Irritable Uterus?!?!?!

After an exhausting weekend with two trips to labor and delivery, I'm on watch. At first I woke up on Sunday morning with this horrible pain in my side that didn't go away no matter if I laid down, walked around or took Tylenol. I called the doctor and off the L&D I went. I got there having contractions, which we thought was where the pain was coming from. The doctor on call chalked it up to round ligament pain and sent me home with percocet.

Between Sunday night and Monday morning, I was still having contractions. They were coming about 5 an hour, every hour and weren't stopping. I called my doctor's office to follow up and see if I could get an appointment, but they sent me back to L&D. Not really what I wanted to do, but I was miserable.

Turns out I was indeed having contractions, averaging about 1 every 10 minutes and they weren't stopping. This was pretty much what I experienced when I had Bella. At 36 weeks, I started having contractions that really didn't do much besides make me uncomfortable and L&D kept sending me home telling me to wait, so we waited until my water had been broken for 12 hours before ever going back. I didn't want something like that to happen again.

Finally they gave me a shot of Brethine and told me to rest that I probably had a very irritable uterus. The contractions stopped, but what the hell is an irritable uterus??

So, I did some research... and found almost nothing to set my mind at ease....

“an 'irritable uterus' means simply that your uterus contracts without causing any changes in your cervix, or labor.” (Childbirth.org)

Well, the downside of that I found is that it can make it hard to discern between "false" contractions and true labor or preterm labor. Also, in some cases, enough of these "false" contractions can indeed start changing your cervix. Ugh, really.

Until I see the doctor next week, I'm just supposed to rest and listen to my body. I want to go to work, but I'm actually a little nervous that I'll end up in L&D again. I'd rather not. I'm gonna rest today and see how I feel and possibly go to work for a few hours tomorrow. It's a wait and see game. I'm pretty certain that I'll start contracting again, though. It's just a matter of where and when.

That's my irritable uterus for now I guess. It still sounds so unreal, but apparently it's not.