Sunday, November 12, 2006

The long and short of "The Cervix"

I decided I would take a few minutes to explain the challenges of the cervix. In a traditional singleton pregnancy, you are pregnant for 40 weeks and you start with a cervix, the birthing tunnel if you will, about 4 cm. in length. As you get closer to the delivery of your new little angel, your uterus grows and grows like a beach ball growing over time. All the while, this beach ball is sitting on top of the cervix. As the "ball" or uterus and baby get bigger, they apply more and more pressure on this cervix creating the nice long canal to shorten. It shortens all the way to 0 at which point the mamma dilates and the baby is delivered.

Well, when you have three babies in that uterus -- your beach ball inflates much quicker. So, with multiple babies, they measure my cervix regularly because if it was 0 too early, I would go into preterm labor too quickly. This has been my problem. Let me re-cap this for you in terms of length:

Up to 27 weeks -- over 4cm -- quite impressive!!!!
Oct. 20 -- 27 weeks pregnant and still a strong 3.7cm
Oct. 28 -- 28 weeks pregnant, but down to a 3 causing my doctor to admit me to the hospital.
Oct. 30 -- still strong at 3, so they released me to home bedrest because of the maintenance of cervical length
Nov. 3 -- 29 weeks pregnant -- still 3cm, so doctor was happy -- holding at 3! Went home, with my packed hospital bags -- YEAH!!!
Nov. 10 -- 30 weeks pregnant and guess what? 2.2cm YIKES!!!! To GREAT surprise, the doctor that reviewed my films let me go home. I know I am in trouble now. I see my own doctor on Tuesday and hopefully, he won't admit me on demand.

Just need 2 more weeks to 32 and I need to make it!!!!! We can DO IT!

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