Braxton Meet Hicks

Remember when I mentioned I felt uncomfortable in my own skin? Well the way I’d describe it is this sense of pressure—like the baby is trying to push her way out through the front of my stomach. Very pleasant, let me assure you.

It occurred to me today that this reminded me a lot of an uncomfortable crampy feeling, like when you’re having contractions.. DUH! I started to really pay attention today (mostly cause it seems to be bothering me a lot) and noted that when I really felt like this, my stomach was getting all HARD! Often, the baby would start moving around, but not usually on the side where my stomach was all hard. Weird. So tonight I dug out a watch & started to see if there was a rhythm, and there was. How come I’m so freaking retarded sometimes???? You know, I've done this once before. Turns out I was having contractions 3-4 minutes apart (I wasn’t being a stickler about the timing, I was busy watching The Cobert Report at the time, priorities after all--I LOVE TiVO) and they we’re lasting between 35-60 seconds!!!! This went on for a good 2 hours (at least). Jeez Louise!

So what’s this mean? Nothing really, it’s too early for the baby to come. (I’m only 31 weeks.) My body’s just getting ready & apparently I'm in tune to it (sort of). I did something similar with Toddlerspeak (TS), but just once (this has been going on for a while now). I had an afternoon during my 7th month of pregnancy where I had contractions that were 30 seconds long, 3 minutes apart. They didn’t hurt, and we’d read that if they last an hour to go for a walk; Braxton-Hicks will stop with exercise, if not, call you doc. Mine stopped at 45 minutes that time.

But it’s just a HUGE wake up call—helllloooo, you’re going to have a baby pretty soon, do you think you could put the crib up & maybe finish paint the damn room before she shows up? Oh, and nailing down a name might be a good call too. Details, details…