Yesterday afternoon, I had pretty intense cramps for a few hours. After asking a few people about the feeling I was having (trying to figure out if it was normal), I called Kaiser. When I explained the symptoms to the nurse, she recommended coming in to get everything checked out "just in case."
I was actually pretty calm, drove to Kaiser, and got up to the OBs office. Mild panic set in when the OB sent me to Labor and Delivery. At L&D, mild panic turned into a big more panic when the RNs put a hospital bracelet on my wrist, hooked me up to the contraction and heart rate monitors, and I saw three nurses and a doctor pretty darn quickly.
My blood pressure was through the roof when the nurse checked it the first time after hooking me up, but went back to normal after a little bit. The baby's heart rate was steady in the 140s.
They determined that the cramps I was feeling were pretty strong Braxton hicks contractions. Normally, these shouldn't hurt so they were worried that I may be in pre-term labor. After checking my cervix and a vaginal u/s, they were able to confirm that I was not having real contractions because my cervix was "long and closed." The pain is possibly from a pulled muscle from overdoing it this weekend.
I was given pretty strong warnings about my future behaviors. The doctor told me that I should be sitting down at least thirty minutes in each hour and avoid standing as much as possible (walking is okay) during the day at school. When I get home, I'm suppose to put my feet up and let people help me... I also am suppose to drink even more water (which is a bit crazy considering how much I already drink) because I was showing some dehydration symptoms. It was also pretty clear that if I didn't make changed, bed rest would be in my future.
Today was my first day "sitting" as much as possible. My 9th grade English kiddos were sweet and pretty encouraging; I sat almost the entire periods. In Read 180, I didn't sit much because they can't quite handle it, but I tried to continue walking as much as possible (versus standing).
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You might want to try throwing a packet of EmergenC in your water once a day - sometimes when you drink a lot of water you can still get dehydrated because your electrolytes are out of balance. I really like EmergenC to help with that. Trader Joes usually has a pretty good price on it :)
ReplyDeleteGlad there was nothing too wrong!
I had a bit of a scare last week too. When I got to the Drs and took my pee test, I saw that I started spotting. The nurse checked the baby's heartbeat first and couldn't find it, so she pulled in the ultrasound machine, and thankfully she immediately saw that baby was moving around a lot and sucking it's thumb! It was crazy to see little fingers and a head. But then she checked my spotting, and b/c she couldn't tell what it was from, she diagnosed that I am a Threatened Miscarriage, with a 50% chance. But the spotting stopped directly after the appt. and things have been great since Tues! I'm really happy! But that was super scary!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad everything is okay. I will pray that things continue that way and you don't get these contractions anymore.