Starting on Tuesday night, I felt that labor was encroaching upon me. One of the top warning signs of labor, for instance, is when a very pregnant woman gets up out of bed, turns on the light, and begins to pack for the hospital. This is what I did on Tuesday night. I was feeling so odd and out of sorts, abdominally ill at ease, and restless as a caged lioness. All day yesterday i had spates of contractions, some harsh, some vague, some organized into a pattern, some not. Doula Barbara was on hand to advise me. She noted that my belly had dropped noticeably and in watching my pain quotient and pattern gave me 24 hours, max.
But the thing was that it never pulled itself into focus. I never sat there, at least not for more than an hour, with contractions every six minutes and getting stronger as well as closer together. I would have that for a while and then the rhythm would break up again. But overall I was feeling quite poorly and in the shadow of a hurricane just over the horizon. Last evening we had to make a decision about whether to call in reinforcements to take Isaac. I sat for an hour or two, contracting, lying my side, feeling horrid. I decided that there was enough to go on to choose the lesser of the two evils. I chose that we call in Ben's dad from an hour south of here to come and get Isaac. The risk was that it would all be for naught. But the competing risk was that I would get into hard labor at three a.m. and we'd have a childcare problem on our hands. We do have neighbors lined up for duty, but if calling someone in the middle of the night could be avoided, that would be best. Managing Isaac at this point complicates things a lot. It requires predicting what will happen, which, as any meterologist will tell you, is a tricky proposition.
Anyway, my goal last night was to sleep at home until truly FORCED out into the night. Let's just make it til dawn, I reasoned, then deal with it. Without Isaac in the house we had the option to go to the hospital at any time, and this was very helpful in itself. The test is: if you can sleep through it, it's not real labor. So I tried to sleep. And sleep I did, for a hour or two at a stretch. And then a really bad, noticeable contraction would wake me up. A couple times I had this weird localized spot of pain first near one hip, then the other. But basically when I opened my eyes to see it was already 6 a.m., I was pleased as punch. And ready to go to the hospital.
For me, too, it's a lot harder to judge. I don't need (or want!) to get into full-blown labor. Sassy is effectively undeliverable in the bizarre jack-knife position in which he/she lives (head and feet up high, butt down low). At least for me with my history, and not being stranded on the side of a mountain at the moment. (Last time when I was in labor with Isaac in a similar position, an OB said, "Well, if you were stranded on the side of a mountain you MIGHT be able to do it– and both live!") All I need to do is establish that labor is starting and then there's no point in trying to stop it and so I would have a c-section. This morning I called in to speak to the OB on call, and after much ado (waiting for a response), she agreed that I should come in and be monitored. SHe said that if we could establish that labor was starting there would be no point in waiting any longer.
So of course we had to act like the next time we'd be home is with babe in arms. We got all the details in place, the co-sleeper set up, the rocking chair where it should be, etc. I supervised mostly, from a prone position. Ben gathered supplies for Lena dog to go to her boarder (he makes house calls and would have picked her up this afternoon), gave the cat plenty of food and water. We both packed the basics for a few days away from home. Then set out. I contracted all the while. Ben dropped me at the door of the hospital and I made the long slow walk down the corridors by myself. While standing and waiting to check in at the Labor and Delivery desk, I felt the need to bend half-way over from time to time, shutting my eyes against the "discomfort…"
So all seemed like a go. It really did. They hooked me up to the monitors, though, and really virtually nothing registered. My uterus is such an odd shape, and at first it was obvious to me that the little sensor thing was in a place completely without data. The normal place for it was not really accurate for me. I pointed this out to the nurse and she obligingly moved it. Then Sassy chose to do something really unprecidented: pull its head way over to the left and down. I can't fathom how he/she did that! I really am at a loss. But this meant that the monitor was again in no man's land. Meanwhile, my contractions seemed to have faded away. So perverse! Where were the monitors at 3 a.m. when contractions were throwing me out of bed?
Finally the coup de gras came upon examination. My cervix was unchanged, and I was sent home. PSYCH! Do over! I tried to explain that in my case the whole cervix thing is a little different there also, because there is no head battering it. The baby is floated about in other, unrelated regions. But no. The bottom line was that there was nothing to prove that I was in labor, and so, here I am, back on the couch where I started. Ben's parents, inconvenienced. Ben away from work for the day. And nothing to show for it!
Okay, okay, not nothing. The truth is that even at nearly 37 weeks (as of tomorrow), it STILL would be better for Sassy and ultimately for me to have another week or more. More, more, more. Always with the greed for more days. The more days, the bigger the baby. The bigger the baby, the easier to care for it, the healthier it is likely to be, the dwindling of incubator time to nothing. Also in terms of readiness…. the dry run has brought clarity to all the things we needed to get done. And they are now pretty darn done!
Just now as I was writing this, my OB called. He seemed actually surprised that I had been sent home. But the plan now is that on Monday in the early light (if I don't go into the REAL labor before then), I'll have a test, via amnio, to see whether the baby's lungs are mature enough to be born. If yes, I'll have a c-section then. If no, I'll be sent home again to continue my vigil!!
Ah yes, the joys of late pregnancy.
Props to Ben has been such a trooper through all this. He has earned a new sobriquet: sock master. I can't really reach my feet anymore, nor can I really lift my legs and bring the feet closer to me. This means that I need a person, a sock master, who will not only find me some socks but actually PUT them on my feet. And then, later, when my feet are too hot, he has to return to his post and REMOVE the socks from my feet. Then, when blocks of ice return to my subankle regions, repeat the process! Yes, I'm sure it's tiresome. But he has not complained. Perhaps it breaks up the monotony of reading the paper and worrying.