Pregnancy Update: 36 weeks (& an ER visit)

Wow–36 weeks!! With less than 30 days to go before the “offi­cial due date”, it is def­i­nitely the final home stretch! Eek! Feel­ing excited to meet this lit­tle guy and yet SO not ready all at the same time! As you can see in the pic­tures, the belly is clearly still grow­ing as this lit­tle guy does, but I’ve def­i­nitely NOT dropped yet.

Since the 32-week update, it’s been a rather event­ful few weeks on the preg­nancy front! First up, was the big trip to Dis­ney­land Resort for the open­ing of Cars Land! My Dr. was com­pletely fine with me going and it was a blast! But, at 34 weeks, there were cer­tainly some aches and pains that devel­oped. The sec­ond night was espe­cially bad and I had to bow out a bit early–my poor feet & pelvis were killing me. I’ve been hav­ing some sci­at­ica issues, so that was rather unpleas­ant. Through­out the trip, I had to take things a bit slower than nor­mal and was really rockin’ the preg­nancy wad­dle walk. But, I’m so glad we went!!

We had a nice few days to recover at home, then things got really event­ful– and not in a fun, Dis­ney kind of way! The boys came down with a stom­ach bug the end of last week, which they so gra­ciously shared with me. After feel­ing nau­seous for the bet­ter part of 15 hours (and hardly eat­ing or drink­ing any­thing dur­ing that time frame), I actu­ally got sick on the way to our last growth ultra­sound on Mon­day after­noon!! Gross. I seemed to be feel­ing a bit bet­ter after that though and thought I was in the clear. After sleep­ing for a while, I finally tried drink­ing some­thing start­ing at about 7:30pm. By 9:30 I had prob­a­bly sipped a total of about 4–6 oz. of water & sprite. Well, appar­ently I wasn’t in the clear because about 9:45 I got sick again– really, really sick. Ugh! It was awful. Then, wouldn’t you know, I started feel­ing some pains just a lit­tle bit later. At first I didn’t really put it all together and just tried to sleep. But, by 11:00, I real­ized that these weren’t just ran­dom pains from get­ting sick. These were con­trac­tions. And, although they weren’t last­ing a long time (only 15 — 40 sec­onds on aver­age), they were hap­pen­ing very fre­quently. Like every 1 to 5 min­utes!! Ugh! I knew that the doctor’s office was going to tell me to go to the hos­pi­tal (which they did), so we called my mom to come over & stay with the boys and a bit after mid­night headed in to the hos­pi­tal. Oh joy!

From the emer­gency room (where the doc on call told me to go, even after ques­tion­ing him), they imme­di­ately sent me up to labor & deliv­ery. Once there (& answer­ing a mil­lion ques­tions), they hooked me up to the fetal heartrate mon­i­tor & the con­trac­tion mon­i­tor. Sure enough, it was pick­ing up con­trac­tions every 2–5 min­utes. The nurse was actu­ally pretty sur­prised at how con­sis­tent they were. So, the in-house hos­pi­tal OB came in to check me–if I was dilated to a 4, they’d con­sider it “active labor” and be keep­ing me. ACK! I expressed how badly I did NOT want to have a baby that night and REALLY wanted to stop the con­trac­tions. Thank­fully, I was only a “2”! So, I ended up get­ting 2 liters of iv flu­ids for the dehy­dra­tion, a shot of terbu­taline to stop the con­trac­tions, and an iv dose of zofran to hope­fully stop the nausea/vomiting. Good grief! Not a fun way to spend mid­night to 4am! But, it all worked and I’m feel­ing MUCH bet­ter now!

What was fun though (even though I had just got­ten sick), was see­ing our lit­tle guy one more time at our final growth ultra­sound. Thank­fully, he’s finally moved from trans­verse to head-down (now we’re hop­ing he stays that way)! And, we were SO hop­ing for an awe­some 3D shot of him (the techs have tried & tried at the last 3 scans). But, this guy was stub­born once again. He really likes hav­ing some­thing in his face & Mon­day was no excep­tion. This time, he had his lit­tle face buried in his elbow. We poked & prod­ded and tried to get him to move. But, no luck. So, we just got a lit­tle peek at one side of his face!

Every­thing still looked good! But, his growth has slowed some (from the esti­mated 80 per­centile to about the 60th). Because of the two-vessel cord, this was cause for con­cern enough for my doc­tor. So, until baby makes his debut, I’m sched­uled for 2 non-stress tests (NSTs) per week, along with my reg­u­lar weekly OB check, and a weekly amni­otic fluid lev­els check. I think I might have as many appoint­ments in the next few weeks as the total num­ber of appoint­ments in both of my pre­vi­ous preg­nan­cies! Crazy!

So, here’s where things stand now:

How far along? 36 weeks, 1 day
Total weight gain: 7 lbs. (which I’m sure will go back up–was down almost 5–6 pounds from my last appt. after the whole stom­ach bug thing/ER thing).
Mater­nity clothes? Def­i­nitely, yes! But, there actu­ally are still some non-maternity shirts & comfy pants I can wear just fine .
Stretch marks? A few new ones, but elas­tic skin is not some­thing the women in my fam­ily have been blessed with. From the pre­vi­ous two preg­nan­cies, my abdomen looks like it’s been clawed by a moun­tain lion!
Sleep: Mostly ok, but can’t switch sides with­out wak­ing up.
Symptoms/Aches & Pains: Sci­at­ica, pelvic/hip pain, and some mild swelling.
Move­ment: Lots still! It’s espe­cially uncom­fort­able when he pokes me in the blad­der!
Gen­der: Con­firmed at the last ultra­sound again–most def­i­nitely, still a BOY!
Labor Signs: 2 cen­time­ters dilated, 50% effaced, con­trac­tions Mon­day from being sick.
Belly But­ton (in or out?): Out–it couldn’t hang on any longer!
Wed­ding Rings (on or off): Just took it off a few days ago. I could still move it, but didn’t want to risk it–especially after read­ing this preg­nancy hor­ror story!

Now, it’s just a wait­ing game. His big broth­ers both came past their due dates, but I’ve never had early con­trac­tions or been dilated to “2” at 36 weeks before. So, we’ll see. We still don’t have a name picked out & have many baby things to get prepped. So, we’re hop­ing for at least 2 more weeks before he makes his big debut! Either way, I’ll be keep­ing you posted!