I had my first little delivery scare this weekend. I started having some back pains and general queasiness on Friday night. I took a bath and was in bed by 9:15. I managed to fall asleep but was woken up at around 1:00 by excruciating back pains. I absolutely could not get comfortable and go back to sleep. After a bit the back pain got worse, so I went to find Rick (he's been sleeping very little these days, and because I am currently a huge bed hog, he's been opting do so most of his sleeping on the couch in the basement). I informed him of my symptoms and I guess I must not of made it seem too urgent because he was sliding in and out of sleep while I furiously searched the internet for information about "constant back pain 35 weeks pregnant".
I'm sure you are shocked to hear that the internet was no help. It told me I was either about to have a baby, midway through a super painful "back labor" (which only happens to a lucky 1/3 of women) or it was just the baby being in a strange position. In this moment of desperation I chose to conjure up some advice that Dr. J told me during our last appointment: You are not going to miss it when you go into labor.
I chose to focus on that advice and went back up to bed and was eventually able to fall asleep. Because I apparently have a high opinion of my tolerance for pain (and how well I have been sleeping lately, other than this one event), I checked the bed for the presence of a baby the following morning. All clear.
As you've been told repeatedly by my husband, I didn't pay attention in those stinking baby classes nor did a read the books--with the exception of skimming one. Why I chose to skim the Jenny McCarthy one is still a mystery, but I learned one thing that I stuck to-- the 4-1-1 rule. You have to have contractions and they have to be 4 (to 5) minutes apart...last for 1 minute... and have been going on for 1 hour. I stuck to that one rule, and it worked out (thankfully). It was only at that time (which was, of course, 2 a.m.) that we decided to head to the hospital (granted I first also had to wake up my husband who acted similar to Rick...until he remembered that I was pregnant and due any second).
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