Pregnancy Week 30: Preterm Labor and More Dresser Updates

This has been the most eventful week of this pregnancy so far. Three visits to labor and delivery (L&D) as well as one visit to maternal fetal medicine (MFM). Before I get into the details, here are my progress pictures. It's kind of hard to compare this week to this pregnancy with E because of the angle I took the picture.

30 weeks with this pregnancy

This pregnancy on the left, E on the right. 

So, back to the busy week I've been having. Hubs left for a work trip about a week and a half ago. The next day (a week ago Thursday), I started to feel really weird. I didn't have an explanation for it, I just felt off. I even called my midwife's nurse about it, but it's not like they can test me for off-ness. I had an appointment scheduled for Monday, so we decided I would wait until Monday.

On Sunday around 1:00 AM, some contractions woke me up. I have contractions all of the time. Sometimes they get regular, but they are not very strong at all. These had a little more pressure behind them. It was enough to make me want to get out of bed and move around because lying down wasn't very comfortable. They only lasted for about 45 minutes, so I went back to bed. I figured if it was the real deal, I wouldn't have been able to make them go away by moving around.

Later that morning, I started bleeding heavily and passing vast amounts of mucus blobs. My friend and her husband came and stayed with E while I went to L&D. When I got there, they triaged me. They noted my OS (external cervix, essentially) was about 1cm dilated and funneling down to about 1/2cm. They also felt I was a little effaced, at about 20%. They brought in an ultrasound tech to try and find the source of the bleeding, but they couldn't locate it. They noted my cervix was 3.3cm long, which is still a decent length. They wanted it to be closer to 4, but anything over 3 would keep them happy. Based on what they saw coming out of me, they believed I had lost my mucus plug. Thankfully, that reforms over time.

After a couple of hours of monitoring, they let me go home since I wasn't progressing anymore. They told me to follow up with my midwife. I went into my Monday appointment, and my midwife agreed with the dilation/effacement assessment. She decided I needed to start meeting with an OB ASAP. She also put me on nifedipine to try and shut down my contractions since she couldn't be sure which ones were causing the issues and which were harmless Braxton hicks contractions.

I met with an OB the following day and she wanted to check me to get a feel for where I was. She asked me to clarify what my midwife and L&D had told me. At some point in the 24 hours between seeing my midwife and seeing the OB, I had dilated and effaced more.

She sent me back to L&D, which was a bit of a process. Since hubs was out of town, I couldn't exactly drop off our daughter. After placing a few phone calls, one of hubs' coworkers was able to come get E for me. His wife came and stayed with my in L&D so I wouldn't have to sit there alone, which was nice. The nurse checked me and said I was almost 2cm dilated and 50-60% effaced. My OB ordered a massive amount of tests to try and figure out what was going on to make my cervix dilated and effaced this soon.

Everything has come back normal, so they are at a bit of a loss. I've had the steroid shots to rapidly develop baby girl's lungs as a precaution. My OB also rushed a referral for me to be seen by MFM. I was allowed to go home since my contractions weren't changing my cervix. The next morning, I started bleeding, passing blood clots, and passing mucus globs again. I called hubs' coworker again and he came and got E. He and his wife really, really helped us out. I don't know what I would've done if they couldn't watch E for me.

When I got to L&D, I had the same nurse as the day before. This was great because she was already familiar with my cervix. When she checked me, she noted I was still just shy of 2cm dilated, but I was now 70% effaced. Baby girl had also dropped to -2 station. I was also contracting about every 6 minutes by that point. I assume the nifedipine was helping reduce their intensity or something because they were not causing me to dilate.

I got an appointment to be seen by MFM and L&D let me go after giving me the second steroid shot. I was not particularly impressed with the doctor at MFM. She acted like she couldn't be bothered with my case. She wouldn't tell me how long my cervix was at first. She kept saying, "It's plenty long. It's fine." She also said she wasn't sure why I was referred to her and she would not be accepting me as a patient. She said there was nothing unusual about my pregnancy. What a load of horse crap. She finally told me my cervix was 2cm long. So from Sunday to Wednesday, I lost 1.3cm of cervical length.

At this point, I would rather see my OB and midwife anyway. They have never once made me feel stupid or acted like I was being ridiculous for feeling concerned. The reason they wanted me to go to MFM is my hospital doesn't deliver before 34 weeks. They wanted MFM to take me until I got to 34 weeks then they would have me come back after that point.

I'm still spotting, but it is nowhere near the level of bleeding I had on Sunday and Wednesday. Hopefully that stops soon. If it increases, I have to go back to L&D for another evaluation. My OB and midwife are going to trade off appointments so they can see my weekly rather than biweekly. I am hopeful that all of the eventfulness is over and that I can go back to regular third-trimester complaints like backaches and sore ribs.

Dresser Updates

In my last post, I included pictures from the DIY dresser refinishing project. While bumming around Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx, I found some knobs I liked, so I swapped out the originals. I also finally put a picture of E in the carriage snow globe (only updated in the final picture--it's her strawberry costume picture because it's adorable). Only took me a year, hahaha. 

I also hung up E's shadow box and another picture from her hospital newborn shoot under the main picture on her wall. it looked like a big blank space because she used to have a chest of drawers rather than a dresser

Pink glass knobs on top, cream colored rose knobs with gold accent on the bottom.

Filling in the blank space. I need to update the picture in her shadowbox so it's not identical to the one next to it, haha. 

I also finally replaced the knobs on the TV stand in the basement. It is a heavy, solid piece of furniture, but I never cared for the tiny little brass knobs. So I updated those as well. 

The nursery is also arranged how I want it. It has no decorations yet, though. I'm supposed to be resting, so I can't really go shopping like I want to. I'll post pictures of it once it's complete.