Losing sleep.

Last night I was up on and off with contractions that started out annoying and escalated to downright painful. It was not fun.  It is too early; although I could be off by a week or so, my best estimate is that I am 35 weeks tomorrow.  

And so I had to "try to relax" at the same time as I counted them and fretted.  Ten in an hour from 11:10 p.m. to 12:10 a.m., but intermittent (five minutes apart, then 12, then seven, that sort of thing).  I took a hot bath, drank a lot of water with cranberry juice splashed in it, asked Mark to lay out clothes and shoes for the kids just in case we had to pull them out of their beds for a hospital run.  

Plus, the three-year-old had turned off the heat and the house had gone down to 65.  We found the problem and turned it back on before bedtime, but it was still chilly.  I was shivering with cold, but even though I knew that the temperature was the most likely cause of the shivering, I kept worrying that it was a sign of preterm labor.

We called the midwife and reported the contraction pattern, and she judged it not regular enough to warrant intervention ("but I should call if it gets more intense.")

Why does this kind of thing always happen in the wee hours?  Everything is dark and surreal, and the idea of bundling four children into the snowy night peculiarly unpleasant, and it is so much harder to calm down.  I eventually fell asleep around 12:30, but woke again at 2:00 a.m. with more contractions and a sense of things having shifted around in my pelvis, creating an unfamiliar pressure that worried me more.  I checked the clock, fretted, and then decided to get up.  

"You okay?" said Mark sleepily?

"Yeah... I'm having some more.  I think I'm going to get up and walk around a little."

Downstairs in the dark house I wandered around with a glass of water, and finally decided that half the problem was that I was so anxious about the contractions, so I sat down in front of the computer and started surfing Reddit to get my mind off of them.  It worked wonderfully; I kept having contractions, but they stopped hurting, so I stayed where I was.

About 4 a.m. Mark came down to check on me, and after we talked a little while I agreed to go back to bed.  And I fell asleep and didn't wake up till nine.  And now they are gone, leaving nothing but the sense of having lost sleep.

I have a theory that the baby dropped some last night, which of course I've been hoping for and looking forward to, and the scary pelvic pressure is just the sensation of my uterus stretching where it hadn't stretched before, and the contractions were there to drop the baby (or in response to him dropping, whatever).  It still wasn't fun.  

I hope I can get a nap this afternoon.  Chances are good, I think.

But first to Mass and then to brunch out with my family to celebrate our anniversary.

Comments

[Jan]

Hang in there Erin. I think you are correct about what likely happened. try to rest even without sleeping. You are in the homestretch now. It will all work out in God's plan.

[Jenny]

I always have some contraction disruption at about 35 weeks. Not enough for me to think I'm in labor, but enough for me to think I might need to keep an eye on it. It has never occurred to me that it might be the baby dropping. Being short and short-waisted I have always joked that the baby never drops because there is nowhere left for him to go.

I hope these last few weeks pass by quickly for you.

[Amber]

I often think the hardest part about being a midwife is all the middle of the night calls and births! I've only managed to have one pregnancy/birth without having to wake my midwife at some point. I hope you were able to get a nap and that things have stayed settled down.