Our Journey: Life Before & After Our Miracle : 40 Weeks + 1 Day

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

40 Weeks + 1 Day

Well, as I'm sure you can tell by the title of my post, NO SKYLEE YET. :( It's been such an emotional roller coaster this week. Monday (my due date), I went ahead and went in for clinicals even though I felt miserable. If I have to choose between what hours I miss, I much prefer missing once I have little Skylee to stay home and snuggle with. So I struggled through my 7 hours at the hospital, having contractions all day long but nothing super regular or timeable. Around 4:00 p.m. I started timing, and they started out around 10 mins apart and gradually worked down to 4 and 1/2 - 5 mins apart. Around 9 p.m., I called my OB and he said to just go ahead and go in and get checked. They hooked me up to the monitor, and the contractions kept coming on a pretty steady 5-6 minute basis. They also got more intense once I got there. They checked me, and said my cervix is extremely posterior (it took two different nurses to be able to tell me if I had progressed). They said I was fingertip dilated and 80 % effaced. Last week at my appointment I wasn't dilated at all and was 50% effaced, so I was a little encouraged that I had made at least a bit of progress. They called the doctor with the update, and then told me I was in "the early stages of labor" and would be much more comfortable laboring at home, so they let me go. We decided to stay with Mom and Bentley in case things picked up in a short time frame. (Kind of what we were hoping for, I guess). The contractions kept me up pretty much all night, but I was able to doze off around 4 am and sleep straight till 7. When I got up, I noticed the contractions had really subsided. Had my doctor's appointment set for 9. Getting ready for the appointment and knowing my contractions had gone to like 15 mins apart, I got frustrated and shed a few tears of discouragement. Mom, Bentley, and I went to my appointment and they hooked me up to the NST monitor to see how Skylee is doing. I kept having contractions while on the monitor, but nothing like the night before, and nothing regular. They weren't happy with her reaction on the NST, so they had me eat something, and then got the reaction they wanted. Then they let me know that the doctor was still doing a C-Section, so there was no one there to check me. I could've waited for him if I wanted to, but I decided to just leave. I was already depressed and at this point, I really don't care to know if I've progressed at all or not. :( Either I have, and it's almost time, or they would tell me no change, and I would be even more sad. After we left the appointment, Daniel and I went to breakfast with Mom and Bentley at IHOP. The contractions picked up there while I was eating, and they have stayed steady. We went walking on the sea wall again after breakfast, and then I came home and napped for around 2-3 hours. I was/am exhausted, so it felt good to sleep. The contractions woke me up so I got up and sat on my birth ball for quite a while, doing different exercises to try to get my cervix dilated. ANDDDDD that's pretty much where things stand at this point. I'm still having contractions every 5-6 minutes. They've gradually gotten more intense. But I see no reason to go in and get checked, just to get sent home again. So, I'm back at our condo for the night, and thinking I'm going to try to do something constructive like CLEAN and do our backed up laundry. Hoping that it will bring me out of this sad, discouraged, and defeated spirit I've gotten myself into. I'm just so tired of being uncomfortable. I've been having these contractions for 24 hours straight now with nothing to show for it. :( I'm just ready to at least know she's soon on her way. At this point I feel like we are on a stand still.

I will keep updating. Maybe the next post will be that I went into full-blown, active labor tonight, and had her! :) That would be nice but I'm not getting my hopes up. At this point I feel like I may be pregnant for the rest of my life with this little girl. ;)

1 comment:

Call Me Mrs. FosterMarch 12, 2014 at 11:23 AM
All I can say right now is "I know how you feel". But at least you are having noticable contractions! I am just having annoying braxton hicks. :( Will be thinking about you and I'll be hoping she comes soon!! Xo This waiting and not knowing is extremely testing for us. :)
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

The Story of Our Struggle

We met in 2009, and were married in January, 2012. We both decided to wait to have a baby, so that we could enjoy being young and newly married. Surprisingly, even with our precautions, we discovered we were pregnant in May, 2012. Sadly, the pregnancy didn't last long, and I had a miscarriage at approximately 5 weeks pregnant. We were both devastated. I struggled with the question of how I could love a little one so much that I thought I "wasn't ready for". After the miscarriage, we decided to stop using precautions and to allow a baby to happen when the timing was right. Almost exactly a year later, on April 30th, I received the phone call from the doctor that my blood test came back positive. I was sure this time would be different. I painted a shell (with the words "will you be our baby's daddy") to announce the pregnancy to Daniel (just like he proposed to me). We made Mother's Day gifts to announce the pregnancy to our families on Mother's Day. The day before Mother's Day, however, I started bleeding, and on that following Monday I received miscarriage confirmation. The first miscarriage was hard, but this one truly devastated me. I didn't want to function. I literally wanted to just withdraw from everyone and spend each day in tears. Thankfully, as a few weeks went by, I felt stronger and my heart was healing. Daniel was my rock. He held me, cried with me, and walked me through a really hard time in my life.

The doctors had told me my uterus is extremely tilted back, which kind of explained why it had taken me exactly a year in between pregnancies to conceive again. Actually, I had two different doctors tell me that because of the extreme tilt, I could possibly never get pregnant. So, knowing that, I really didn't think a third pregnancy would happen......at all, or at least not any time soon.

Only a month and a half later, I tested positive again (on Daniel's 23rd birthday). I immediately sent a picture of the test to my family and his family. I saw no reason to try to make some kind of special reveal like I had with the last. That only made it harder when I lost that little one. I went to the doctor and got blood test confirmation, and they began having me come in every other day to have blood drawn to see if this baby was growing properly. Things looked good, and the weeks began to go by. I started making it to little milestones.
We found out when I was 17 weeks that we were having a baby girl. Words cannot describe the complete joy and happiness I felt making it to the ultrasound for gender determination. As the weeks continued to go by, I grew more and more comfortable in my pregnancy, and the anxiety started to lessen. After going through two recent losses, it kind of steals the joy of pregnancy because you are constantly worried about "what if". In December, when I was around 24-25 weeks, I tripped on some stairs and landed right on my stomach. Not long after I began having contractions, and my doctor sent me in to Labor and Delivery. My heart was terrified. I couldn't fathom making it all this way with this pregnancy and then losing her. They gave me a shot and some meds to stop the pre-term labor, and sent me home. The next day, the contractions continued to come, so back to the hospital we went. They gave me more meds, and kept me overnight to make sure the labor had stopped. When they sent me home, they prescribed me with a medication to take every 6 hours. I took that medication from week 25 all the way to week 36, and our little girl continued to healthily grow. Currently I am 38 weeks pregnant and we are beyond ready to meet our little miracle baby.

I've had alot of people give me "the side eye" for being pregnant at 22, and for not waiting till after I finished nursing school (which I am set to graduate in May 2015). That was my original plan. But I am living proof that plans don't always go the way you want them to. When we lost the first baby, we decided not to try to control when we would have our first child. Because I've had such a struggle with my body carrying a pregnancy, I didn't want to possibly miss my only chance to have a little one. We don't regret our decision for an instance. I still fully intend to make it through nursing school, and even though we are young, we are fully prepared to take on the responsibility of little miss Skylee Rae Hester.