Don't Stress or You'll Have a Baby!

Starting some time late last week I began having Braxton Hicks contractions that were noticeable. Needless to say, when I contacted my midwives about the issue, they became very concerned.

Certain types of sensations, and or a certain number of Braxton Hicks contractions are normal. Yes of course I have increased pelvic pressure around the 32nd week of pregnancy. My baby is probably about half the total birth weight I can expect (around 4 lbs, and I'm expecting something around 8 lbs at birth based on my birth weight and Christian's). The weight necessarily presses down on parts that haven't been pressed before. Yes, there is round ligament pain (which can feel all kinds of ways). Yes my uterus is getting some practice time in with light contractions. That is all to be expected...

• But you don't want to have contractions that involve menstrual type cramping.
• You don't want to have more than 4 contractions in an hour.
• You want to be able to get them to stop with some water or rest.
• There shouldn't be any bleeding or change in discharge.

Well, I'm not bleeding so don't have a coronary (though it seems my heart is trying to, let's not make that 2 or more people going to the ER). I have been able to get them to stop with a little rest and a whole lot of water. HOWEVER... I can honestly say some of the feelings I've been getting are like mild menstrual cramps and there were a few times where I had more of these contractions than was probably normal.

The most likely culprit?

Dehydration can cause this situation. Physical over-exertion can cause this too. But guess what? Emotional stress can be just as problematic as either of these. Emotional stress can actually send a lady into preterm labor (NOT something I want to deal with when my insurance situation is questionable come August 1 - think hospital birth and 2 month long NICU stays...bleh!). Guess which one is my problem!

So today after I took my blood pressure for the fourth time at my appointment and it was still high, my midwives told me I needed to take it easy. Drink water. Meditate. Sit by the estuary. And I will do those things (I think I'm on liter number 3 and I'm currently typing from the comfort of my memory foam pillow topper and Snoogle body pillow.). The problem is, I don't know how much these things will help.

The reality is, the only thing that will completely remove the kind of emotional turmoil I'm having is a solution. It's easy for people to tell me not to stress out or not to worry, but they don't have an impending birth and infant care to concern themselves over. They don't have to worry about how they're going to pay rent next month. We have almost no money left in our bank account and the month is only half over. Christian hasn't started his work yet and we have no idea how the pay periods fall. Even if we did, I don't think his first paycheck will be enough to cover basic needs like food and gas, let alone rent.

Then of course, I also have the whole nesting thing, which is stressing me out more. I want to organize our apartment. I want to purge things, or put things away, or build storage or something...but what's the point? I don't know how long I can afford to live here. I can't afford to buy things to make storage solutions. I can't afford to get rid of anything right now, because I won't be able to replace it if I find out I need it later. Right now, our apartment has piles of random things everywhere (everywhere for me means like 3 or 4 stacks of things on each of our 2 floors). It's driving me crazy because I can't do anything about it. We have half finished projects that we wanted to get done before the baby, but we can't afford to finish them.

Like the stacks of things, the stressors continue to pile up.

And I can't do anything about them.

I feel helpless and hopeless and incredibly frustrated. So my blood pressure spikes. My pulse quickens. And then I have a Braxton Hicks, which then increases my blood pressure, quickens my pulse even more, and causes me to struggle to breathe.

That is, if I don't start crying.

I don't want to go into preterm labor. I really don't. It's dangerous for everyone - not to mention the extra costs involved. I want kiddo to arrive as scheduled, in a comfy birth-center birth room, with candles and music and an extraordinarily low or nonexistent amount of pain, bleeding, or tearing. I want a low stress pregnancy too with few hurdles, but it seems life has different ideas.

So I'll try to cope as best as I can. I'm going to try to meditate twice a day (morning and night). I'm going to drink tons of water. I'm going to try to watch things that make me laugh and get some writing done from the comfort of my bed in an effort to reduce stress (writing, even if I'm working on a publishing goal, is a calming and cathartic exercise for me). And hopefully this works.

In the mean time, please continue sending positive thoughts and prayers. Please help us brainstorm ways out of our insane situation (crowd-sourcing seems to work for everything else, so why not this?). Please buy, read, rate, and review my newest book. All these things will help us tremendously. And with a little luck they'll keep kiddo cooking for a few more months.