My IU has gotten progressively more pronounced in the past week. Contractions are beginning to form a consistent pattern throughout the day, though I've found that it doesn't much matter if I'm standing/sitting/lying down when they hit. This uterus does what it wants, when it wants. I can feel it tense and stay rigid until it's finished contracting. Afterward, PB squirms around and causes a ruckus to get comfy. Some days, she changes position up to 3 times and it's kind of freaky to watch my belly change shape, depending on her location.
The typical day for me begins at midnight when I awake to mild discomfort after about 90 minutes of REM. It feels like a hot bag of rocks is shifting inside and no, I'm not talking about fetal movements. The baby sleeps until about 3:30 AM so I can always tell the difference. My uterus tenses and I use the heating pad on my back to help calm it down. Getting up and walking to the bathroom sometimes helps. Some nights, I'm forced to take a middle-of-the-night tub just to get some relief which admittedly does work in the short run.
Between 3:00 and 5:30 AM, I toss and turn in my attempts to sleep. By this point, PB has typically become more active and likes to wedge her head under my rib cage making a side lying position impossible. I add more pillows (I'm up to 5-6 now, I think) to prop myself and let her kick and punch away doing morning calisthenics. When Rhett takes Oscar out between 5:30 and 6:00, I get up, take a walk around the upstairs, and try to stretch out.
The mornings usually progress with breakfast, school work (5 more days! 5 more days!) and then around 11:00 AM, the first big round of contractions begins. I'm not sure why this is but this first bout of the day comes on strong and tends to last well over an hour. I've been charting them. I'll usually take a nap around lunch time if it's too much for me. Oscar joins in and snores right by my head.
By 4:00 PM, I know to prepare to sit for a while because the second big round rolls through. Yesterday, these were terrible and didn't go away until 6:30. I had the heating pad on low for a good long while and took another bath. Then I began to search online for stories of women with similar patterns to mine. I couldn't find any close matches but did learn that it is not uncommon to get them every 10 minutes all day in varying degrees. Wow. I can't believe I've never even heard of IU before my doctor brought it up. There must be thousands of women out there thinking this is normal or that it's just Braxton Hicks but the differences are pronounced.
Finally, around 8:30-9:00 PM the third round begins but by this time, I'm nice and limber from sitting/flopping over the big yoga ball in the basement. This thing is magic. I allows me to watch TV in relative comfort with no back pain. I throw myself over it face first when the contractions start and treat it like a labor ball. There's a reason hospitals stock these because it makes a huge difference. It's like squeezing a marshmallow with your entire body and it takes the pressure off of ligaments and muscles that normally have to support your weight and the weight of the baby.
When I've determined that I've had enough SVU for the night (I think we're up to season 12 of 14?) I may or may not try for a third bath/shower and then I snuggle into bed with my gigantic tome; a biography of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving. Why? It was the biggest book I had sitting on my shelf and I felt in the mood for a little Victorian history lesson. It's a great distraction!
By 10:30, it's generally lights out and if I'm super wipes, I'll fall asleep until the "next day" begins around midnight. The cycle repeats, more or less on the same schedule, and another day goes by as we inch closer to 34 weeks.
This is where I refer you to some light reading (ha!): http://irritable-uterus.com/
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