Today (Monday) was my birthday. I've come to realize that as you get older, birthday are just not as big a deal as they are when you are younger. Now, I'm only 26 today, woo hoo! But, it's just not the same when you are 30 weeks pregnant, have a toddler to take care of, Hubby has to work all day and you are sick with a cold. And since becoming a mother myself I actually find myself enjoying more calling my mom to thank her for carrying me for 37 weeks and giving birth to me. Every one tells me Happy Birthday all day long, but hey, SHE did all the work!! So anyway, Thanks Mom!!! Love you!
So yes, back to my day. As I said, sick with a cold, strange cold though, no sinus congestion at all, just sore throat and cough. So my day began at 5:30am when I woke coughing hysterically and couldn't stop. Rather than stay upstairs and wake someone up I decided to go lay on the couch and watch a movie. Then Victor woke around 8? 8:30? I went to get him and we actually fell back to sleep for awhile. Then we came down and watched cartoons (remember, I'm sick and TV is a great way to get to lay on the couch and do nothing) and I desperately tried to avoid having to do dishes.
Eventually at some point I took a shower and Victor actually got in with me. He's never done that before, he's always been scared of the shower. It was much better than having him stand outside yelling at me though, ha! Then I finally ended up doing the dishes. I knew if I didn't I wouldn't have anything to cook dinner with. Yep, Matt had to work all day and I was making my own birthday dinner. Let me say here that I had made my funfetti cupcakes yesterday, that way I could enjoy them all day today :-)
Around 3:30 I felt a couple of braxton hicks contractions right in a row. Then felt very tight/stretching sensation in my belly. It was strong enough that I was rubbing my belly trying to get it to loosen up, it was fairly uncomfortable. I was cooking dinner at this point (enchiladas, yum!) and feeling intermittent twinges in my belly too. At one point I picked Victor up for a second and had to put him immediately down on his chair ( I keep a chair in the kitchen so he can watch what I'm doing) because I felt pain spread over my whole belly as soon as I picked him up. At this point I realize I'm still having BHCs and each time my belly gets tight I feel pain on the sides of my belly. Not like contraction type pain, sharp stabbing pain.
Side note here: the cupcakes I had left from yesterday had been in the oven to keep them from Victor's quick little fingers. A fact that I forgot until I went to put in my enchiladas and saw my sad little cupcakes burnt to hard little brown rocks. *tear* Sooo sad....
Then the enchiladas are done, I lean over to move Victor's chair from in front of the oven (nothing he could touch was hot, no worries) and the instant I just picked up the chair I had pain, like serious pain all over both sides of my belly. I got the enchiladas out and had to sit down at the table. The pain was coming intermittently about every 3-5 minutes or so. Luckily Matt at this point was just minutes from arriving home. I called my midwife because by this time the pain had been coming and going for about 3 hours and I was currently immobile. She was actually out of town and I got her voicemail. Matt got home, I explained what was going on, I managed to stand up and get myself a plate and then Matt had to help me walk to the couch where I promptly collapsed and texted the other midwife.
She was already in her car from seeing other patients with the midwife-in-training (mit) and they decided to come on over so they could check me out. In the meantime I was instructed to drink something like gatorade and to get in the bathtub to try to relax. Of course as soon as I got in the bathtub all the pain went away and I felt fine. Ridiculous. I texted her to let her know and she said she was almost there and they'd check me out anyway and make sure we were doing ok.
We were supposed to be having a prenatal appt on Wednesday morning anyway so we went ahead and made it my appt. Cadie's heartbeat is great, in the 150s like always, she is a mover, which we also knew and likely won't settle into a head down position until I go into labor (that's my prediction anyway). I'm still measuring 2 weeks ahead, have been for over 6 weeks now so as long as the trend continues we're good. My urine was nice and boring (gross, sorry, lol). and BP still nice and low. However, the pain started to come back while I was there with them.
As she was palpating my belly and we were figuring where exactly the pain was coming from and all that, I was telling them about my cold and that I'd been coughing a lot more today. Our current theory is this: coughing (great abdominal exercise) had aggravated the round ligaments on the sides of my uterus and every time I was having a contraction it was pulling on them, pulling them further out of whack. So not fun, but not serious. She went ahead and checked me, said my cervix is cone shaped at the moment, semi-soft and about 1.5cms at the front but still closed in back so at least now if the contractions keep going and they need to check me again they can tell if my cervix is changing with them or not.
Then after they left the pain came back full force while I was trying to get Victor something to eat. After laying on the couch for awhile I was feeling better. It's kind of coming and going at this point, but since we think I pulled my ligaments out of whack it's probably going to be doing that for awhile till they settle back down. I'm thinking about getting a belly support thingy to help.
I'm definitely starting to feel large (since I'm measuring at 32 weeks, probably not surprising) and Victor wanting to sit on me all the time is starting to drive me nuts. But I'm feeling Cadie move all the time still, she's had hiccups 3 times now, twice just today! I love playing Guess That Body Part! Super fun :-) I'll post a belly picture tomorrow, I know you're all dying for one *wink*
So to sum it up: sick, pregnant, cooked, destroyed cupcakes, pain, midwife visit.... great birthday!
