Irritable Uterus

Several weeks ago, Michael and I went for a stroll in our neighborhood. Our goal was to walk just about every evening together. It wasn't long into out walk that I began to feel sore and crampy. "Man," I said to him. "Nobody tells you just how sore you get with pregancy." A couple of blocks later and I was gritting my teeth. A couple more and I was holding my belly. Yet one more found me stopped on the path, suppressing a whimper not very well. We slowly and silently worked our way back to the house.

I had this pain with walking before, a sharp aching in my lower abdomen, in addition to the expected back pain. But this time it was quite bad. Michael was clearly worried, as he had stopped talking. Inside the house, we knew the drill. I laid on my left side and Michael placed a ginormous cup of water in my hands to suck down. The pain continued, and I sent Michael upstairs to locate our smattering of pregnancy education material. I looked up "pre-term labor." After finding that I was having four of the warning signs, I asked for my inhaler to calm myself down, and watched the clock.

An hour later, I was better but not quite all the way there. I called the on-call OB, who was delightfully calming with a generous dose of humor. She suggested that I drink another 8 ounces, this time of alcohol...there was a short pause before she assured me that she was kidding. Then she asked me to come in, just to be on the safe side. And off we went to Abbott, our first trip to the Maternal-Fetal Assessment Unit. In the car, Michael was a mother hen. "Are you hot? Cold? Do you want to lay back? Are you tired? Do you want music on? You can change the channel if you want." I smiled. Why do I not take more advantage of times like this when he is worried? This would have been a great time to ask for a shopping spree for new maternity clothes, a frosty from Wendy's, or a $70 massage at Lifetime. But I didn't. I just assured him that I was perfectly fine. And I was. I was kind of excited to find out what the experience would be like, and a little embarrassed that we were going in, as I was feeling much better.

After checking-in, I aimed a pee stream at a cup and then was placed into a room smaller than our hallway closet. Our first activity of the evening was to obtain a Fetal Fibronectin test. Disclaimer: gentlemen readers, if you are squeamish about Lady Issues, you may want to skip on to the next paragraph. My nurse explained that she was so sorry, because this would end up being a very unpleasant experience. "I'm really, really sorry," she reiterated in advance. "Really, it's okay," I said, too tired to care. Yet. She laid out the equipment and Michael exclamed, "HOLY--oh, WOW....!" I couldn't see what lay by my feet as my belly was in the way. "Michael!" I reprimanded. This was not helping. "What?!" he said, "it's just, so, BIG..." and then to the nurse, "are you sure you have to...." The nurse gave another apologetic look, nodded, and proceeded with a procedure that I braved my way through, requiring Michael to sing and count to me as I squinted back tears and tried to command control over breathing. Ladies, two words, and I will have to say no more: dry speculum.

That being over, I was now wide, wide awake. We were monitored for another two hours, which led into the "nothing's-on-TV-but-infomercials" phase of the 4-channel evening. Michael took this picture montage of me on his camera phone. First-time parents are dorky. We were pretty excited to capture our first monitoring experience.

Finally, we had some news. The Fetal Fibronectin Torture Test was negative, meaning no pre-term labor. My monitoring, however, showed lots of contractions. "Are they Braxton-Hicks?" I asked, knowing that these practice contractions were normal to an extent at this point. The nurse had a pensive look about her. "No, they're not those either, your contractions are too low..." She looked to another nurse in the room and they consented on a description. "It isn't pre-term labor, but they are pre-term contractions, which we don't want." The other nurse nodded. "You have," she said, "an irritable uterus."

The medical community uses some bizzarre terms, but describing my Lady Parts with a personality trait is one of the weirdest I've encountered. The plan for my irritable uterus was to relax it with Vistaril, a mild sedative akin to Benadryl, and to cease our nightly strolls. Two days later at a follow-up appointment, it was also recommended to work shorter days at work. Permission, no, better yet, instruction, to not exercise and not work as much, was a fantasy come-to-life.

I popped the pill and we were on our way. In the car, the sedative took its effect. "I feeeeelll ddrrrrrunk!" I said, unable to pick up my lolling head. "You sound drunk," Michael said. I saw that his own eyes were half-slits. The poor guy struggled to keep awake for the 35-minute ride home. Though half-sedated, I knew I couldn't drift unconscious in fear that Michael would as well. Plus he wouldn't be able to get me out of the car and into the house. So two sleepy people and one irritable uterus drove Southbound on the familiar Cedar Avenue route, a lot less excited than when they were heading North.