Officially Overdue

Hello all. So here it is, 4:30am on June 14th, and I'm still pregnant. ***Sigh...*** I went for my 40 week checkup on Tuesday, I'd dilated another half a centimeter, and I am 75% effaced, so at least I'm making progress. But at half a centimeter a week, he'll be here in another month... I'd been having a good amount of Braxton-Hicks contractions that I knew were the reason for the progression. After that appointment, though... I've been having lots more, much more regular, and starting to get painful. Sunday night, I was driving home from leading my mom to where she's staying for the week when I ended up in so much pain I was in tears. It didn't feel like contractions, really, but the pain would peak and ebb, so I wasn't sure. I called Bryan to let him know, since I was supposed to pick up dinner on the way in, and told him that if this kept up after I got home, we were going to the hospital. Within ten minutes of getting home, I was perfectly fine. Tuesday night, the night after my appointment, I went to bed at eight (I was SO tired), and woke up at 9:30 from a "I went into labor and was rushing around getting everything together" dream, and having contractions that lasted over two hours. Some were painful, some weren't, and they averaged 7.5 minutes apart. But they went away (darn) and I went back to sleep. I woke up again about 3am from a "My baby's coming, I'm not gonna make it to the hospital, having a home birth" dream, and again having contractions. These didn't last nearly as long, but they were a bit stronger. So I went back to sleep. I woke up at 8am from a "I had my baby in the hospital, all is well and I love him to death" dream. No contractions this time. I let the dog out to use the bathroom, checked my email and pregnancy message board, and went back to sleep at 9. I got woke up at 11:30 by the phone. It was officially my due date, and this was the first "Have you had that baby yet?" phone call. I got two yesterday. My mom got two or three. I'm actually surprised that I didn't get more, or emails. Pleasantly so, of course. I'm impatient, yes, but having reminders like that make the waiting that much worse. Like I told my mom and Bryan, when Junior decides to grace us with his presence is between God and him, and there's nothing we can do about it. I'm just really hoping he comes in the next couple of days. I'm so tired of these false alarms. Yesterday we went to the resort where my mom is staying to hang out with her and my brother instead of them driving here. On the way back, I started getting menstrual-type cramps and lower back pain at the same time. The back pain never really went away, but the cramps would come and go, and most certainly would peak and ebb. It wasn't nearly as painful as the stuff going on Sunday night, but I was definitely having contractions, I could feel my belly tightening up. These were stronger than any I'd felt before, and I got them several times within an hour. Bryan's mom called while we were on the road back, and when he described what was going on with me, she told him that's what his sister did two days before she went into full-blown labor. It kinda made him nervous. But again, shortly after I got home, they went away. I just read that the current theory on what gets labor to start being stress hormones causing muscle tension in the uterus, and that leads to contractions, which subsequently lead to labor. I'm thinking that may be right in my case. It seems that when I get home and relax, all these contractions go away. But Tuesday night's stuff really got me nervous, because Junior shifted his position. I can normally feel his rear end under my ribs on the right side, and that's where he seems most comfortable. That night, he moved to where his rear was right in the middle of my belly, into birthing position. Really got me wondering if it was time to be making phone calls. During the time I was having all those contractions, I got up, moved around, cleaned my kitchen, and when they still didn't go away, I came back to the couch and laid on my side. That's when they stopped. These false alarms are driving me nuts. I really don't want to go to the hospital until I'm fairly certain that what I'm feeling is true labor. I know that if I go in and it's not, I'm going to be SO horribly disappointed. So when these contractions start up, I time them the best I can, and if they last more than a couple hours, and get stronger in that time frame, then I'll get Bryan and head to the hospital. So far, none of my contractions have lasted for longer than an hour, save for the two hours on Tuesday night.

But I did get another sign of impending labor Wednesday. For those of you who are squeamish, I'd suggest skipping this paragraph. I lost my mucous plug. I thought I'd lost part of it last week. Boy was I wrong. It's hard to describe what I found when I went to the bathroom about noon yesterday. It was long and sticky, looked like snot and moved like jelly. It was clear except for a spot of blood at each end. It came out in two parts. I don't know if it was the entire thing or not, I have no idea how big it is to begin with. But it came up on the toilet paper, and I very nearly took a picture of it. But it was too disgusting. I reached down again, and up came still more! It was smaller, but still had the same consistency and color, complete with the spot of blood at one end. When I told my mom about it, she told me that she never saw hers with any of us three kids. Bryan just asked what it meant. I told him it meant that my cervix had opened up enough for that to fall out, and that it meant I was making progress. From the research I did on it, it doesn't mean labor's right around the corner, but it is something to note and mention to the doctor on the next visit.

Speaking of the doctor, I saw a doctor on Tuesday, not a nurse practitioner. There wasn't really much difference. She was really nice, and gentle with my exam. She asked a couple times whether we had any questions. Almost all of my questions were answered by the nurse last week. Did I write about last week's appointment? I'll check, and if not, I may put up another post. Eh, no need for another post. I'll just edit this one, there wasn't much to tell anyway. Anyway, the doc told me that I had two choices: I could schedule an appointment for next week, or I could be put on the induction book for eight days from Tuesday. I figured, my mom's going to be gone either way, might as well let him come when he wants to come. So I chose the appointment. She made my appointment for the 21st. Most of the time, we are the ones who have to go to the appointment desk and make our own appointments, so the fact that she did it for me was pretty cool. But she came back in and told me when my appointment was, and that if I hadn't delivered by then, she figured I'd want to talk induction at that visit. Who knows? I'm pretty comfortable physically right now. Emotionally, I'm a rollercoaster, but I'm doing my best. Anyway, somehow we got on the subject of helping things along as far as labor goes. And this doctor comes right out and tells us to have sex!!! I was thinking, OH MY GOODNESS, DID SHE REALLY JUST SAY THAT??? No attempt at tact whatsoever, just point-blank, out there, blatantly tells us to have sex. I don't know why I was so shocked, she is a doctor after all, but still, it shocked me. Bryan says I turned beet red. I don't embarrass easily, but for some reason, that did it.

Anyway, so here I sit, 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I just know I'm going to be fielding phone calls for the next couple days until he comes, "Are you still pregnant?", "Is that baby here yet?", "You STILL haven't delivered?" I just tell myself, they say first time moms are late the majority of the time, and boys tend to be late, too, so I get a double dose, he'll come when he's good and ready, apparently he just wants to cook a little longer. Physically, I'm pretty comfortable. The worst part right now is trying to sleep. I can't seem to sleep any longer than four hours, no matter what time I go to bed. I went to sleep at ten last night, and lo and behold, I was awake just after 2am, with contractions. If I go to bed at midnight, I'm awake at four. This morning, I laid in bed counting contractions. They weren't really timeable again, the same crampy pain with lower back pain, but I counted how many I had over a certain period of time and averaged it out. This morning, it was nine contractions in 45 minutes. They didn't last any longer than that. They were five minutes apart, so if they'd lasted two hours or more and gotten stronger, I would have been waking Bryan up. As it is, all my moving around trying to get comfortable woke him up anyway, so I got up and went downstairs. He really needed his sleep. But another issue yesterday and lingering into today is my swollen feet. They got pretty swollen yesterday afternoon, and at eight last night, I couldn't walk on my left foot without pain. So I propped my feet up on my mom's coffee table, and we talked about watching a movie, but Bryan was SO tired, and we needed to let the dog out anyway, so we went ahead and went home. I have a couple blankets on the bed that are folded up to where I can put my feet up on them, so I went to bed shortly after we got home. I think the swelling went down overnight, but now that I've been up and around again, they've swollen back up nearly to the same degree as they were. I know my left foot's starting to hurt. I may end up calling the nurse's line to see if Epsom salts will hurt me any. I'll stick my foot in ice water first, see if that does any good. I'll probably end up bringing my blankets downstairs onto the couch, so I'm not stuck in bed all day, bored out of my mind. I could sleep, but I made up a lot of my sleep Tuesday night. It was heavily interrupted, but I still got more than four hours. Oh, I think I feel more contractions coming on, so I'd better end this.

Oh, last week's doctor's visit, if I already posted about this, just disregard. The nurse was really nice, she answered all my questions, didn't rush me at all, and asked plenty of her own. She checked my cervix, I was a "solid" one centimeter dilated. She didn't tell me if I was thinning out or not. That's basically the majority of what happened.

Anyway, I need to get another bottle of water, put my feet up, and see if these contractions decide to continue. They seem to have gone away just in the short time I've been writing. Five minutes never seemed so long... I keep thinking the contractions have stopped, and I'll look at my watch and realize it's only been four minutes since the last one. It's crazy.

TTFN!!!