29 Weeks: It Begins

It's been quite an emotional rollercoaster this week to say the least! Last week I knew I was contracting more but kept telling myself they would go away and not to worry about it. On Monday I had my doctor's appointment and gestational diabetes test. We also had our ultrasound and Jaxson is looking good. His head is measuring right on track but his stomach and femur bone is a week behind. Doctor isn't too concerned with that at the moment. He's about 2.5 pounds and very active. We then met with Dr. B and I explained to her that I was having more contractions. I thought they were once or twice within a 10 minute time frame so she wanted to see what I looked like on the monitors. Well as soon as she hooked me up I was contracting and they were every 2-3 minutes. She came in and said Wow, that's a lot of uterine activity and by the look on her face I could tell she wasn't happy that I was contracting that much. She checked my uterus and it's soft but closed. This has me a little concerned considering it was always hard with Brody. Not too sure what the difference is but hard sounds a lot more secure that soft.

She did an Ffn test and sent it right over to the hospital, it came back negative!! This is a preterm labor test and if negative your chances of going into labor in the next 2 weeks are very low. She will perform this test every 2 weeks from here on out. I also pasted my GD test and all my blood levels and thyroid levels were right on track! Whoa

She put me on Procardia(same med I was on with Brody) and I went back in on Tuesday. My contractions were a lot less and she was very happy to see the Procardia working. Unfortunately, they have some yucky side effects. Severe headache is the main booger. It also causes me to feel jittery, anxious, nauseas and tired. It's a medicine for high blood pressure but because I don't have high blood pressure it causes me to have low blood pressure.

On Tuesday she said I could try taking the medicine every 8 hours vs. every 6 hours but I tried that and ended up contracting a whole bunch so I'm sticking to the every 6 hours. I'm also still on the low dose so we have room to move up if needed. Our only other option is a terbuline pump which is inserted into my stomach and/or bedrest.

For now she told me to get off my feet as much as I can and she will check me weekly. If I begin to contract frequently I'm to call her. So here's to keeping my fingers crossed!


I'm nervous because I return to work next week and I don't know how I'm going to hold up. I'm not in a position where I can just sit around all day at a desk. In fact that is the hardest thing to do as a teacher. I like to be engaged with my students and being up and in the mix of things is a lot easier for my classroom management than sitting down. I also have to get my room ready this week which requires a lot of up time. I guess we will see how I do, Jaxson's safety definitely trumps an organized classroom.

I am very thankful for a healthy baby growing inside me and even if I do go on bedrest at least I've gotten two weeks further along not on bedrest than I did with Brody, I went on bedrest with him at 27 weeks. I'm taking it day by day, that's all I can do for now.

Here's Jaxson's development this week:
At this point in your pregnancy, your baby's crown-to-rump length is approximately 10.4 inches and the total length of your baby is around 16.7 inches. Your baby weighs about 2.7 pounds and continues to grow every day, putting on approximately 1/2pound per week. Your baby will continue to open and close his eyes in the womb and may be able to see silhouettes of objects or even people in the right amount of light. Your baby should be moving many times throughout the day.