For those who have been eagerly waiting for the answer, Yes yes it was my water that had broken. We had our little girl on December 1st at 12:30 AM.

I will finish the story of our labour and delivery here in the coming days. It is amazing how busy a person is when they have two kids to take care of and still maintain a "Normal" life.

This Blog Entry is dedicated to all those who have helped us during this pregnancy and the early weeks of adjustment.

Well I can now add having carpel tunnel to the long list of pregnancy symptoms  I have been "lucky" enough to experience. For me it started with a stiff feeling and a kind of tingling sensation  in my fingers. I got worried when the feelings did not go away as I have had before and made an appointment with my GP. I thought for a bit that maybe it was arthritis or some other kind of joint pain problem. After a visit wit my doctor It was confirmed that I had carpel tunnel due to pregnancy.  I did some research on it and it is more common in later stages of pregnancy than I thought. I also talked to others about their own experiences.  Most that I have talked to said theirs went away after they delivered their babies and was manageable by massage and wearing braces. 

I started with wearing the brace on my right hand and it kinda helped. After wearing braces for a bit I had a day where the pain was significant and decided to try massage to see if it would help. The massage worked and afterwords I felt relatively pain and discomfort free. I thought I had found a great way to deal with this carpel tunnel problem. The massage helped loosen the muscles in the hand and push the fluids that had built up in the area. Sad to say the pains were back the next day and the braces were back on to stay.

I have now tried both and find that the braces are probably the best avenue for me in regards to dealing with this problem at the moment.  They do not take away all the pain or tingling that I have experienced with the carpel tunnel, but it has helped to decreased them. Carpel tunnel is a strange feeling to have and to explain to someone who has not experienced it themselves.  

A couple of weeks ago I had a scare with pre-term labour while at work and as such I am now at home waiting for the big day. I know some people think that It is great to be off work early before the baby and able to just chill. It is and it isn`t which I will try to explain here.
When you are still 5 weeks from your due date and you start experiencing signs of labour, your doctor starts to get worried and so did I. It was a scary experience for me and I am glad I listened to my feelings and got  the needed medical attention and monitoring. That mourning, I was feeling a little off but had felt the same kinda feelings before and continued on with my day. Just thought I needed time for my medicine to kick in or more for breakfast when I got to work. For a bit it seemed like everything would get better but then it didn`t. In fact as the day went on it it  started to feel worse.  I tried to work through it all thinking it was nothing. I tried seeing if a lunch break would help but it did not.  When It did not stop or go away after eating I knew that it was something more and that I needed to be looked at right away. 
I spent over 6 hours in the assessment ward being looked at and having both the baby and contractions monitored. It was reassuring to hear the nurses tell me how textbook the babies heartbeat was looking. This made me smile while I waited for the doctors to come and check things out. I was warned however, that if the labour did not stop on its own that I would be admitted to Labour and Delivery to have this baby. I was scared that having her this early would mean time in the the NICU and possible challenges for her. Then they told me that I was dilated 1 cm and my cervix was thinned out. The next check in two hours would tell the tale.
Well the labour did stop and I was unchanged after 2 hours so was able to go home. This of course did not mean that I would not be at danger of it happening again and for that  reason the decision was made to stop work immediately. The heat and pace at work would not slow down in the next few weeks. I would not be able to just lay down and rest as needed especially if I was working alone. Speaking of laying down, I should go and do that very thing. 

I was just talking with the hubbie about how the walking we had done was alot and how it was making my body ach. His reply was that we had not really done all that much walking and in distance I can agree, but not in other ways. When you are 7 plus months pregnant a step starts to feel like a mile and the further you walk each step feels  feel like I walked to the moon and back. Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point, end of rant.

This got me to thinking about how different pregnancy is for both the pregnant woman and her partner.  As the pregnant person I get to feel all of the kicks and movement of our baby. I get to feel the nausea and the heartburn. I also get the other pains and funs of pregnancy 24/7 and despite my best efforts can not accurately share them with others.  Many partners I am sure would like to have a better understanding of what their partner is experiencing and be able to sympathize with them.

Sympathy is hard to give when you do not really understand the reasons why your partner or friend may need it. Sometimes when I am feeling like crap or just having a bad day I just want to hear someone say "I Understand" or "I hear you there". Sometimes you just want the kind of hug that says its okay. I can appreciate how hard it is when I think of sharing with others with regards to my perinatal loss. I feel that I sympathize or empathize with their situation. I understand where they are coming from and know how they may be feeling. 

Registration in the Emergency department is different when you are pregnant. The first question you get is not “can I see your health Card” it is “are you in labour” and then they ask for your health card.  (In case you ever need to know this, pregnant women before 20 weeks are seen first by an Emergency room doctor and after that they are sent immediately up to Fetal Assessment in the Labour and Delivery department.) I found this out when she asked if I wanted to see an emergency room doctor and I told her I wanted to see an obstruction since I was 25 weeks pregnant. 
Shortly after that I was up in the section of the labour and delivery department where they do the fetal assessment.  I was asked all the normal questions " when was your last BM, describe whats the concern, have you felt the baby move recently? and was then taken to a room. In the room I was then hooked up to two monitors, one for the babies heartbeat and the other for measuring movement. After a bit I also had my blood pressure taken. For a bit they they decided to leave it on and ever twenty mins or so the cuff would inflate and do its thing. Finally the resident came in and asked alot of the same questions the nurse asked and did some other assessments. I was then informed that she would talk to the Obstetrician and decide on a course of action. After some time I felt better and because it was getting better by the time the obstetrician came It was decided that I was not having preterm labour. So I was released and went home to rest. 

Now that the blog on my glucose test is written up my current feelings, it is time to talk about last night’s visit to the hospital. It all started yesterday morning when I was getting ready for work.  I was feeling a little uncomfortable from the aches and pains from my hernia but thought it would go away. I really tried not to take a Tylenol for the pain, but when I got to work the pain had increased to the point where I decided that I should take one. I really hate to take something for pain when it is not too bad, but I know that with this problem it is inevitable if I want to do anything but just lay around. It is possible to just lay around after work if it is your first pregnancy. When you have an active 3 year old that wants mommy to everything she used to it is a little different.

As the day progressed I decided that I was feeling a bit better but still thinking that I might need to go home. I had to battle with my feelings of staying at work for my customers and needing to go home to rest and take care of my baby (the one in utero). As you can guess my discomfort and concern for my baby won out and I told work I had to leave, contacted the hubbie and made my way home for a rest. After having some diner and resting for two hours I still felt some pain on and around my abdomen that had bothered me most of the day. The best way that I can describe the pain is like somebody put a heavy tight hair net on your to me. I started wondering if my baby was okay and did this mean bed rest was coming?

 I decided it would be a good idea to have myself and the baby checked out at the hospital and after kissing my 3 year old, headed off for what I hoped would be a quick check knowing full well it would take a while. 

Part 2 talks about the actual hospital experience.

Well, here we are again at the lab and this time it is for two whole wonderful, amazing, stupendous, glorious hours…. Yeah.  Just in case you could not tell by all the descriptors in the last sentence, I am feeling a bit sarcastic this morning. I have just woken up after a restless sleep and spending five or so hours at the hospital in assessment department of Labour and Delivery. I will write a separate blog on that later. In this blog I am planning to write as each part of the testing is done.

7:30 – I have now been waiting 15 minutes of the 2 hour glucose test and already ready to go home and have a pee. A warning to all, this may turn into one of those TMI kinda Blogs. I arrived at the lab ten minutes before the lab was scheduled to open and there were already four people standing outside I front of the lab. I amazed each time I have come to the lab when they open at 7 AM and find people waiting outside ready to get going.  Also amazed at the diversity of those waiting this early.  They  are not just seniors waiting; they are people of all ages and backgrounds. Apparently people are either that eager or hate blood work that much that they arrive and are willing to stand in the cold for the pleasure of being poked and prodded by the vampires. I call the lab techs vampires out of love and respect. They do a very important job yet are most people’s least favourite people next to the parking meter attendants and parking garage money takers

Now that I have hopefully set the scene of my morning it is time to share what has happened so far and the day ahead. After entering the lab and being given a number just after 7AM, I have been registered and had my 1st of three needles to get my valuable blood from. As I have been fasting for over 12 hours this I believe is supposed to give them a base line for my glucose or sugar levels with no food having been eaten recently.  They then gave me the .75 grams of sugar solution which is just .25 more than they give you for the 1 hour test and yet seems 100 times sweeter and more disgusting. They gave me 5 minutes to drink the “Stuff” and I did it in 4, take that disgusting drink. This blog and parts of the hospital visit 2 were written during this first hour of waiting..

8:15 – Ok, needle number 2 has been taken and that means I am 50% done my waiting time and 67% done my needles for the day. Yeah I am so happy and mean this a lot more than I was when I wrote at 7:30 this morning. I did learn an interesting fact from the tech who took my blood this time.  When I complained how much I hated/dislike this test she told me that they used to have a 3 hour and 5 hour version of this test. I can only imagine how much fun that would have been and it makes me feel better about this 2 hour glucose test

Well less than 24 hours after taking the glucose 1 hour test the results are in. This is the good news. The bad news is that I have to take the 2 hour version and it is FASTING. 
While I am not surprised that I have to take the second test, I was hoping that this time I would not have to.  Everything else about this pregnancy has been polar opposite of my pregnancy with my son and hoped that this would follow the same pattern of opposites.  I  guess all I can do is hope the second test follows the pattern of the first and everything comes out normal. I am not liking the idea of  what may be required for the rest of the pregnancy if  it were to turn out that I had Gestational diabetes.

"Gestational diabetes develops during pregnancy (gestation). Like other types of diabetes, gestational diabetes affects how your cells use sugar (glucose). "  -http://www.mayoclinic.org/

IT would have to be that the day I am going back to work from holidays that I have a morning of nausea. I  just hope that I can get this feeling under control so I can go to work and not have to worry about feeling sick. At my work you need to bring a doctors notes in occasions like this where a person calls in sick right after just before starting holidays. I would rather not have  to do that.