I'm Still Pregnant

Yep.

Although not without more progress which I really can't complain about. Yesterday, I began having painful contractions around 3:30 AM. They were infrequent and I was able to sleep through some of them. By 7:30 they were approximately one minute in length, painful, and coming at a rate of 5 minutes apart. Awesome, right?! So I timed them. Phil got home around 8:00 AM from his night shift. We got Philip up, fed him breakfast, and decided to go out to Chick-fil-a for breakfast for us and do some walk walking and shopping at Target. I probably could have called the hospital once I surpassed the hour mark but decided to press my luck and really let them build up before doing anything. They were still coming every five minutes while we were in Target and were so painful they stopped me in my tracks each time. I was really starting to think this could be it! Well, it turns out it wasn't it. Needless to say, I'm glad we didn't head in when we could have because by the time we got home from Target at 11:30 they had all but fizzled out. What the heck!?

So we came back home, put Philip down for his nap, and decided to get some rest ourselves. Which was easy enough to do because at that point I was having absolutely zero contractions. So we all went to bed. Later on in the day I decided to do some more walking, so my neighbor Julie and I did a mile long walk around Yowell Meadow Park. The walk actually served two purposes: one, to make an effort to get my contractions moving again and, two, to play an integral role in getting Julie out of her house while her husband and family made last minute preparations and greeted guests back at home for her surprise birthday party! So the bright side is, at least we didn't head into the hospital where I no doubt would have sat around waiting, been monitored and examined, sat around some more, and then sent home. In short: we would have wasted a lot of time! So instead I got to take a nap, sulk in the privacy of my own home, and then have a good time at a friend's party. Beats sitting around at labor and delivery!

During the party, my contractions returned although they were not nearly as intense or regular. By evening they had slowed down again but Phil decided to call off of work for the night, just in case. Unfortuantely, that turned out to be a wasted day of paid time off as I had little to no contractions over night. Just a lot of insomnia and the discomfort and crankiness that comes with being 2 days past your due date. At least Phil got to get some rest though as he had little of it after coming off of his 12 hour night shift.

Warning: The following paragraph definitely falls under the category of T.M.I., but it's included here more for posterity's sake than for your own information so feel free to skip over it! ;-)

Fast foward to today. I spent a fair amount of time on my exercise ball and took another nice nap. I had some infrequent, mildly uncomfortable contractions, but nothing worth timing. Then, around lunch time, I noticed what I thought was some bloody show on my pad while using the bathroom. Hot dog! That got me very excited. Shortly thereafter though it was discovered that my doctor had been wrong last week about my mucous plug; I did in fact still have it, at least up until that moment. And all I can say about that is that losing it was way more gross than I had ever imagined. Not to be a wimp, but holy cow was that disgusting. So much so that after taking care of that little bit of pre-labor excitement, I immediately lost interest in my lunch. In better news though, some fun research about bloody show and mucous plus revealed that if your mucous plug is tinged pink or includes some blood, there more than likely is bloody show accompanying it. And the good thing about bloody show is it often means true labor is right around the corner!

Okay, no more talk about mucous plugs, I promise!

So the doctor's appointment I had hoped not to make it to is tomorrow morning at 9:20. At least I will have some good progress to report when I see my doctor. I am anxious to find out if I have dilated anymore over the weekend and I will also be requesting another membrane stripping as that really seemed to get the ball rolling on Friday. Hopefully the second time is the charm! We will probably also set up an induction date, though hopfully for later in the week. I really want to see how far I can get on my own before I agree to a date with Pitocin.

Phil is at work tonight but is leaving at 3:00 AM. That seems to be the hour when things start to strike up in my uterus so with any luck everything will stay quiet around here until he has a chance to make it home.

Updates to come!