28-37 Weeks

Nice to have you both back home. Keep hanging on for a few more weeks little one xx

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Mini-update #2: Mum-to-be is now home from hospital resting. Still a few twinges, but should be manageable with painkillers. The main thing is that things aren't as regular, suggesting that we're hopefully still a few weeks off from the real thing. Phew!

Monitoring

Mini-update: Mum has been off the constant CTG monitoring since last night and on the maternity ward since this morning, so off the drip and able to be a bit more mobile. Fingers crossed on coming home tomorrow or Monday as things seem to be getting back to some kind of normal (apart from the odd twinge). They still can't really tell us much and that is the most frustrating part.

Thanks to everyone that has texted, phoned and visited. It really means a lot to us both that we have so many great friends and family members. I'm off to bed now and wishing Mum and baby and good night's sleep xx

Braxton Hicks or Preterm Labour!?

We've had fun over the last few days. On Thursday evening Mum started having regular Braxton Hicks every 6 minutes or so. Everything we'd read had said that these "false labour" symptoms should be irregular and no more than every 10 or 20 minutes. So we phoned the hospital who told us to come in.

One of the first things was to get rigged up to the CTG again, which confirmed what Mum was feeling. The top line is baby's heartbeat (it should be that squiggly as he's moving around a fair bit), the middle line (blocky, looks a bit like morse code) is baby's movements, bottom line is contractions. Braxton Hicks shouldn't be as regular or powerful as this.

Then followed the usual batch of tests, including a scan to see which way round baby was lying and a Fetal Fibronectin (fFN) test. The fFN test is great for finding out if there are any chances of going into preterm labour, or not depending on how you look at it. Basically, if the test is negative then you've got about a 95% chance of not going into labour anytime soon. If the test is positive then it's only about 40% sure that you may go into labour at some point within the next 10 days or so. Sods law, we test positive.

We then get transferred from the Day Assessment Unit to Central Delivery Suite. The prescribed treatment is two corticosteroid injections 24 hours apart, to help baby's lungs mature (just in case), and upto 45 hours on an Atosiban drip to slow down any contractions.

Friday morning things were already looking a bit more normal, but Mum was still feeling a few twinges here and there. The drip could finish this morning (Saturday), or may need to continue until later this evening. Then Mum will get transferred to the maternity ward for two days of monitoring. If things stay within normal levels then she should be able to go home by Tuesday, we hope. Crisis averted. Fingers crossed, touch wood.

7 Months

We've had a funny time over the last week or so.  Baby's movements have always been a bit hit-and-miss, due to the placenta being at the front, and now that the baby is starting to get more cramped Mum-to-be has been feeling the baby move less frequently than earlier in the pregnancy. Saturday before last we ended up going into the Day Assessment Unit to have Cardiotocograph (CTG) just to make sure that things were still OK. The midwife on duty did a great job at reassuring us that everything was fine. After an hour or so, and various amounts of prodding and poking, we were allowed to go home. The main thing that we've realised is that there is a lot more movement going on than we're actually aware of. The wife has now taken to announcing whenever she feels the baby move as this is helping us remember how often and how much the baby moves.