What a week!

Sorry for the quality, Terbutaline makes me shake. And pray I make it till Thursday so I can get my hair done! (35 weeks)

Well, what a week! More excitement and adventure going on at the Brawner household. After last weekend's stint in the hospital, being sent home on an eventually modified bed rest, I prepared to sit around until at least October or whenever we decided to schedule our c-section. The reason for the scheduled c-section is because of my lack of progression during labor with Jack (considering his size and also the induction medications) and the probability of that happening again. Even with the strong contractions I was having last weekend, my cervix was showing NO SIGNS of any change. The good news was that everyone is healthy, bleeding had stopped, and bed rest was only precautionary and to prevent any further bleeding or strain. I was released to drive to future doctor's appointments, and even told that I may be taken off bed rest in a week or so, depending, as there was really no sign of risk.

My father and stepmother got into town late Thursday night to spoil me for a weekend and help watch Jack. What a BLESSING that turned out to be as the turn of events on Friday took Keith and I BACK to the hospital! I woke up Friday morning only to see more bleeding, and enough that it shook me up quite a bit. I hadn't done anything! No lifting, no straining... I had driven to a doctor's appointment the day before, but it was more sitting around than walking. I couldn't figure out what could be wrong, and assumed the worst. (though I felt normal) I had noticed that the night before the contractions had been stronger than usual (since I had been taking a procardia every 6 hours), but nothing else out of the ordinary. When we got into the hospital, the nurse told us that there was really no other tests that could be done. I had already passed all the tests, and the placenta looked great, cervix had showed unchanged, and I wasn't a risk for preterm labor. Plus, at this point, I was almost 35 weeks (which can be considered full term over 37 weeks in some cases). I had already had the precautionary steroid, and there was really not a whole lot they could do. She hooked me up to the monitors to make sure the baby looked ok (which he has never looked anything but) and she decided to check my cervix just to see... Well, it turns out that I was 1-2cm and 90% effaced! That's farther than I ever got with Jack! So it turned out that the bleeding was natural cervical change, the contractions were true, and that Will was just on his way EARLY!

Because I'm as far along as I am, they didn't pull out any of the "big guns" to stop the contractions. They gave me a few more doses of Terbutaline and a prescription of it to take home. My next orders were to sit and wait. Since no medication can stop TRUE labor, when the contractions come back, just like in any situation, we are gonna have a baby! WHAT EXCITING NEWS!! This could be ANY time, ANY day!

So that puts me to where I am now. It's Sunday afternoon, I'm still technically on bed rest. We'd like to keep Will cooking as long as possible, but I'm sitting and waiting, and counting any contractions I may feel. I still have some here and there, but nothing substantial. 6 is the magic number; if I have 6 in an hour, then we go in. This has made it so much more exciting because there is no "planned" date and time. We truly get to wait until Will (ultimately God) is ready. We still get the element of surprise. Also, if I continue to progress, there could always be a chance that when the contractions come back I will have dilated enough to proceed with a VBAC. That would be a totally unexpected and exciting experience!

Yet again, my socks have been knocked off at what God's will is revealing throughout this whole pregnancy. So excited for the next chapter to unfold!