Reality Check

I'm 32 weeks today.

For the past few weeks, I have been having my typical contractions. They are much worse at night than during the day, but if I lay down, take a bath, drink tons of water and go to sleep, they subside by morning. Last night, they seemed stronger than before... not only that, but it seemed like the baby had dropped and there was a lot of pressure. It feels like this little girl is ready to exit. Heck, for the last week, whenever she has had the hiccups, it has felt like I was sitting on someone who has the hiccups. It feels like my butt has the hiccups. No lie.

I called the office yesterday and told them that it might be a good idea to get that fetal fibronectin test done. (The test that shows if preterm activity has begun). They told me to call and come in in the morning. It took me the first half of the day to figure out how I was going to get there, and what I was going to do with the kids. Kierstin came to the rescue and I sped off for Athens.

They hooked me up to the contraction monitor to see that, yes, I do have the world's most irritable uterus. They did a cervical check and found Olive's head is at -1 station and my cervix is soft and shortening. (But, it's not opened and it's still posterior, both good signs. If it had been dilated at all I would have been sent over to L&D, and I have no idea how that would have worked!) I had the fetal fibronectin test done and will get the results back tonight. If it's positive, I'll go in and get the steroid shots for baby's lungs. If it's negative, then I'll know that I will be pregnant for at least two more weeks.

Olive has been measuring 1-1.5 weeks ahead of schedule, and my fundal height is 1 week ahead, so coming early doesn't seem as scary. I know she'll be fine. I just need to focus my energy on getting a plan together, so that when the time comes I'm not scrambling around to figure out who is watching the kids and who can take me to the hospital, etc. I've revamped my estimate from 6 weeks to 4 weeks.

It's funny, I could tell something was going on by the sheer fact that I spent yesterday cleaning out the microwave and getting the kids to move my bed so I could vacuum under it. Vacuum and clean under the bed? Have I EVER done that? Something has to be up. My hands and feet have started to swell, too, which I didn't do with Ivey until the very end.