bake baby, bake!

Tuesday marked 25 weeks for this pregnancy. I had a doctor's appointment that I had been anticipating for a few weeks scheduled. Last week I wrote that the pains I had been complaining about had gone away. I had been feeling really good for about four days. Then, the pain hit me again starting Friday night and didn't ease up until Monday. I was really glad that I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. I was finally going to try to get to the bottom of this. Was it really just harmless round ligament pains? Was it Braxton Hicks this early on? Those aren't supposed to be painful. Could I have some kind of infection? Could it be real labor pains? My mind was cycling through these possibilities over and over. I tried to ignore it, but my mind just kept coming back to these concerns.

Lucky for me I have a really good doctor. After I waited and waited for my glucose screening to be over, (yay! I passed!), I got in to see the doctor. He wasn't all that concerned with my pains, which he said were most likely round ligament pains and totally normal. He even showed me where those round ligaments are exactly, and I agreed that is where the pain was mostly coming from. However, he was concerned with my pain in combination with some other symptoms that I shared with him. These symptoms had already come and gone, but they too were signs of preterm labor. I had previously called about each concern and was told by the nurses in his office that these symptoms could be completely normal and that they were things to watch for but not anything to worry about. Even the doctor said it was probably nothing, but he just wanted to be sure. That's exactly what I wanted him to say! I didn't ask him to do anything. I just wanted his opinion. He said wanted to check me out to make sure my cervix was closed. He did a test where they look for this certain protein that's only present if labor is near, he examined me, and he ordered an ultrasound to double check everything. I found out before I left the office that everything was still closed up tight! That's a really good sign! I did have to wait a couple of days to get the results of the test that had to be sent to the lab. I found out today that the result was negative! Praise the Lord! Another reminder that God is good! A negative result on that test means there's almost no chance that I will go into labor in the next two weeks! That is a relief. She needs more baking time! She's at a critical point in development, and she's not ready to be born yet!

I've felt good and relatively pain free again for the last couple of days, and again, I am hoping and praying that continues. The doctor says the round ligament pains will ease up a lot in the third trimester, so I am holding on to hope that it's true! He did warn that I will have a whole different list of complaints by then though.

Here are the stats from my appointment:

Weight- up .2 pounds (almost no change since my last appointment 3 weeks ago, 11.4 pounds total)
Baby's heartrate- 163 BPM
Blood Pressure- 100/74
Belly measurement- 26 cm (I am not sure what that means, but he said that it was good.)

I'm so glad I passed the glucose screening! I won't have to do the three hour test. One hour was long enough!