Psyyych!

On Sunday I was getting ready for a dinner date with Gene, Kris, and Marcus when a little bell went off in my head. I noticed that for most of the day I was having cramps and could feel my lower abdomen get hard. I was having them about every 5-10 minutes. For a moment, I broke out in a cold sweat. Were these contractions? Was it normal? Like most first time moms, I have so many questions about the changes my body goes through on a daily basis and I find myself worrying much more about if what I'm doing or not doing is harming the baby.

So I gave my doctor (Vanessa Chan, MD) a call and let her know what was going on. She was actually at Alta Bates at the time attending to a patient's labor so she told me to come down to the hospital for some tests. In my heart I knew that it wasn't an emergency and I kept on telling myself to relax. More than anything I just wanted some peace of mind that everything was fine and the baby was ok. But as I was driving to the hospital my heart started to race a little bit and questions kept on popping up in my head. "What if I'm going into preterm labor?"

I called Gene as I left for the hospital. He was just getting off work and was going to meet me. They put me into the triage section of the labor & delivery ward, had me give a urine sample, and then I laid down while the nurse hooked me up to a monitor that measured uterine contractions. To make a long story short, I was fine, the baby was fine, my urine was clean (no bacteria, sugar, or proteins)...and I was suffering from nothing more than dehydration and first-time mommy nerves.

But in all seriousness, dehydration during pregnancy is not to be taken lightly. A pregnant woman's blood volume is nearly double from pre-pregnancy and her water requirement increase accordingly. I should be drinking at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water a day...that's 64-oz....that's two Nalgene bottles. And to be honest, even though I was drinking water that day...it wasn't that much. Dehydration can lead to uterine contractions, and even pre-term labor if it's serious enough.

Another explanation for that crampy feeling could have been bladder spasms. According to Dr. Chan, around this point in pregnancy the baby starts getting bigger and bigger, which means a heavier uterus pressing down on the bladder. The bladder is a muscle and like most muscles, if irritated, will spasm.

Even though I left the hospital feeling a little sheepish, I knew that getting checked out was the best thing for Marley. Cramps can be due to many different reasons, some serious and others not so serious. As we walked out of the hospital, Gene reassured me that I did the right thing...and then treated me to dinner at a Korean restaurant (I was craving bi bim bap).