Friday, July 14, 2006

Can the 13th be unlucky on a Thursday?


Remember my unlucky family? Well we're at it again. I ought not to share details, but suffice it to say that my brother formerly known as the disaster is back in the running for his "former" title. An incident involving broken bones, lacerations, not-quite-legal-to-drive vehicles and inadequate insurance has taken over the house with gloom and doom. Yuck.

On top of this Mr. Renn appears to have come down with a flu bug. What timing, eh?

Obviously I need to keep my legs crossed until everyone cheers up a bit.

4 comments:

Em said...

I'm ashamed to admit how little I actually know about the technicalities of labor.

Basically they (medical people) keep telling me that once the contractions start coming at regular intervals (5-7 minutes), keep getting more intense, and lasting longer... then you are in "hard labor". Medically it's still a mystery how the body triggers it.

"Hard Labor" is supposedly what gets you dialated all the way to 10 cm. Once you are at 10 cm, then it's time to push... and somewhere in the middle there is a phase called "transition" - I have no idea what it actually is... but it's usually the phase where the mother screams things like "you did this to me..."... all the stereotypical crazy woman in labor stuff.

I guess I'll have to tell you once I've done it and actually know something.

Em said...

Oh yeah - and somewhere in there the water breaks.... for some people at the beginning of labor... and for others much later. But once the water breaks you have to have the baby soon, because you lose the sterile environment for the baby and risk of infection becomes and issue and all that fun stuff.


Okay, basically I'm clueless. And I'm an anomoly. (Shoot, how do you spell that?) Nobody's ever heard of anybody being as dialated as I was on Wednesday without going into labor and having a baby within 24 hours. So nobody can tell me what the precedent is for my situation..... makes me nervous.

Anonymous said...

Wow!!!
Wish you well:)
zingtrial
http://zingtrial.blogsome.com/

Anonymous said...

Me. I was dilated to 5 for how long? But it was #3, so different situation! Here is what I know:

Transition is the very last stage of dilation 8-10 cm, you are fully effaced (cervix thinned) and then the baby's head drops into the birth canal. Once transition is over, you feel the need to push.

Only 10% of women have their water break spontaneosly without already being in hard labor. You basically have about 18 hours after your water breaks to get the baby out. And usually, if it is taking more than 12, they will want to give you a dose of antibiotics just to be on the safe side. (This happened with #1 to me. He was born 18 hours and 38 minutes after my water broke.)

Don't worry, you'll know when it's time. There is usually a BIG difference in the braxton hicks and the real deal.

I keep checking in though, hoping for some happy post from Mr. Renn! Let us know when you head off to the hospital!

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