Saturday, January 14, 2012

Another False Alarm

Last night I had another episode of what I am calling, for a better term, "false labor" - contractions that woke me up in the middle of the night and halfway convinced me that I must be going into real labor.

This time it was longer than last time - for about five contractions - and took up about half an hour. Funnily enough, it woke me up in the middle of my Hypnobabies CD, which I have been "listening to" for the past week, but as I've been asleep for most of it, I've never actually heard it to the end. Rather confusing!

Thankfully the contractions stopped once I got up. I'm hoping this is not going to become a habit!

Things like these raise important philosophical questions, like (1) How can this baby even think about coming early when I haven't yet finished my to-do list??? and (2) Why on earth am I choosing to have an unmedicated birth again? Remind me?

Doubtless both questions will be answered by the wisdom of posterity. In the meantime, I am exhausted and rather cranky. Giving myself a ridiculously long to-do list for today (bake two cakes! process broccoli baby food! roast beets! do housework! blog! freeze blueberries!) has not helped.

Anyhow, off to get back to it! Have a great weekend, all.....

7 comments:

  1. Ooh...your mention of baking cakes reminds me of a story I heard once. On...the ICAN yahoo list, maybe? I forget.

    Anyway, the woman was worried that her labor would last too long and she'd be unable to endure it and "give up" and go to the hospital for pain relief. She wanted a homemade chocolate cake for her baby's "birth day" cake and decided she'd make it from scratch,beginning to do it as soon as labor started, and having someone else finish it up when she was unable to. Her mantra became, "I will only labor as long as it takes, to make, bake and frost a chocolate cake."

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  2. It sounds like you have a little Type-A girl on your hands. She's going to come when SHE wants to come, mommy's to-do list be darned ;) She sounds a little fiery.

    I had a few false labor episodes too--they're so frustrating because you go through all that and don't get anything to show at the end of it. :P Glad she stayed put. Maybe she and Matthew can be birthday buddies!

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  3. Jen - Did you really? I didn't remember that (except the one episode that landed you in the hospital). This is the first time I have ever dealt with anything like that!! Both times I've had uncomfortable BH contractions, but they were still clearly BH type. Both of these episodes, though short, has made me think "Oh boy, here we go!"

    Yes, this little one's personality already has me nervous - the level of activity she's keeping up in there is scary! :)

    Becky - I've wanted to bake a labor cake with both babies, but each labor has begun with SROM and immediate labor contractions that have required all of my time and energy - no time for a cake! So this time I have made it in advance and frozen it - not a truly authentic labor cake, but better than nothing!!

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  4. D-there was the one in the hospital. THen there was one about 2 weeks before he was born that lasted *7* hours. I had an appointment a day or two later and described it to my doc. He said that he didn't think it was real labor/contractions. He thought I was just misunderstanding BH or something but I knew they were real! Then he checked me, and I had dilated to a 4 and was like 80% effaced. He said, "Wow! I guess they were real!"

    Then the following week I had another 3 hour episode and at my appointment, I was 95% and a passed a 5, but not to a 6.

    A couple days later, I went in to "the rest of" my labor and then ultimately, he was born. It was very weird :P

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  5. Jen - Wow, how odd! With all of that, it's funny that you did not have a super-snappy labor. I hope I don't have too many more of these events - they're tiring, nerve-wracking, and.... tiring again!! It's so funny how every pregnancy can introduce something new. Well, here's to new experiences!! (Just not too many of them. :)

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  6. No joke. Had those last 4 cm and the pushing gone smoothly, I would have actually thought I had the perfect l&d. Until the end, I liked doing it a little at a time! Maybe your little one is just inching her way along to make the final performance smooth and quick!

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  7. It will be interesting to see if your next pregnancy follows the same labor pattern, with lots done ahead of time! I have never researched prodromal/false labor much just since I never experienced it. If this keeps up, though, I won't take the real thing seriously when it DOES show up, LOL!!! (How to have an unassisted birth in three easy steps, etc. etc. etc.)

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