As per previous posts, you should already know that I've been experiencing my fair share of painless Braxton Hicks contractions for a couple weeks now. Last Sunday night, (26w3d) I had been having them sporadically all day long. Sunday was such a hectic day of cleaning and throwing old stuff out that I forgot all about eating lunch and wasn't staying hydrated enough either. By 6:30, both Barry and I had showered and were heading out to grab a bite to eat when I noticed 3 contractions almost back to back in the 7 minutes or so that we had been in the truck so I began to time them. All of them lasted about 30 seconds long and were steadily coming in at about 1 minute and half apart so I called the on call doctor who instructed me to go to the hospital to get checked out. After we ate, we made our way to Saint Vincents where by now, they had picked up slightly in intensity and were about 40 seconds long. Upon our arrival we were met with a chatty group of nurses and doctors who got me situated in a triage room after supplying them with a urine sample. A super sweet nurse came in and got me hooked up to an electric fetal monitoring system. One probe was placed low on my right side to measure the baby's heartbeat and the other was placed high up- just under my left rib to measure contractions.. After 30 minutes of monitoring, the machine wasn't picking up ANY contractions but instead picked up a few (what the nurse called) uterine quivers. Every time she came in to check on me she repeatedly used the phrase Uterine Irritability and said that's what I was experiencing- NOT contractions. I became so frustrated at one point, or a few points that I cried and told Barry how stupid I felt whom of course reassured me the way he always does with both words and touch. (I love him for that.) Finally, she decided to sit on the bed beside me and put her hand on my belly to see if she could feel any the good old fashioned way. No more than 2 minutes into small talk about baby names and she felt one. She said she had no idea why the monitor wasn't picking it up. But instead of moving the probe down lower (by about 4 inches!!!) to where I was feeling (and seeing) the contractions, she unhooked me from everything and diagnosed me as being dehydrated (based on the urine sample they collected from me earlier) and told me the contractions and dehydration go hand in hand.
I followed up with me doctor two days later who, after LISTENING to my story and ALL of my symptoms, said he believed what I am feeling are braxton hicks which get worse with dehydration and stress and he preformed a Fetal Fibronectin test. It's a lot like a PAP smear but they are testing for fetal fibronectin leakage from the cervix which would only be present if preterm labor were imminent. As long as the test is negative, labor is 98% guaranteed not to start within 2 weeks. He also checked my cervix. Real labor contractions would have been softening and dilating my cervix but mine was still closed. Again, a good sign what we're dealing with here are just Braxton Hicks.
So, to conclude I have to stay off of my feet as much as possible and drink an abundance of water every day. The funny thing I've learned over the last three days though is that like dehydration, having a full bladder can also give you BH contractions, as can emptying your bladder. And contractions usually make you feel a very sudden and urgent need to pee even if you only pass a lite trickle.
So basically, I've been having contractions because my bladder is CONSTANTLY full because I can't become dehydrated or else I'll have contractions, but when I do have a contraction, I feel like I have to pee, so I pee, and then end up having a contraction because I've just peed and then have a contraction again because I've just hydrated and my bladder is full ...
It's dirty little never ending ride of fun that I'll be stuck on for the next 14 weeks- give or take a week or two.
But hey, I'm still not complaining. Hopefully all of these BH will make labor a little easier on me when the time comes.
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