The Beginning

Almost immediately upon finding out we were expecting again, John and I worried the new baby would come even earlier than Carter's 5 weeks. Very early into the pregnancy we talked to my OB about our concerns and he agreed we had a valid reason to be concerned. There was a 60% chance I could deliver even earlier than I did with Carter, and then add in the stress of Law School and caring for another child, and our percentage only went up.

The three of us agreed on a plan of attack which included progesterone shots beginning at 24 weeks, more ultrasounds (to check for early funneling), and monthly fetal fibronectin swabs (if positive indicates delivery within 2 weeks in probable, negative means delivery before 36 weeks is highly unlikely). The Dr. said with this prevention plan he has yet to have a patient deliver before 36 weeks. That was very comforting for us to hear, and we mentally prepared ourselves for a late March/early April baby. ( I wasn't about to consider going 40+ weeks :) )

However, while we were on our very relaxing cruise with John's family, I started having mild contractions. I will skip the story of why they started, as John is tired of me telling everyone how he lost his wallet on St. Maarten... even though I was having contractions they were not at all regular or very strong, so we waited until we got back to Moscow to see our Doctor.

On January 6, the Dr. did the fetal fibronectin test (fFn) and checked my cervix via ultrasound. The ultrasound showed no funnelling (great news), no dilation (excellent news), but a shortened cervix (not horrible, but not great). He ordered the shots, which I began the very next week. He also sent me to Gritman Hospital for a stress test (they hooked me up to fetal and contraction monitors to see if I am contracting and how baby handles it). Fifteen minutes into the stress test I was contracting every 4 minutes. I was given a shot of Tributilene every 15 minutes to stop the contractions, but that did not work. I was given a second drug, in pill form, called Procardia, and that settled my contractions within 20 minutes. With this new information, I was prescribed Procardia to take every 4 hours and weekly stress tests. My doctor was still very confident in a 36 week + delivery, especially because my cervix wasn't changing. So, armed with pills, shots, ultrasounds and stress tests, we were still sure this baby would cook for the next few months!