Braxton Hicks & Monthly Checkup

Dear Munchkin,
This past weekend was quite eventful in the Beale household. On Saturday, I met up with a group of my college friends for lunch and outlet mall shopping @ Concord Mills. We had a great time laughing, catching up, and shopping. By the end of the afternoon, I was feeling a little crummy and chalked it up to doing too much in one afternoon. When I got home, I took a power nap and felt a whole lot better. On Sunday, your Daddy and I had a volunteer commitment @ church which involved walking the neighborhood distributing flyers for a food drive. After over an hour of walking in the heat, I was feeling pretty lousy. My stomach started cramping/tightening up and we headed straight home. The cramps continued intermittently during the next few hours, so eventually your Dad and I decided to call the after hours nurse for the doctor. The nurse confirmed that I was indeed having Braxton Hicks Contractions and I would need to monitor their frequency. More than 6 in hour would send us to the hospital for a check up and I was having them about every fifteen minutes or so. I knew that I was going to see Doctor Davis first thing the next morning, so I just prayed that they would slow down and tried to get some rest. I rested all afternoon and went to bed early, determined not to pay to visit to the hospital. This morning I had my monthly checkup. I weighted in @ +.2 pounds total weight gain (losing weight again with this diabetic diet...how weird!), had a blood pressure of 120/80 and heard your hear beat strong @ 150 beats per minute. I told the nurse about the cramping/tightening and Doctor Davis did an internal exam to make sure that I wasn't dilated. He also took a swab of some cells for a test that confirms that I will not have a baby within two weeks. Everything came back A-OK. He told me that now is about the time that these contractions start happening. I just need to monitor them and track their frequency. The only thing I can do is rest, walk, and stay hydrated. So I guess this is par for the course? He also checked my sugar log book and reassured me that I was doing a great job controlling it. We went over some more guidelines to follow and I will now start to see him every two weeks. Hopefully these "false" contractions will stop soon, so I can feel like my regular self again!
I love you,
Mom