Update

[jessbbg]

So I posted the what-would-you-do and tried my doc but they closed at noon, so I resigned myself to itchy misery until monday... that is until the contractions started getting really organized.  It started to really alarm me around 9pm on Friday night, so I decided to just log the frequency of the contractions... Started out about 10 - 11 minutes apart... when that span seemed to be shortening, and after about 2 hours of regular contractions, I caved and called my docs answering service.  I was immediately patched through to his backup doc who said to go down to triage at Winnie Palmer and get checked out.

So off I went after a quick shower to ease the itching and taking a 25 minute detour from the hospital to drop my seven year old son off with my sister (at nearly midnight!! bleah!!)... They monitored me for a while, and when my contractions showed up on their nifty little monitor at 4 - 5 minutes apart, they did an fFN and a pelvic, made sure my cervix was holding, and gave me terbutaline and IV fluids (just in case i was mildly dehydrated) to disrupt the contractions.  

Thankfully it worked and I got to go home in short order.  After the subq injection of terbutaline, i only had two completely random contractions.  

Since Friday night, they seemed totally disorganized and random, making me very happy, but last night they increased in frequency again and i'm a little scared they will regroup and get to work again.  This morning i'm noticing a bit of pain with them but it's short lived and could just be me perceiving it as pain since my tolerance threshold is likely lowered due to being worn out and frazzled...

so there ya have it.  first trip to hospital: 29.5 wks. But all seems to be ok.  I'm just completely wiped and uncomfortable and itchy and itchy and itchy and itchy and horribly itchy... and my tailbone is still killing me.  Yay.  

I'm ready to be done, people.

[jessbbg]

oh, sorry, i forgot to say, lol---the fFN was negative, and there was no change in my cervix (yay!!)...

yeah, if all this is brought on by cholestasis, i'm at much higher risk to spontaneously go into labor early, but for good reason----intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy causes IUFD... a woman should NEVER be allowed to go past 37 weeks with it, and can be induced much sooner if the lungs are developed.  time in the nicu is considered no-brainer, hands down, better all around.

[Kimberlee_20]

How did the ffn turn out, or do you not know the results yet? And did they check to see if your cervix was changing at all due to the contractions? If they become organized at all again, I'd definitely go right back, you don't want to take the chance of going into labor now, although your baby will most likely live, he/she will be in the NICU for a long time before you can take him home! :[ Hang in there hun, I hope it gets better for you!!

[jessbbg]

thanks, sweetie---i appreciate the support :-)  

terbutaline is a beta-adrenergic that is used off-label to stop contractions/preterm labor.  it's basically an asthma med kinda akin to ephedrine, etc, and it makes you kinda jittery, but it's widely used (and sometimes widely criticized for it's use) to stop contractions.  

and fFN is short for "fetal fibronectic" and is a test to determine a woman's likelihood of going into labor in the next few days to weeks.  it's not 100% accurate.  A positive isn't very predictive of whether or not your body is going to go into labor, but a negative result basically assures the doc that you aren't going to go into real labor for the next two weeks at least (less than 1% chance of going into labor for at least the next 7-14 days).  it's done by vaginal swab, but can be rather unpleasant because lubricant will skew the result---meaning they have to insert and ratchet open the speculum without KY---owch!  lol  it wasn't very fun.

[ladybugbob1029]

Awww!  I'm so sorry, but atleast little one is hanging out in his cushy home for now - that's a good thing.  Even if mommy is miserable.  I totally feel ya on some of those things.  Luckily I haven't had any trouble with contractions though - Oh, and whats a fFN?  and what does terbutaline do?  I'm a first timer and although I've been trying to do some reading, I'm trying not to go overkill on info!  I'm glad you are keeping us posted though - now that we are all getting closer to the end (YAY!!!) it will be interesting to see what we all start experiencing.  I'm glad all turned out well - except for the you still being miserable part!  Keep us posted on how the contractions are going though - now that they seem to be grouping back together again.