Contractions?!

So recently has HG been bad again and medical intervention has once more been needed. I have been fed up with it as it makes me house bound SO....

.....My brilliant other half took me to a five star hotel in Banff as a treat to cheer me up on Saturday. He bundled me in our car and we hit the highway. I love the drive from Calgary to Banff. You have to negotiate the most stupid slip roads onto the highway (feeder lane?? no! lets just chuck slow cars straight out on to the highway!). But Bug is driving so I can relax :-)

As soon as I started to breathe in some fresh mountain air I perked up. Where we live in Cowtown it stinks! We live near this inner city chicken processing plant that all the locals want to shut down. Often the air stinks of rotting poultry and you have to stay indoors with all the windows shut. It.is.really.bad. There is also an open sewage pit down the road and they are tarring the roads and lying new railway track so the mingling scent of rotting chicken, poo and tar makes me heave.

(Below is the Pit)

(Above is on Johnston Lake trail of bliss and sweet smells)

Autumn in Canada is stunning. The trees in Banff National Park were a vivid yellow set against a deep blue sky. The smells in the national parks are also amazing, trees smell sweet, piney and woody scents that are ever so subtle.

We spent a lot of time on the trails around Lake Minnewanka and Johnston Lake, Bug cycled and I did some sketching or slowly walking and staring at the views. We loved it so much that we grabbed our tent out of the car and pitched it at Tunnel Mountain for an extra night.

Uhohh later that night I start to get these cramps, they are an extremely strong and a very painful spasm/ contraction of my abdominal muscles. I cannot even breathe as it reaches a peak and then starts to subside. When it has eased I feel ok again...only 25 mins later another, then same gap before another. The pain is getting worse and after 3 hours of this and we are really worried. Bug bundles me into the car and we visit Banff Springs Hospital. They get me straight into a room with a belt on my belly to measure the contractions as a peaking graph. The doctor does and ultrasound of my uterus and it is OK. The problem is not affecting or anythign to do with the uterus and juniors. PHEW.

The thing is I am really tough about pain. I can pull an ergo! I used to row until I had tunnel vision. This pain was different and it makes me think that I need a new level of tough as child birth will be worse - the contraction graph machine will be off the scale!

We decide eventually to go back to the campsite. It is the wee hours by now and with hardly any campers the campground has a calm silence that I rarely have ever heard as I have always lived in cities. I stay in the washrooms to sort out what I now suspect is a bowel problem.

Let's just say that when the moment came I was luckily sitting down in the right place. The final contraction was so immense that I screamed and my arms jerkily punched each side of the cubicle spontaneusly! I left the washrooms a much lighter but quite shaky woman.

I had no idea that the bowels can get this painful. I rarely need a number 2 these days so not sure what is going on. Pregnancy is a learning curve!

I really perked up this weekend and although I was pretty sick my nausea was ok.