Another Trip to L&D at 18 Weeks

philfemgal · October 2012

Thankfully baby is still tucked away in my uterus and doing just fine.

We just hit 18 weeks yesterday--with 18 weeks 3 days being my big loss milestone when I went into labor last pregnancy. Things have been really rough lately and we've been trying to distract ourselves as best we can, hoping we will get a least a tiny sigh of relief when we get past Tuesday.

Well yesterday started out fine until last evening (after all the urgent care/walk in clinic type places were closed) I started having to pee every 40 minutes or so and feeling a lot of urgency to go often with some light cramping low in my pelvis. Though maybe it's just a UTI, but of course it made me nervous.

Then I started getting abdominal pain that felt very much intestinal. I was having a lot of gas and needed to go to the bathroom a few times, but the pain wasn't really going away after hours. It was just too similar to how I went into labor with Alice--feeling abdominal pain that I was almost certain was intestinal, but I was never sure. (Though last time I was not having so many bowel movements and so much gas.) We stuck it out for at least 4 hours of this at home just to see if it would go away after enough bathroom trips, but eventually I just got way too nervous that it could be labor again. So off to L&D triage we went.

Thankfully the pain actually started easing off as we got there. And baby was looking just fine on ultrasound. They measured my cervix by vaginal ultrasound and it was over 4 cm. (It had been 3.7 at my a/s a week and a half ago.) I also had a midwife and doctor each do their own internal cervical exam and both said there was no sign of dilation and that my cervix seemed long and firm. Thank goodness! No sign of a UTI or any other kind of infection either.

This time, at least, it really was just stomach problems. I will not be eating Middle Eastern and Thai food in the same weekend again--it didn't go well and I can't take that kind of stress! Hoping the next time we end up at L&D will be at least 36 weeks or later, but I'm preparing myself that we might have more trips in between. How I wish I could fast-forward to March 23rd!