And so it begins...

It's been an interesting time since Friday. Whether I was just severely dehydrated, emotionally stressed out, tired, weather changes, the full moon, or a combination of all the above, on Friday my body started having contractions.

I think I've written about this before maybe...can't remember. It's not uncommon for me to get preterm contractions. They are NOT braxton hicks. At least, the medical world doesn't consider them to be that. For any other typical woman, these contractions would be a huge deal because it would make their body go into labor, or the baby would start going into distress.

These are contractions that happen about every three minutes and keep going. With me, it usually happens when I haven't drank enough water, or some other type of fluid. For some reason I have a hard time with that. I do try, but it's hard.

Anyway, the contractions I was having on Friday, made me a little concerned because there was also pain involved. They felt like menstrual cramps. After drinking about 52 oz of water, taking a warm bath, and laying down, I decided it was time to head to the hospital because they weren't going away.

When we got to the hospital, I kept hoping that I was just delusional, and that I really wasn't having contractions at all, but once they had me hooked up to the monitor, there they were...

I've decided the hospital has magic water though. Because after drinking an additional 32 oz of water from the hospital, they calmed down enough that I was sent home.

I decided that drinking all that water wasn't the best thing in the world for my electrolyte level, so we got some coconut water to try. It's nasty stuff, but seems to work better than pedialyte and gatorade. I decided it's better to just gulp a glass down. I really don't like the taste of it at all! It does seem to help though, and also helps me drink the amount of water I'm supposed to.

It's hard to drink that much water when you feel like you're floating away, and your body is sitting there going. what? more water? I'm really not thirsty!

Anyway, I was also put on partial bed rest. Blah! Saturday was actually okay, I did rest more than normal, but still got up and around a little bit. I even drank the amount of water I was supposed to! No contractions either, so that was an extra bonus.

Today, however, the wind and air pressure changed again ( I KNOW it sounds weird, but you ask anyone that deals with labor and delivery and they will confirm that there are more deliveries and c-sections when the air pressure changes, and there's a full moon. I am so not making it up!! I dealt with it myself when I worked in the O.R.)  Anyway, I was still drinking the fluids I needed to, but there was seriously some contraction action going on. Thankfully, by just laying down and continuing to drink more fluids, and lots of prayers, the contractions aren't coming often enough to be worried about.

With Jeffrey I really didn't have preterm contractions at all. At least, not anywhere near to what I did with Harrison and Hazel. I was hoping that would be the case with Emmett too! So, I guess we'll see what happens. At least I know that there is medicine and things that really do seem to help the contractions calm down if I do start getting them the way I would with Hazel.