Oh My Belly

So on Thursday, I took off from work early and headed to the mall with Lisa to do some holiday shopping. I did good at first, but it wasn't long before I started feeling funny. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I just knew I didn't feel right. I thought I'd just toughen it out since I needed to do some shopping and I wanted to hang out with Lisa. After the mall, we headed over to Target where I just seemed to get worse. Standing up and walking just seemed like the hardest things. My stomach hurt as if I were sick and my back was aching too. I felt a tightness in my belly that just consumed me. I was leaning over the cart as much as I could and crouching down to pretend to look at things when really I was just catching a break from standing and walking. I ended up sitting on the end of an aisle where every seemed to think the pregnant girl was going to go into labor. We made our purchases and I bee-lined it to the bathroom. But when I got in there, nothing happened. No sickness from either end. I wasn't sure what was going on. We went to grab a bite to eat because I thought maybe if I sit down for a while, I'll feel better, but I barely made it past waiting for a few minutes and we just left. I hated to leave, but I headed home, crawled right into bed and literally stayed there for 48 hours straight. I missed work on Friday, I didn't eat much, I didn't do anything, but literally was on bed rest for 2 days. I thought I had the stomach flu, but after Chris and I talked about my symptoms, we think that I am just having signs of early contractions and my body letting me know there is a baby coming. Plus, I'm sure my body was also saying 'slow down' since I seem to be going a mile a minute the past few weeks. So call it Braxton Hicks, call it early-early labor, or just the tightening of my muscles, I had something going on. I hated to miss the Norris family Christmas reunion in Godfrey, but was so happy Chris and Tia went without me.