Well yesterday ended up not being the day either of us had planned for, or wanted. Here's the full version for anyone that wants to know what happened.
I'd spent Tuesday having some rather nasty stomach cramps which just weren't going away but decided to call the midwife Wednesday morning if they were still about as there wasn't any real appern and they weren't getting any worse. Of course I woke up and there they were so I spoke to Tracey at just gone 8am who asked me to call the assessment centre at Lincoln County and see what they thought. After expalining the symptoms, and some other things that had been going on lately, they insisted on me coming in immediately to be checked over. I was told to bring my bags just in case.
So off we went to hospital (again), me now having cramps reasonably regularly, they were about every 2 minutes by the time we actually arrived. Straight into a private room and I was hooked up to the Sonicaid which discovered Bean lying nice and still for once, what a relief not to spend the half hour chasing him around my abdomen with the sensor like the last two times! For the most part, things were ok. Bean's heartrate was normal but would have the occasional dip which concerned the midwife on duty. The other line showed that I was having lots of uterine movement that didn't look like Braxton Hicks or "real" contractions. The midwife suggested I had an irritated uterus, possibly caused by another urinary tract infection (or the one from the other week not having gone away properly although that's less likely as nothing was found at my regular midwife appointment last week) but decided to call in the doctors to have a look as the readout could also indicate I was starting to go into labour.
Eventually a junior doctor came in and asked some questions. Still no one was sure what exactly was happening. By this point I'd been given a large dose of painkillers but was still in severe pain so they decided to do an internal (lovely image for you all I'm sure) to see for sure whether labour had actually started. Well the junior doctor tried twice - ouch! - and couldn't find out so we had to wait for a registrar to become available. Eventually she came around, asked the same questions (clearly having not even glanced at any of my notes so far) did a 3 second internal, showed the Junior what to do (for those keeping tabs we're now at 4 internals in about 20 minutes) and informed me I was having Braxton Hicks before leaving.
The midwife came back to find out what the conclusion had been as the registrar hadn't written it on my notes either. She took one look at me, told me there was no way all of this was being caused by BH and she was admitting me to the ward at least for a few hours until they could treat the pain better, so off we moved to a ward. Eventually the pain started to subside and I was given some lunch, after which I managed to sleep for an hour or so as I was feeling exhausted. When I woke up the pain came back stronger than ever so we called for a midwife who came around, realised I was due for my drugs anyway and gave them to me. This time they worked faster and I started to feel better, although sleepy as one of them was known to cause drowsiness.
After a few hours we were mainly feeling bored and hot. I'd had another dose of painkillers and was now feeling ok, until I went to the bathroom and found I was now bleeding. Obviously I was pretty terrified so we called for help again and got a student who just looked confused when I said I'd found I was bleeding, as though that was totally normal, however she did go and find a midwife who reassured me. In her opinion the four internals I'd had earlier would almost certainly be the cause but she called for a doctor and told me to try and relax, hooking me up to another Sonicaid to check Bean was ok. He was fine, just a slightly lower heart rate than in the morning but no distress. The doctor came quite quickly this time but never even bothered to look at me, just asked if I'd had any internals and told me that would be the cause. As much as I appreciate this must be a reasonably common thing, it would have been nice not to feel like I was being overly dramatic as I can't begin to explain how scary it was to suddenly find you're bleeding after being in severe pain for hours.
Dinner time came and went and we started to wonder what was going on. I'd not felt any pain for about 4 -5 hours and the bleeding had stopped, so Scott went and asked the midwife for an update. She was totally confused as I was booked in to stay overnight for observation and we should know that, apparently not as no one had told us this news! By now all I wanted was to go home where I'd be able to relax properly so I eventually got to speak to the midwife and said Id not experienced any pain or discomfort for hours and wanted to leave. She advised me not to just in case but after talking with Scott, I decided to go anyway as I was feeling fine, so we finally left at about 8.30pm.
Since then I've felt ok, just quite zombie-ish and out of sorts, most likely from the sheer volume of drugs I've had in my system. Bean seems fine, if a little more chilled out than normal today - I think he's just glad he's not being prodded and poked about anymore. I, personally, am simply sick of the sight of Nettleham ward and will be glad to have the baby and come home so I don't have to go back anymore - for a while at least!!!
Here's the info I found on the "irritable uterus" as discussed by the midwife as a possible explanation for what's been going on. These two describe perfectly what I've been experiencing the last few weeks so I think she's onto a good bet with her thoughts:
http://www.irritable-uterus.com/Description_IU.asp
http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/health_wellness/complications/article/contractions-irritable-uterus
I plan to follow the advice of resting lots and trying to stay chilled until he decides to arrive.
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