premie stories - how did you know?

Question

i wanna hear your stories and going into premature labor, what caused it, and how you knew it was happening. I've already gone to the hospital once for a false alarm so I'd like to hear your stories 😊

Answer

I had my little girl at 36+2. I had been having what they called "Braxton Hicks" since 24 weeks and they had monitored me and said they weren't strong enough or consistent enough to do something. They got to where over several weeks if I was on my feet a lot at work I would have them every 10 minutes or so until I rested. I kept telling the doctor this as well as telling them I felt like my baby was falling out. At 35+4 I went in for my appointment and my blood pressure was a little elevated. I again explained I felt like I was dilating bc I really felt like my baby was falling out but I wasn't having "contractions", just the ones I'd been having all along. She said she'd check me just to calm me down but sure enough, I was 5cm. They put me on bedrest and every other day I went in for the monitoring and of course, the contractions weren't strong enough or consistent enough according to triage. On 36+2 I thought I lost my mucous plug so I drove to the hospital assuming they'd just send me back home again but I was 7cm and they said they couldn't send me home. At this point I never had the stronger contractions to be viable on the monitor but they were 3-5 minutes apart. I walked around and goofed off for a few hours then ended up being 9cm so they decided to break my water. Had an epidural (was mostly afraid of the baby coming it of my vagina--not the contractions anyway!), broke my water, napped for an hour then woke up to push. It was the craziest thing but for me I think it was the literal sensation that I was having to walk with my legs spread apart that made me think I was dilating. And the contractions 3-5 mins apart, even though they didn't hurt and it was only for like an hour.

Answer

I had my first at 36+4. My water broke on its own. I had no signs of labor. No contractions or other pain. After I went through 3 pads in an hour I decided to go in and get checked. Within 10 minutes of arriving they had me hooked up and started pitocin. Got an epidural 5 hours later. Baby was born in less than 12 hours with less than an hour of active labor. He was born completely healthy. The only thing that we struggled with was him eating. He didn't have the sucking or rooting reflex developed. It would take 3 of us an hour to help him learn how to eat. It took a while for him to figure out how to eat but he's got it down now. We finally just hit his original due date!

premie stories - how did you know?

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