Baby Drama

I've been stuck sitting/laying on the couch for 3 days so I thought I'd post a little update for all our blog followers (does anyone actually read this?) I feel extremely narcissistic writing blog posts but maybe that will change when there is an actual baby to blog about. Regardless, I will share with you our adventure of the last few days...

It all started on Wednesday, which for the most part was a great day. I've really started enjoying my maternity leave and finally feel like I've started to unwind from work... I've been going to AquaFit in the mornings (where I'm the youngest person by about 30 years), hanging out with friends I haven't seen for a while, doing as much shopping for the baby as I can handle (shopping is not my forte), having naps every day and slowly starting to organize the house before baby comes. Wednesday was pretty low key until about 11PM when I got out of bed to use the bathroom (for the hundredth time) and had a severe pain under my belly. At first we just thought it was round ligament pain, which is the stretching of ligaments around the uterus as it grows. This pain is usually sharp and quite painful, but only lasts a minute or two. Unfortunately, the pain I was experiencing wasn't leaving. So after a shower (no help), a call to our midwife and some extra strength Tylenol (not much help either) we finally had a restless night of a few hours of sleep. By 6AM on Thursday we had both given up on sleeping anymore. I tried to take a bath to ease the pain a bit, which didn't do much and Gordie decided to phone our midwife again. She wanted to meet us at the hospital to check me over, but the maternity ward in Langley was full, so she came over. It's great when your midwife comes to you, you don't have to put on pants or get out of bed....

After being examined by the midwife, we didn't have many answers. The baby's heartbeat was great, it was moving around a lot, all my vitals were fine and it didn't look like the start of labor, which was a bit of a relief after a night of panic thinking we might be going into labor totally unprepared. We figured it was really strong Braxton Hicks (practice contractions) that would either go away eventually or turn into real labor. When we realized the pain was not going away, Gordie called my sister (who I now owe my life to) to come help out and get stuff ready in the house just in case the baby was on it's way. By 9PM, after a full day of extreme pain and not being able to even walk to the bathroom, I decided to call my midwife again and give her an update. She told us to meet her at the hospital so she could check me out more thoroughly and consult with an OB. So Gordie, Janna and I headed to the hospital. It felt like we were going for the real thing, except that we had no carseat, baby clothes or hospital bag packed. It was a good dry run though...

We ended up at the hospital for 3 hours and I was checked by both my midwife and an OB. They couldn't find anything so an ultrasound was ordered for the next day. Luckily I got a shot of Morphine and some other drugs to take home and we all had a good sleep. Yesterday was a better day, thanks to the drugs, but I was still in a lot of pain. We went back to the hospital for the ultrasound, which didn't give us any answers. The OB set me up with more painkillers and figured that the baby is just putting pressure on something they can't see. So now I'm just waiting for the baby to get off whatever it's laying on.

Luckily for us, we have amazing family and friends around us who helped us out... While we were at the hospital yesterday, my brother and his wife came over - Janna was still here, acting as my personal slave - and the three of them finished getting the baby room ready and made dinner. We also had friends drop dinner off the night before, which is seriously the greatest thing ever. Making meals and doing laundry are the last things you want to think about when you're in pain, and having people just come and take care of things for you is amazing. We feel lucky to have such great support...

So there it is.... the long drawn out story of our "we thought we might be in labor but it's just the baby being annoying" adventure. I'm hoping that by tomorrow I won't need painkillers and I'll be back to normal. Once I can stand normally, I'll post another belly shot and a picture of the now pretty much finished baby room....