17 Weeks

Another week behind us and the Raven is now the size of a turnip! I have never tried turnip before. TRIVIA!

Cool things happening {via BabyCenter}: His skeleton is changing from cartilage to bone, he has grown a bit and the umbilical cord is thicker now. 

Mommy feels like: Perturbed all over. The madness that surrounds our family {not even our own personal madness} is annoying me far too easily and affects my days. I want to hide in our bedroom, or delve into something on the computer, or lose myself in an activity with the boys - but none of that is really helping my irritation. 

On Sunday night we ended up going to the hospital for the first time, the contractions I started feeling on Friday lasted well into the evening on Sunday and finally began to feel painful enough to head out. We went through the ER, because I also had a horrendous headache, and there was a disaster that tied everyone up for hours.

So for hours, I quietly sat in misery until the on call was able to tend to me. While I did understand, I was also very concerned by that point. There was a 30 second heart tone check, no word on a non stress test and my headache had far surpassed my tolerance level.

As soon as the doctor came in though, things moved. I received relief for the headache immediately through my IV, fluids {almost two bags full until I could provide a urine sample}, a non stress test, and my vitals taken.

The non stress test concluded that not only was I contracting, but that I was doing so pretty frequently. They were only a minor discomfort, so I wasn't worried about the pain, but I didn't know how the baby was coping with them. 

Turns out they stopped using the Terbutaline {AKA Turblahblahline}, which is what I had been given to stop the contractions from as far back as Caesar's pregnancy. In fact, they no longer use anything to stop contractions beyond the normal measures of fluid and comfort!

This is both good and bad; If the contractions of my irritable uterus do anything to change my cervix before the baby is viable, I am admitted to the hospital - no ifs, ands or butts. They will monitor me around the clock until the baby is strong enough to be delivered, unless something extreme happens before viability and I have to be delivered. I don't even want to think about that.

But, because I have a pretty stubborn cervix {and after my last experience at this hospital's ER, I taught myself how to check my own cervix so that they touched me as infrequently as possible} the contractions may occur often, but won't change anything. So they'll check the baby and make me comfortable if there's any pain, monitor until they space out or stop altogether but won't do anything to make them stop.

Since I can check myself, I'm hoping this will mean less trips to the hospital.

We did get to see the baby on the ultrasound, which also confirmed that my cervix is closed and where it's supposed to be, so we were sent home euphoric, but exhausted after nearly 12 hours of being there. I finally got a prescription for something to knock out these migraines, and I am ever so grateful for that.

Tomorrow I have our regular appointment, so they'll follow up with results from the bloodwork and anything else there may be. I'll also be meeting one of the doctors for the first time, if I like this one I will request to stay with them if possible.

Other than that I just want everyone's drama to shut up its face so I can go about existing semi-peacefully again.

Craving: Oranges, tacos, ginger ale and huge cheeseburgers. *sigh*

Names the children have suggested: Super Chunk, Jumpy Wumpy, and Cute Walker. I think they're running out of ideas.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I think Raven sounds like a great name for the baby.
I'm sorry you're contracting. While I didn't have them as early as 17 weeks, I understand how disconcerting early contractions can be.