two to three minutes apart.
Because I had a doctor's appointment right after, Dan met me down there. I tried to fill him in as quickly as I could while we waited in the waiting room. He was insistent that the doctor would put me on bed rest, which I didn't want. I'd go crazy at home.
When Monica, the nurse called us back, she took us straight into the ultrasound room. I went to go pee in a cup while Monica and Dan chatted. When I got back to the room, they were talking about how if I was in labor, we'd have to get ahold of my parents, who are on a cruise right now. I said something like "Why? I wouldn't want to ruin their trip." But Dan and Monica convinced me that they'd probably be mad if they didn't know what was going on.
I'm glad it didn't come to that. Instead, my doctor checked my cervix (via an exam and a vaginal ultrasound...fun, fun, fun) and took a swab to test for signs of pre-term labor. Everything was golden. My cervix is still long and closed. And the test was negative, which means that I'm not likely to go into labor in the next two weeks. Bed rest was briefly discussed, but when I told the doctor that I basically have a desk job, she was content to letting me return to work. Later when Monica called to give me the test results, she reminded me to take it easy and to call if anything changes.
And it hasn't. I'm still having the contractions, but besides a few times, they haven't been painful. I've also noticed that when I'm laying down and resting, they quit. The last two mornings I haven't gotten any until I get to work and start really doing things. At first it was distracting, but now, I've gotten used to it. I just hope they quit.
On Monday, I have another ultrasound. This one, we'll be checking the baby. Depending on what's going on, I could be sent up for another non-stress test. We'll see.