Near Your Due Date: Music for the Final Days Before Labour

Dear Diary, 

Baby boy gave us quite the scare yesterday. I think I’m still a little anxious, but I’m trying to remain as calm and collected as I can, because I know adding cortisol to this fire is not going to be good for anyone. 

I woke up yesterday and noticed something was a little off. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but I knew there was something. We had a busy day ahead of us. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, we had our last Newborn 101 class, we had dinner plans with my in-laws. As I was baking some blondies for the party, I felt like I couldn’t really feel baby boy moving in his usual patterns. I tried to brush it off, thinking it was maybe because I was up and about, baking, walking, washing dishes, etc. Then we had a 3 hour class where we were sitting down for the entire time. And I only felt him move 4 times. This is when panic started to crawl its way into my brain. But I was feeling other things, almost like a Braxton Hicks mixed with a period cramp. By the time we got home, I was definitely panicking. We tried drinking a cold, sugary drink and lying down - which pretty much always got him moving. He moved slowly, but only a few times. At this point it had been nearly 4 hours with less than normal movement. My husband knew I wouldn’t be able to sit through dinner without crying, so he told me I should call the midwife. She asked us to meet her at the hospital for a non-stress test (NST). 

We got there, got ourselves registered and in less than 30 minutes I was hooked up to the monitors. Thankfully, baby boy’s heart rate was within normal ranges. She also hooked me up to a contraction monitor. And I felt so validated when I saw that I was indeed having contractions every few minutes! They were not strong enough to be active labour, but she definitely said this categorizes as early labour contractions. Which is also why we can’t feel baby boy moving as much. He still wasn’t showing enough variability in his heart rate, so she called the OB to come in and do an ultrasound assessment, as well as a cervical check. After what seemed like forever, we were finally able to track a few more movements and breathing on the ultrasound. Still not as much as usual, but she wasn’t concerned. 

I was told I was 1cm dilated and 30% effaced. So not quite close enough to active labour, but something was definitely starting. The only issue is this could be hours, days or even weeks. Mentally, I’m not sure I could continue this for weeks. Not being able to feel him move, having contractions that don’t lead anywhere… but alas it seems to be out of my control. Praying for some kind of relief, whether it’s feeling baby moving again, or going into active labour. 

Tune in next week to see if baby boy makes his arrival early! 

B.