Round One

Last week, we went on a family vacation to a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. It wasn't much of a vacation for me -- no hiking or whitewater rafting for the pregnant woman, and the girls were less than amused by the sleeping arrangement. I had some episodes of contractions while we were there, but nothing too major. They started up again after we got home Sunday evening, though, so off I went to see Dr. Pro on Monday. She put me on nifedipine every three hours, and told me to rest and drink water and come to L&D if they kept up

They stopped for a while, then started back up again, and stopped and started several more times through Monday and Tuesday. Every time
I was about to make up my mind to head in, they'd quit. By Wednesday afternoon, though, they had quit quitting, so in I went. Terbutaline wasn't very effective -- it never does much for me except give me the shakes -- but they ran some fluids and gave me some Stadol, and eventually they tapered off. They're back again this morning, though, so I'm sitting here waiting to see what they're going to do about them.

My cervix was still closed, so I am probably not in imminent danger of actually having the baby. From past experience, my uterus is capable of producing plenty of sound and fury, without actually doing much. Eventually, I'll most likely get sent home with instructions to take it easy and come back if anything changes, and I'm ready to skip to that part of the program (especially the part that involves breakfast). Still, I'm a little dismayed that this has started so early. I was hoping to get to 30 weeks or so before we started playing this game -- 24 weeks is, well, a little premature.

Update: the good news is that Dr. Pro let me go home, under strict instructions to come back if I feel the slightest need. The bad news is that I'm bed-resting it for the next 12 weeks.