Thank you!

Thank you so much for your good thoughts - they must have worked!

I'm very glad my doctor is conservative. I had my ultrasound yesterday - baby is great, and big! S/he is already 1.5 lbs. I can't believe that! She checked my cervix by abdominal ultrasound and didn't tell me the results - said she wanted to do a vaginal ultrasound instead. That had me worried but I didn't have to be. She later told me she wanted to do the vaginal ultrasound because she didn't believe that my cervix could be 'that good' on an abdominal ultrasound.

My cervix is measuring 3.8 - I have a 'wonder cervix!'. That's a fabulous measurement and I'm so happy!

Yesterday afternoon my OB called me after getting the preliminary report from the ultrasound I had earlier in the day. Since my cervical length is 3.8 she doesn't want to see me before my next appointment in 2 weeks - which I'm ok with. I have an ultrasound to check length again next week.

I've been getting lots of cluster contractions which are almost never painful but concerning because I get LOTS of them - Thursday, Friday and Saturday I had lots but nothing since then and my cervical length is still really good - awesome in fact. Its a mystery. Last Friday this was my contraction counts:

10:21
10:32
1:01
1:16
1:25
1:28
1:30
1:34... and nothing for the rest of the day.

Saturday DH and I went up to NH for a convention and I had dozens on the way there. Then Sunday the 3 of us went to the zoo and walked around ALOT, I had not one contraction the entire time!

I talked to her about going on nifedipine around-the-clock and she doesn't think its necessary. I agree. At this point my cervix isn't being affected by the contractions and it may just be what my body does when pregnant now. Lots of women have many BH like contractions and go on to have full term pregnancies.

She gave the option of long term nifedipine (procardia) up to me. I don't think I want to take any medication if it's not necessary right now. We're going to continue to closely monitor everything and watch out for pre-term labor problems but right now I don't think I'll take the nifedipine long term. I can still take one if I get alot of contractions in a short period of time but that's it.

I'm surprisingly OK with all of this - but more importantly I'm ECSTATIC at how well my cervix is holding up despite the contractions. I am crediting the 17P shots and early cerclage with how well this is all going.

This weekend I have my first meeting with my new doula and I've drafted up a birth plan - how odd to be thinking of normal pregnancy stuff now. I remember at this point in my pregnancy with Arianna I was all about researching breastfeeding... so much for that. I tried for 6 long months to get Arianna to breastfeed and had to give up and ya know what - she was just fine with me pumping for 13 months! So I'm not stressing about that stuff now - now I just want to make it to 'take home' gestation.

Yesterday I called my mom to update her on my appointments and she told me "your brother was born at 34 weeks and was only in the hospital for 2 weeks!". I kinda snapped at her - "No, this one is coming home with me!"... I felt kinda bad but I don't think she understands how scared I am of leaving the hospital without my baby. I pray every day to reach 8/8/08 - 35 weeks and a great shot of going home with me.