Early contractions

I had an eventful morning today. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning with contractions. I got up and had some water. I tried walking around a bit. I am exactly 32 weeks today - too early to have a baby! So I tried what I could to calm down and see if the contractions would stop. After about an hour and a half, I called my OB. The on-call doctor called me back about 3 minutes after I left a message with the answering service. She told me to come right to the hospital.

I woke Shafi to tell him what was going on but that he should stay home with Leah. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, got dressed, put a book and other necessities in a tote bag and headed out to get a cab. I was at NYU hospital before 6:30. The doctor called ahead so that they knew to expect me.

They put me in a Labor & Delivery Triage Room and hooked me up to a monitor for the baby's heartbeat and for my contractions. The baby's heartbeat was pretty steady around 150, which is normal. My contractions were irregular but between 1.5 and 5 minutes apart.

They checked my cervix and it was long and closed - so the contractions are not having any effect - definitely a good thing. They checked my urine - not dehydrated and no UTIs. They did a test called the FFN, which tests for a protein present before labor starts. Luckily it was negative, which means there is a 95% likelihood that I will not go in to labor in the next 2 weeks.

After ruling out the easy known causes and my contractions continuing they decided to give me terbutaline. They can give up to 3 injections, 20 minutes apart. The first one seemed to slow things down and they decided to give me a second. That one did successfully stop my contractions. But I had an unpleasant reaction to it. My heart raced and blood pressure dropped and I felt generally miserable. It was a common reaction and it went away after a few minutes on oxygen.

After monitoring me for another hour or so, they decided I could go home. These contractions could continue but still not really be labor - or they could stop. I was able to nap for about an hour and a half when I got home, but I woke up with contractions around 1 p.m. I've been having periodic contractions all afternoon, but not with the frequency I was having this morning. The contractions are fairly mild - uncomfortable but not painful.

So we're crossing our fingers that my uterus calms down. In the meantime I am taking it easy. Shafi stayed home to take care of Leah today, but if all is well, I can take her to the playground and such tomorrow. I'll just try to lift her as little as possible and stay fairly close to home.