The Twinkies

Another NST and nothing has changed. Still here, still pregnant.

I had another one of those fun, false labor nights last night. You know, painful contractions that get you nowhere? I really love those; all the fun of regular labor but only half the calories.

Today was another of my bi-weekly ultrasounds and non-stress tests. For me, blood pressure, urine, and weight were all good. For the babies, their amniotic fluid levels remain good, their heart rates are good and they continue to be reactive.

The OB asked if I had any desire to hurry things along or whether I wanted to let nature take its course, and I managed to choke out that unless she was seeing something that indicated a problem I would continue to deal with the misery and wait for everything to start on its own.

(Any time now would be good.)

She said that was good and that induction would just increase my chances of needing a surgical birth and that the way everything looked at this point there was just no need. She also noted that 38 weeks is average gestational length for twins, so I am not even overdue. She offered to do an internal exam if I wanted one (because, really, who DOESN’T want an almost total stranger to shove her hand up to their cervix?) , but since the stats don’t mean anything at this point I decided against it. I could have been 2cm and still be 2cm 2 weeks from now, or I could have been 2cm and have been in active labor by the time we got home.

Obviously, the latter wasn’t the case.

Did I mention that any time now would be good?

Well, I am up at 4 in the morning again. Tonight (or should I say this morning) it isn’t contractions but lower back pain that is the culprit. I’ve been up about every 1/2 hour since midnight: I get up, walk around, go to the bathroom, evict more of the mystery mucus (are YOU my mucus plug?) then go back to bed. Except, finally at 3:30 I decided to get up and have some crackers and drink a glass of water. Maybe I can tire myself out enough to get more than 30 minutes of sleep at a time.

On another note, pregnancy brain has struck. Last night B. defrosted ground beef for spaghetti. While he was cutting up a tree branch from “the tree we love to hate” that had fallen down, I made dinner. I boiled pasta, mixed the sauce with fresh oregano from the garden, put it into a casserole dish, covered with cheese, popped in the oven to keep warm. I totally forgot about the meat. B. thought this was funnier than I did. I used to have a brain; I understand it will come back in 18 years.

False labor. Last night. All night.

i had hours of evenly spaced contractions, and not the little “Oh looky, a contraction” kind of contraction, but the gasping in pain clutching the arm of your chair using the breathing exercises to get through them contractions. Every 3 minutes. Until about 4:30 AM when I finally decided that if I were going to be miserable I might as well be miserable in bed. I managed to get some sleep, and, when I woke up, like magic, the contractions were all gone. Alas, I cannot say the same for the back ache. Meanwhile, like a twisted, pregnant Dr. Suess character, I look over every secretion asking: “Are you my mucus plug? Are YOU my mucus plug?”

Did I mention my body has decided to season this pre-labor salad with a heft dash of nausea, so I get to periodically rush to the bathroom and dry heave?

Pain, mucus and nausea. Was this in the fine print of the pregnancy contract? I really should have read that thing more carefully.