Drastic Measures

Today is a big day.  I had the last of my meds to stop the contractions at 6:00 this morning.  They are no longer going to do anything to keep the contractions from coming.  And it's February - why is that a big deal?  Because when I first announced I was pregnant and was asked the ever-popular "When are you due?" question, I always responded with "March 14th, but I'd be thrilled to make it to February."  And here we are! 

So wouldn't you know, now that they don't care if I have contractions, I only have one or two contractions per day.  Figures.  What they care about now is the baby's activity.  This has been a rather frustrating experience over the last couple of days because it's resulted in so much extra unnecessary commotion (at least as far as I'm concerned).  Like I said in the last post, the baby needs to have a certain acceleration every X number of minutes and the acceleration needs to last for X amount of time in order to be considered acceptable.  And of course our little boy is as stubborn as his sister and refuses to cooperate when I'm on the monitor.  He's moving around just fine, but he'll get within a beat or two of the "acceptable" range and that's it; or he'll reach it but not stay at that level for the necessary few seconds; or he'll decelerate when I have a rare contraction.  If any of the above happens, the nurses keep me on the monitor for longer than an hour (or put me back on later when I think I'm already done) because they consider him to be "nonreactive".  My afternoon monitoring session yesterday resulted in three hours on the monitor.  This morning's session resulted in additional hour later on that I didn't see coming.  And both times the doctor has ordered an ultrasound to check on the baby to be sure he wasn't in distress.  I personally feel all these measures are drastic and not necessary, but my doctor insists that we have to be cautious considering the situation.  I was so frustrated and at my breaking point yesterday that I was seriously considering walking out of this place.  I don't know if I can get away with that, but can they hold me against my will?  Then again logic tells me that we just had our carpet replaced after the last home birth so I suppose I had better stay put here.

In the meantime, I'm taking drastic measures myself.  I'm trying to do everything I can to get my active boy moving while he's on the monitor versus only when he's off.  I keep tossing and turning to try to find a position that he likes to get him moving.  I keep poking and prodding at him to irritate him to get him to react.   I have started drinking caffeine and consuming more sugar before or during these sessions to try to boost the baby's energy level.  My nurse this afternoon had the same idea and waltzed in here with a pop, ice cream, pudding, and a rice krispies treat for me to snack on during my afternoon session!  Here I am fretting about gaining so much weight, yet look at what I'm putting into my inactive body now.  Sigh.  I just can't win.

So anyways, as soon as I get off the monitor my ornery little boy starts flitting around like crazy and my tummy does it's wild belly dance moves.  Thankfully, with each ultrasound Lil Mac cooperates and shows off how active he is and how he's breathing well and moving around the way they'd like.  He also still has enough fluid in there to be a happy guy and is not in distress at all.  But seriously,  are they really going to require an ultrasound every day?!  It's not even the fun kind - no 3D to get a look at his chubby cheeks and the screen is so grainy I hardly can tell what I'm looking at.  The good news is that he weighs more than his sister did when she came home from the hospital.  He's an estimated 5 pounds 6 ounces right now, and Adalynn was 5 pounds even on the day she left the hospital.  All I can say is that this child will never appreciate what all I've had to go through for him, but he'll certainly be reminded of it over the years every time he stresses me out!