Irritable Uterus for Dummies

So my aunt used to be married to this man who purchased a for Dummies book for everything he did in life. Got a dog? Puppies for Dummies. Kid wants to play soccer? Soccer for Dummies. Want to finish out your attic on your own? Finishing out your attic on your own, for Dummies. (Not really on that last one. Although when I lived with them in college he decided to do this, and let me tell you what, that whole ordeal alone should have been reason enough for her to serve him with divorce papers.)

Anywho, it seems like there are those books for literally everything in the world, but I am pretty sure that there isn't one (yet) on how to deal with an irritable uterus.

If you will recall, this was the "diagnosis" I was given at somewhere around 30 weeks pregnant with Delaney. I say "diagnosis" because from the research I have since done on the topic, it hasn't been officially recognized by the medical world as something you can put on a woman's chart. And before the perinatologist said those two words to me, I had never heard of it before. But lo and behold, I have since had a few friends that have been told they too are suffering from it, at various levels. I had no idea what to expect or how best to deal with the symptoms or prevent them, and the internet, at least the trustworthy medical sites, were of no help.  I actually found more information from forums on pregnancy websites, and blogs of women who had suffered from it themselves.  And when friends were "diagnosed" with it, they have asked me what the heck you are supposed to do. So, I thought I would write it out and maybe some other poor, miserable pregnant woman will land upon this post while searching desperately for information.

The first thing that you need to know about it is that yes its real, and its not just us preggos complaining about being miserable.  Sometimes I felt like people thought I was exaggerating or blowing it out of proportion, but I had been pregnant before and not had those issues, so its not like I was over reacting. Having an irritable uterus means that your uterus is contracting almost constantly throughout the day, but doesn't make changes to your cervix. Although it can cause pre-term labor, its not a guarantee that you will have pre-term labor. Many people make it full term or more with no changes, while others don't. Also, some doctors are apparently more cautious of it than others, for instance, my perinatologist cut back my allowed work hours, and wanted me on modified bedrest, which I just flat said was not possible, and my OB thought she was being excessive with her prescription. Thus why I stayed working but only 30 hours, because it wasn't making changes to my cervix.

For me, I started noticing it somewhere around my first trip to L & D, around 25 weeks. I just thought Braxton Hicks were starting up earlier since it was my second pregnancy, and left it at that.  But the bigger I got over the next couple of weeks, the more painful it was and more often I noticed having problems.  I also noticed that in comparison with belly picture from my first pregnancy, I was looking much bigger.  This was eventually validated by the discovery that I was carrying around 25 mm of amniotic fluid, as opposed to the normal 12-15mm. It was considered on the low side of abnormal, but between that and the fact that it agitated my already irritable uterus, I was monitored a little more closely. 

It seemed like almost every movement that I made throughout the day or night caused contractions to start up.  Some various things off the top of my head that were surefire ways to get them going were:

-a full bladder
-too little hydration (thereby making a catch 22)
-picking up anything over 5-10 lbs
-bending over, like to pick something up or put on shoes
-walking for extended periods of time, which by the end of pregnancy shortened into walking across the room. And stairs were pure torture, which was awesome since we lived on the second floor.
-rolling over during the night
-anytime the baby stretched out
-stress

So as you can see, basically moving in general kick started them. Sometimes they were mild, sometimes they took my breath away for a short period of time, sometimes I could only get them to cut loose by taking a warm bath, a Benadryl, and going to bed. It was beyond exhausting, and left my body sore and tight. I read on one lady's blog that to describe it to her husband, she compared it to doing crunches continuously around the clock for weeks on end. At times, it also made me very nauseous. It was painful at best, and as someone who has delivered one baby and labored for 17 out of 18 hours with another baby with no epidural, you can trust that I have a pretty high pain tolerance. As I reached the end of the pregnancy, it was as though my whole midsection was sort of numb; I could feel Delaney moving all around, but unless I really tried hard it couldn't tell if it was a kick, or if she had changed positions. That is why when she completely flipped from breech position to being head down all while I sat at dinner, I didn't even notice.

Now, through trial and error there were some things that I learned to do or not to do to avoid contractions starting, or to help get them to stop.

-Sat down as much as possible throughout the day
-put my feet up whenever I could
-drank all the water I needed, but peed the second I got the urge
-avoided chairs with straight backs
-no lifting of anything heavier than say, my purse or water jug. I hadn't picked up Carter in so long that it was weird to pick him up after I delivered.
-no bending over. My kids at school came running if I ever dropped anything! Carter even starting doing it.
-every few nights I would take a warm bath, sometimes took a half a Benadryl to help me sleep
-avoided the stairs as much as possible
-ask for help!!! This was a hard one for me, especially when it came to taking care of Carter.

I was fortunate that all those contractions didn't affect my cervix too much until closer to my due date. It did make it harder for me to accept when I was in true labor though! And who knows if it will happen to me again, if we decide to have another baby(the jury is still out on that one!). From what I have read, once you have it, you will have it in subsequent pregnancies.

I hope this helps someone out there. It at least explains to whoever regularly reads my blog what I went through! Christiaan thinks I am hypochondriac, and 95% of the time he is absolutely right, but this was one medical issue that I feel like I had a legitimate reason to complain! I don't wish it on anyone!