Hmmph.

Things have been going so well. On Monday, my OB and I came up with an "exit" strategy for weaning all the meds that are working to stop the preterm labor. Since I'm on 3 meds, she doesn't want to stop them all at the same time and they all have different recommendations on when to stop them. It works out that we'll basically be staggering things out every two weeks.

At 32 weeks, I'll stop taking the ibuprofen. At 34 weeks I'll stop the nifedipine and be allowed to resume restricted activity (instead of strict bed rest). I'll get my last 17P injection at 35 weeks, 2 days. My home health nurse said most of her patients that struggle with preterm labor despite the 17P shots end up delivering within 2 weeks of their last injection.

I was feeling super confident about it all. Then yesterday, the contractions picked up--not enough to call the doctor or go to triage, but enough that I started writing them down. They were coming at around 2 an hour and lasting 1.5-2 minutes each.

I had my ultrasound this morning for the AFI and cervical length measurement. The tech said, "Oh, look, she's really engaged with her head smashed right down against your cervix. And see, your cervix is contracting regularly."

Um. What? That doesn't sound good. I told her I didn't feel any contracting. She told me it was different than uterine contractions, but it was an indication that Miss Thing was really putting pressure on my cervix. Fortunately, at this point, the CL measurement was the same as last week. But I have no idea what will happen if it continues.

The confidence that I won't deliver until after that last 17P shot is most definitely fading.