27 weeks....my ute is mad

This has been a tough week so far. Entering third trimester in a lot of ways has felt like a regression into 1st trimester with the nausea and fatigue. However, the back pain and cramps were new. For the better part of a week I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my support belt which was supposed to arrive Friday. Must to my dismay and excitement, it arrived on NYE!! 

Of course the second I realized I had my belt it had to go on so I ripped through the packaging and strapped that puppy around my waist. Pretty soon after I had it adjusted properly, Thomas started throwing a fit and thrashing around. I think it was smooshing him and he didn't like it. His thrashing was just as uncomfortable as the back pain so I took the belt off for the time being.

With the newfound back pain also came cramps in my stomach. On occasion they'd both happen together in a quick spasm-y type of feeling. Not so much painful just startling. However, the last couple days the cramps were coming on again but painful this time, almost like bad period cramps. We were at Jim's family's house last night for a "going away party" since his parents leave for Florida in a few days when the cramps kicked in again but weren't going away and felt similar to the labor pains I had with Jack, just not as strong. At Jim and my mother in law's heeding, Jim took me to the ER at the hospital closest to our house. The same hospital where I had my second hospital stint after Jack's delivery last year. When I told the person at the registration desk I was 27 weeks pregnant, having cramps and back pain, she immediately went and got a wheelchair and wheeled me over to the Labor and Delivery unit.

As we were waiting at the L&D desk to give them my information you could hear a woman in labor yelling and causing a commotion. That was just enough to set me over the edge and breakdown. All I could think about was being there last year and how I don't have my Jack anymore. Now I'm here for Thomas and its too early for him to be here....maybe he'd be ok but I cant go through losing another son tonight. I think the person wheeling me around figured it would be better to get me out of there so she wheeled me out of L&D and brought me to Maternity triage instead.

They gave me a gown, made me pee in a cup, and hooked me up to a heart rate monitor for Thomas and a contraction monitor to see what was going on. We hung out there for awhile, Thomas was having fun bumping the monitor and moving around so that his heart rate couldn't be detected. It almost seemed like he was having fun with it! At first the nurse was looking at the reading from the contraction monitor and said there were a few blips but it looked like uterine irritability so she was going to leave it on for a little while longer and see if anything changed while they ran my urine for protein and to check for UTI , etc..... after she left the cramps were getting worse so I wasn't surprised that when she came back in the room (with a 2nd nurse) that she said they were showing stronger contractions on the paper and they needed to look into the cause a little more. The OB on call ordered an IV with fluids to see if the contractions would stop plus something called a Fetal Fibronectin Test  to see if I was going into preterm labor. If it were to come back positive there was a chance of going into labor within the next two weeks, although there are chances for the test to be false positive. A negative was for sure negative that was I was at least good for a few weeks.

Three sticks later, they were able to get the IV in me, they also gave me some Tylenol to help with the pain from the cramps. The Fetal Fibronectin Test wasn't all that much fun... its like a pap smear except they cant use lube on the speculum because it would interfere with the results of the FFN test. Yikes.

We sat and sat and sat until finally the nurse came in and let me know that the FFN was negative which was a huge relief! The OB on call came down to see me and said based on the contractions I was having, since they weren't long enough or strong enough to be considered labor, coupled with the negative FFN test, that he was in fact calling this uterine irritability. So many things can cause it, dehydration, stress, lifting heavy objects, an active baby, even a full bladder....so its tough to determine what caused my issues. He instructed me to call my usual doctor and see about getting in to see them sooner than scheduled just for a full check up and gave me my list of things to look out for....bleeding, leaking, etc... He suggested Tylenol, hot baths, resting with my feet up as much as possible.

Finally at about 1am we were able to go home and we both were so happy to get released and not have to spend the night there!!  I'm going to call my MFM tomorrow and see if my appointment scheduled for the 16th can be bumped up hopefully either tomorrow or Tuesday. The OB on call last night didn't order a transvag ultrasound, which is how they usually do an accurate check of the cervix, so I'd still like to know that my cervix isn't changing as well. Pain I can handle....as long as I know its not causing harm to Thomas I'm fine with it.

On that note....here is a new addition to the nursery décor, my 27 week bump shot (our friend gave us a bunch of baby boy clothes don't mind my mess of piles behind me, LOL ) , and my new best friend Tylenol.