digsite

all of u know already .. but gotta add a LJ entry anyway.

on thursday (7/24) i woke up with contractions 30 minutes apart and they lasted all day like that until around 2pm when i took a shower and washed my hair. once i steped out of the shower they suddenly got worse and were 4 to 8 minutes apart. I called my doctor’s office and they said “…uh… yeah.. u need to go to the hospital right away” But i was still sceptical and was not paniced because even tho the contractions were so close together, half of them still felt very light like braxton hicks while others stopped me in my tracks. .. so we took our time gathering our stuff that morning and feeling pretty silly about it too like maybe we were overreacting. but I needed to be sure so off we went at about 3pm.

the ride there made things worse for me and i was in severe pain. we got there at 3:30pm and i was 5cm, 100% effaced. WoW! we were shocked :-O The contractions were definitely not fake.

1 hour later my dr. showed up, broke my water, and announced that i was 7cm. Things were really really moving fast and i was afraid that there wouldn’t be time for an epidural so even tho the pain was not THAT bad, i asked for one. By the time the anesthesiologist showed up I was in major pain. When that epi kicked in i was in heaven. :) I couldn’t feel my legs, couldn’t feel the cxs…. it was great.

2 hours after that, my dr. shows up and dropped the bomb. i was still 7cm and he didn’t think i would have this baby the way i wanted. they inserted an internal monitor for contractions to measure their strength and saw that they were not strong so they gave me pitocin and said he’d give me one hour to see if things progressed. if they didn’t, then i’d have to have a csection. well, they didn’t change, so off to tghe OR i went one hour later and Jada was born at 9:34pm

welp. i was not happy about the section but now that’s it’s all said and done it makes no big difference to me. I’m just happy that Jada came out of it ok and i was ok too. Despite having to recover from a csection, i’m doing pretty good. We’re still adjusting the sleep deprivation part of it. :)

Here’s a link to her pics.
http://jada.beauchea.net/photos/albums.php

so, for the last 2 weeks, i’ve been 80%, 1cm, and 0 station. (if you don’t know what this means, i’m sorry. it refers to how much my cervix has openned and how low the baby’s head is) but today (brace yourself) i’m 90%, 3cm, +1 station. The doctor thinks i’ll go into labor within the next “24 to 48 hours” that’s what he said. the internal exam hurt like HELL and i’m still bleeding from it now a full 12 hours later!

so, i’m bracing myself now. of course the man is not GOD so he could be wrong. I personally don’t feel like it will happen quite that soon. but he seemed sure that i won’t make it to my next appointment which they scheduled for monday again.

first thing dennis did when we got home was install the carseat. he’s a bit nervous now. :) almost missed the turn on our way back home.. poor guy. don’t really know why i’m so calm. I gotta admit tho the thought of going thru labor is scary as shit. i’m afraid of the amount of pain i’ll experience and the trauma and all that.

so, after the appt a friend from work came over with his wife and baby son for a while. that baby is so cute! only 2 months old. dennis and i were bugging out thinking how we’re going to have one of those around permanently. lol!

then dinner, then passed out in bed until just 45 minutes ago. D’s still snoring, i just can’t sleep anymore right now. hope i don’t fuck up and wear myself out too much for work tomorrow.

Pregnancy Shrinks Brain, Ups Transplant Risks

NEW YORK (Reuters) — If a pregnant woman is easily forgetful or has difficulty concentrating, British researchers think they know the reason why — the brain has a tendency to shrink late in pregnancy, suggests a report in New Scientist. And a second report has found that pregnancy may also increase the risk of rejection in women who have had an organ transplant.

It may take up to six months for women to regain the loss in brain size, according to Anita Holdcroft, an anesthetist at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London.

Holdcroft and colleagues compared magnetic resonance images (MRI) of 10 healthy women at the end of pregnancy, 6 to 8 weeks after birth, and six months after birth. They observed a “significant” increase in brain size in each case in the period following delivery, according to the article.

The researchers believe the phenomenon may be due to a loss of volume in individual brain cells, rather than in overall number of cells, and it may explain why some women report difficulty concentrating late in pregnancy.

“These are very early findings, but it may be that the two features are linked,” Holdcroft said in the article.

The study was a follow-up to one completed last year involving women with pre-eclampsia — a potentially life-threatening condition in which the face and body swells and blood pressure increases. In that study, researchers assumed that the women’s brains would swell in size, but found just the opposite: the tissue was shrinking.

The new research on healthy women suggests that brain shrinkage may be a normal feature of pregnancy.

A second report in ObGyn News found that a 25-year-old woman who underwent a double-lung transplant suffered a severe reaction when she became pregnant 25 months later.

The woman lost 58% of her lung function and was diagnosed with chronic lung rejection. Pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting stopped the woman from taking enough of the medication that prevents rejection.

And the fetus’s tissue may have triggered an immune reaction that causes rejection, according to Dr. Scott Donaldson of the University of North Carolina. Ultimately the woman had to undergo a surgical abortion because of the complications.

SOURCE: New Scientist (January 11, 1997); ObGyn News (January 1, 1997)