what to do?

josh and tristan just came home from doing some errands and, when i heard tristan knocking on the front door i called out "who is it?" "PIZZA!" was the excited response. he continued to enthusiastically proclaim what we were having for dinner as he pranced around the kitchen and living room, then he settled down on the floor to play with his choo choo trains. i asked him "where's the choo choo going?" and he thought for a moment before saying "eat PIZZA!" i think my boy likes pizza :)


so, i've been having quite a lot of contractions since sunday. because of the prior false alarms i've already had in going down to the hospital, i've mostly just been ignoring them. during my NST yesterday morning, the nurse noticed that i had 4 contractions in the span of about 10 minutes. she looked quite concerned about it, even though i told her i had barely felt them. still, she gave me the same advice i've been given since discharged from the hospital: "if you have 5 or more contractions within an hour, call the hospital."


since that visit, i've felt slightly torn about the whole thing. i had told my OB at my appointment last thursday that i've been having lots of contractions lately and he just shrugged and said "well, that means he'll be on time!" i understand that my pregnancy hasn't been a "normal" pregnancy ever since the accident, and so regular braxton hicks contractions that are normally of no concern, are something to be monitored in my situation. however, i also know from experience that calling the hospital will only result in having to go down there (an hour's drive away), which also involves finding somewhere for tristan to go, packing a bag (which we really SHOULD have packed already!) and probably being told to just go back home after a few hours.


and so, like i said, i've been ignoring them. until today. when you have long contractions every 5 minutes for an hour, that's something that's not so easy to ignore. of course, i wasn't doing much to help the situation, since tristan had just woken up from his nap and i had to haul my belly up the stairs to go get him, haul my belly back down the stairs, then get him something to eat and figuring that i may as well unload the dishwasher while i was in the kitchen. josh came home from work to find me on my spinny chair, putting dishes away and when i told him how often i was contracting, he commanded me to immediately go lay down and rest. and so that's what i've been doing.


i've also been drinking a whole lot of water, which is supposed to help false labor end. it hasn't ended, but its gotten much more sporadic with contractions anywhere from 3-15 minutes apart. the way i see it is, if i'm truly in labor at 36 weeks, do i really want doctors giving me a bunch of icky medicine to make the contractions stop? of course, i'd rather give birth a few weeks down the road, but i don't feel that my baby will be in any danger if he comes now, especially since i was already given those steroid shots right after the accident to help develop his lungs. i also have another NST followed by an OB checkup on thursday, where my doctor may check to see if i'm dilated (apparently they don't like to check before 37 weeks just because simply checking the cervix may cause it to dilate)

and so, all of that to say, i think i'm just going to hang out at home for now, eating pizza with my family, praying that these silly contractions ease up enough to allow me to get a good night's sleep tonight. of course, i'll keep you posted :)