The Labor That Cried Wolf

I was 36.5 weeks pregnant the first time contractions woke me up in the middle of the night. They seemed pretty close together so I timed them for 2 hours and sure enough, they were averaging about a minute in duration, about 3 minutes apart. 

They weren't especially painful, just tight and crampy and uncomfortable. The rule is usually 4-1-1 for going to the hospital (contractions 4 minutes apart, 1 minute in duration, for an hour or more) so I was in this territory but, like I said, I wasn't writhing in pain or anything. I decided to try to sleep it off and if it was the real deal, I'd know it. Also, Jonathan was out of town, and I'd have had to have woken up our driver and scrambled to find childcare for Forest at 3 AM so I wanted to be reeeaaallly sure before I got all of those moving parts involved. 

Spoiler alert, eventually I fell asleep and the contractions abated, though I continued to feel them for much of the next day. 

I had an appointment that week which involved an NST (non stress test) to track baby's heart rate and movement since she was measuring small. During the test, it was clear I was having frequent contractions so they checked my cervix and found NADA. 

Bottom line is contractions. 

10 days later at my NST, same story. "Um, are you in pain? You are having strong contractions 2 minutes apart." "Yes I'm aware and no I am not in pain. Just uncomfortable, tired and confused because this keeps on happening." 

They called my doctor who came down to check me and once again, NADA happening in the cervical dilation department. So its likely what's called prodromal labor which is when your body basically starts labor and then stalls out because your contractions aren't actually progressing you. It can happen for hours, days, or weeks before active labor begins.  I'm currently in the 'weeks' category.  It's thought maybe to occur if baby's position isn't quite optimal and the contractions are trying to move them to a more favorable birthing station. 

I'm just lucky that it's not super uncomfortable because I know some women experience a lot of pain in prodromal labor. There are occasional contractions where I kind of have to wince and breathe through it, but for the most part its just like intense menstrual cramps. 

The worst part is how mentally draining it is. We live in Bangkok which has atrocious traffic. Even though we are only 12 miles or so from the hospital, it can take anywhere for 1-1.75 hours to get there. Jonathan's company doesn't allow us to drive so we have to have a driver to take us to the hospital. We have a live in nanny during the week so childcare is covered but she lives out on the weekends so she's basically just on call for emergencies (which this of course classifies as but I want to be sure before I call her in!). 

So every time this happens, my mind starts doing mental gymnastics of 'should I start making phone calls and getting my bases covered or are these contractions just going to stop in 3 hours and not lead anywhere?' Ideally, I'd like to be in the hospital in time to get an epidural but mainly I want to get to the hospital in time to have a baby and not deliver in the back of an SUV in Bangkok traffic with our driver in the car. That's basically the gist of my birth plan: *GIVE BIRTH IN THE HOSPITAL*. 

So we're considering moving this week to a hotel near Bumrungrad Hospital so that at least eliminates the possible hour + in the car once things get rolling for real. But we still need to have a plan for someone to watch Forest so that may involve putting our driver or nanny up in a hotel nearby as well (sometimes I fantasize about how simple life would be if I lived 15 minutes from an amazing hospital, say in The Woodlands, TX or something, and had my parents on call for Forest just a mile down the road....).

My parents show up in Bangkok on Saturday (I'll be 39+1) so I'm just really hoping that baby girl holds off until then since they can stay downtown with us and keep Forest when the time comes. But at the same time, I'm mentally and physically drained from all these contractions. I know having a newborn will be 10 xs worse, but the discomfort I am feeling sure makes me feel naive enough to say 'I'm ready go ahead and do this thing!'