Dry Run

Wow – this was quite a week. I’ve kind of avoided posting these details on the Facebook, so this will likely read like one big sterile update.

Side note: Speaking of Facebook, that girl that was preggo and posted literally ten times a day about her progress and who is my own personal marker against how I judge my own sharing habits? Yeah, apparently posting about the mucus plug wasn’t enough – she honored us with a post about her explosive diarrhea. No.Fucking.Shit. ON HER STATUS UPDATE. Now, one might have in fact defriended this lunatic at this point, but not me – me and my abnormal fascination with oversharing wackos against whom I both rage and obsess. And yes, in case you’re wondering (you’re probably not) but she did in fact post throughout her delivery – all the way up to the point where she was 10 centimeters dilated and pushing. Why did she put down the phone, you ask ? (you likely didn’t) Because the doctor actually had to tell her to.

AUGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Why do I let it work me up so? Seriously. It would be so much easier to hit “remove,” but I don’t. I have no one to blame but myself.

And her. I blame her.

Okay, so getting back to the fact that I didn’t post on Facebook, I did want to say thanks to people that sensed something was up and inquired – I was so not trying to blow it off. I just wanted to wait until I could put it here and avoid being THAT girl.

So Monday was just about as typical as any other day. Since I was already on limited movement and couldn’t do my typical Monday drive out to the cornfields for my weekly meeting (it’s about 79 miles away, so the doctor and my husband said no more at this point – too far away if anything happens), I was working from home.

At 1100am, I threw on some flipflops and sweats and I went to my doctor’s appointment, not thinking much of anything. I didn’t even bother to shut down my work computer because I knew – thought – I would be back in about an hour.

But an hour later, I was on my way to Labor and Delivery.

Turns out that, while the tests results from that pre-term labor test were negative (meaning I was likely going to make it Week 34 without going into labor), my body had in fact started the process anyways. I was dilated, effaced and contracting (all of which are labor code words for “Get the catcher’s mitt ready – batter’s up!), and with enough progress from the previous week that I was being sent to Labor and Delivery to be hooked up to monitor the actual contractions and assess what was happening.

In addition, because my body already started to prepare and pre-term labor was the concern, I was given steroids for the baby’s lungs – with the way my body was progressing, even if we stopped the labor, there was still a chance the baby would come too early (anytime in the next two weeks), and the steroids were to boost the lung development.

The rest of the day kind of drew out – contractions slowed, I got my first round of steroid shots, and watched the Chiefs football game with my husband from the hospital room.

Contractions kicked back in fierce the next morning, but there was no decernable change to my cervix since the day before, so they let me go home.

Where I am now trapped. Indefinitely. Well, at least til this kiddo comes out.

And believe me – my family and especially my husband are hawk-eyeing me to make sure that I don’t get very far from my couch. My job has been extremely awesome in divvying up my responsibilities to lessen my stress (although truth be told its weird seeing other people do my job – makes me feel a bit dispensable but oh well) and I’ve been doing what I can to keep up with my supervisees.

Today marks Week 34, and what we consider the gateway to the Green Zone. This is a big marker because once I got to Week 34, they won’t try to stop the labor again. I guess that Week 34 also represents a big turn in terms of lung development, and the baby has a strong chance of being okay – which is why they wouldn’t stop anything from happening from tomorrow on.

So for the next few days (weeks?), I am ever so vigilant of water breaking, timing my ongoing contractions and all that good stuff. I have another doctor’s appointment Monday (if I make it that point), but this time I have my bags packed, a phone tree ready, and more sense of calm than this past Monday’s chaos.

As for the baby, he/she is getting big, although not as big as expected. At 32 weeks, I was only measuring at about 30 weeks, so right about now the kiddo is about 4 pounds-ish (hopefully). But I feel confident that the pizza/bread stick binge last night will help round the little bambino out. And if that didn’t do the trick, surely the candy/cookie gorge of this afternoon will do the trick.

I’ve missed running and fitness more than ever lately, but I am sure that mass anxiety that these last few weeks have brought might have something to do with that. And I won’t even get into the moment I was going through closet last night and stumbled across a dress I wore just one year ago, simultaneously marveling at how tiny it was and tearing up at the current state of affairs.

Sigh.

Having a baby is hard, yo.

Now back to the couch.