Wordy Meme, Baby Drama

AmandaD did this meme on her blog http://lifewithbriar.blogspot.com. I wanted to write a post today, but I didn't know how to start it without being pathetic. So this works. Feel free to use the meme for yourself. It's a nice exercise. The point is to only use one word answers. I cheated a couple of times by making up words or hyphenating. Forgive me.

1. Where is your cell phone? Toybox.
2. Relationship? Tender.
3. Your hair? Uninspiring.
4. Work? Bland.
5. Your sister? Stubborn.
6. Your favorite thing? Mommyhood.
7. Your dream last night? Unknown.
8. Your favorite drink? Water.
9. Your dream car? Organized.
10. The room you're in? Cubicle.
11. Your shoes? Flops.
12. Your fears? Anna-gone.
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Happy.
14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? Boys.
15. What are you not good at? Pancakes.
16. Muffin? Tops.
17. One of your wish list items? Comfort.
18. Where you grew up? Woods.
19. Last thing you did? Peed.
20. What are you wearing? Support.
21. What aren't you wearing? Style.
22. Your pet? Available.
23. Your computer? Borrowed.
24. Your life? Changing.
25. Your mood? Worried.
26. Missing? Calm.
27. What are you thinking about right now? Eleven-thirty.
28. Your car? Stinky.
29. Your kitchen? Stinkier.
30. Your summer? Watery.
31. Your favorite color? Benskin.
32. Last time you laughed? Gossip.
33. Last time you cried? Car.
34. School? Uninterested.
35. Love? Yup.

I'd like to think I'm not a whiny, drama-packed person. I'd like to be calm and stable. Everytime I get upset about something, I try to step back and make a decision about whether or not it's worth being upset. Sometimes, I'm able to stop the drama there. Other times, I'm swept away. When I get ready to journal/blog, I pick and choose what I want on there. What do I want out on the web that represents my life right now? So I share some of the drama because excluding it all wouldn't be real, wouldn't be honest. And for the most part, the drama-less times of my life are hard to blog about because there's only so many ways I can describe the magic of Ben's smile or the pure, unadulterated joy of Benji Bath Time.

From my meme, though, you can probably figure out that life isn't very happy right now. And it's not. It's full of worry and anxiety and fear and pain.

Wednesday afternoon, I started getting BH contractions more than once an hour, lasting for about ten minutes each, radiating to different parts of my torso. Being a responsible pregnant lady, I logged them all, trying to identify what I was feeling and where. By the end of the day, I had put a folded blanket on my seat to cushion my heiny because it kept going numb and was very sore.

Thursday is when the fun started. Early on in the morning, I did a few undie-checks to make sure I wasn't bleeding. I had felt some "dribbling" but I didn't think it was pee. I chalked it up to girlie moisture and went on with my day. Shortly after lunch, my pelvic region started aching and I felt lots of sharp, stabbing pains in my groin area that spread down my thighs and back again. By three, when I finally called my doctor's office, it felt EXACTLY like it had right after I gave birth. Basically like I had slammed my crotch into a brick wall at 80 mph. Walking was agony, but so was sitting.

My doctor wasn't in and couldn't be reached, though they tried since she doesn't like to pass off her OB patients to the on-call doctor. They finally assigned me someone at 4, and the nurse called me back. At first she figured it was just round ligament pain, but when I described the pain as something I felt right after birth, she and the on-call doc got worried. So I was told to go home and be on bedrest for the rest of the night and to see my doctor the next day.

I cried a lot. I was worried and anxious and scared. By bedtime, the couple hours I had spent horizontal had helped and I wasn't limping anymore. I was tender, but not nearly as pain-wrecked. By morning, I was fine. I'm stiff and awkward, but I'm not in a lot of pain. I get twinges of it every once in a while, but I'm okay. I see my doctor at eleven-thirty this morning. So I'm here at work, playing online, proofing what I can reach, and keeping my feet up and my back relaxed.

Worst case scenario? Pre-term labor which isn't even called pre-term labor until I hit 20 weeks on Monday. Losing my precious baby girl would just be called a miscarriage, which makes it feel less significant, and I hate that.

Probable scenario? SPD or the separation of my pelvic bones. Caused by relaxin. They can't do much for it besides physical therapy and pain medication, and it might make a vaginal birth difficult. I had relaxin issues with Ben. By my seventh month, my wrists had loosened so much that they kept dislocating while I slept. I had to sleep with wrist bands on to keep them in place.

What I don't want to hear? That it's normal and I'm overreacting.

So I'm waiting and monitoring. Feeling okay this morning is reassuring, but now I feel like I maybe hallucinated yesterday.

The rest of my non-baby drama? My brother and his wife are at an impasse with my sister and her husband. They had a fight a couple weeks ago, and though both parties have officially apologized, the grudges remain, and they haven't resumed their usual, day-to-day relationship. I don't really care, but it upsets my mom, and that makes me upset. I get to ignore it and only have to be involved when my mom calls to vent. We are a VERY stubborn family, and we've perfected the fine art of grudge-holding. It's a talent that is passed down through the generations. Seriously. My mom isn't speaking to her siblings either. Since the current argument was over something not incredibly important or vital, eventually the affected parties will decide to move on and exist in denial that the rift ever occurred. The relationship will be stilted for a while, but that's how we roll.

I'll post again this afternoon to give a quick update on what my doctor said at the appointment.

Update: My doctor suspects I'm producing too much relaxin, the pregnancy hormone that relaxes the ligaments to prepare the body for birth. It's causing my pelvis to separate early and more than necessary. There's nothing that can be done. Just tylenol and rest when the pain starts. Good news is that it probably won't cause pre-term labor, which is good, since Baby Anna is 6 weeks away from being a NICU candidate. So I'll be relaxing a lot this weekend and trying not to stress out my hips. Wish me luck.