Could be early labor...

I could be in early labor, in fact I probably am, but I don't have ANY idea how long it will be... I had such a LONG (50 hour) labor with my son (even though it was induced) so we're just hanging out at home today and I kept my husband home from work. Depending on how things go, I may or may not get a chance to update this again if we need to leave for the hospital later - in any case I will post again if I'm still here or maybe my next post will be a birth announcement! :)

More to come!

Sorry...

For all you hopeless romantics who thought it would be SO cool if we had a Valentine's Day baby, you're out of luck!!

The next holiday, according to my calendar, is President's Day. :)

Doctor update

I am certainly not going to complain, but my doctor has done a complete turnaround on the whole induction thing! I'm SO relieved! She made me so mad last week! I had a non-stress test yesterday at the hospital (they watch baby's heart rate to make sure it behaves normally with movement and contractions, if you have any) which was totally fine, and today when I went in, we were both totally fine. So even though she did offer to induce if I wanted, she seemed completely OK with me just going home and letting nature take its course. I am also 1 cm and 60% effaced so at least all these contractions I've been having are doing SOMETHING! Maybe now that she is off my back, I can relax and go into labor. Either way, the baby will come when the baby is ready, and that's fine with me. I will have another NST at the hospital on Monday and see her again on Tuesday.

I have my moments of feeling pretty good and optimistic, to feeling really bad and just MAD that I haven't gone into labor yet. I suppose that's all par for the course. If I'm feeling OK tonight, I think we are going to head to the mall to do some walking. I plan to do some shopping as well, because I'm not going to haul my big pregnant ass all over the mall and not buy myself something to make me feel better! Even if it's another book! I've been going through a lot of books lately, I've read Jimmy Carter's "Palestine - Peace not Apartheid", I've gotten halfway through "The Iraq Study Group Report" and "The Weathermakers" which is about global warming. With all that heavy and depressing reading, now I am reading Bill Bryson's book about his travels through Europe. He is really funny and I've enjoyed every single book I've read by him! (Thanks Dad!) I got really tired of reading books about birth and breastfeeding, so I had to get something different!

I still think my due date was yesterday and not the 7th, but I'm too lazy to change my ticker. I'll put up a new ticker when the baby is born. Just do your own math and subtract 5 days. It's not that hard! :)

It's my dad's birthday...

And it doesn't look like he'll get a new grandchild today! *sigh* Sorry Dad, we tried!

Unless something unexpected surprises the heck out of us, it looks like it's business as usual....

More contractions...

I had a TON of Braxton Hicks again last night, and whew! They hurt! They weren't bad while I was laying down to go to sleep so at least that was good, I got a fairly decent night's sleep. But if I was up walking around, I could barely stand it. I could have spent some time walking into the night but I figured if it was really turning into labor, I needed to get some sleep first and foremost. I'm having a few mild ones right now but it's nothing that I'm excited over at this point.

My husband asked me if he should stay home today and I told him no, he should go to work. Will and I are getting together with some friends this morning, he will play with the other kids and us grownups will be working on some stuff for La Leche League. I need to continue on with life as usual!

I would love to have this baby tomorrow because it's my dad's birthday. I have a feeling it won't be that much longer anyway, definitely within the next week.

Maybe a LITTLE is happening...

Things are going along well! I'll see the doctor on Tuesday, supposedly my "due" date is Wednesday the 7th but honestly I think it is more like a week from now or so. In any case, on Thursday night I had some pretty good contractions, they lasted well into the night but they were mild enough that I fell asleep before they went away. I had more on Friday but they weren't as frequent. By the weekend, they had pretty much stopped. Just some practice, they weren't painful or intense, just enough to notice them. Every little bit helps! I still don't think I will have this baby for another couple of weeks. It's just my gut feeling about it.

I also think this baby is going to be smaller than Will. He was 9 lb 8 oz and I just don't feel as big or swollen like I did with him. I am still wearing my wedding rings but my legs have gotten pretty puffy.

Aside from some minor organizational stuff, we are pretty much ready. The clothes and diapers are all washed, we have the baby bed upstairs now and all the bedding for that is washed. I've washed the car seat cover but still need to wipe down the car seat itself and have Clane install the base. I'm all stocked up on breast pads (I leaked like a maniac last time, for a really long time too) and baby wipes and still have a ton of baby wash that we're still using with Will. All I need is my body to start gearing up a little more intensely! I'm glad that I don't feel too bad most of the time, that's making things a little easier for now.

We're down to a week...

.... I guess! Actually when I saw the doctor this week, I told her something I'd thought for a while, that my due date was wrong. She went back in my chart after talking with me about it and looked at her wheel, and agreed that I was probably due closer to the 12th. 5 days isn't that long, so it's still pretty close, but I think it would make a pretty big difference if I go "late". If I'm 42 weeks by the "official" due date, that's a huge difference from being 41 weeks and 2 days. So although I am still hoping to give birth sometime in the first two weeks of February, this, I think, will help buy me more time if it doesn't happen.

NOTHING is happening by the way. But I am continuing to do well, and so is the baby. My blood pressure is stable and the baby is doing very well. I've got the usual aches and pains of the end, but it's nothing I can't cope with. I had a pretty negative-feeling day yesterday, but today I am feeling better. I know that I could really go into labor at any time, despite that not much is going on that I can tell! Babies come when they are ready and when I look at the big picture, it's really not going to be that much longer.

Just added a new link...

Please check out The Shape of a Mother. Being pregnant and giving birth changes our bodies, there is no denying that! We are so used to seeing "flawless" bodies in the media, entertainment and advertising, that many of us tend to feel bad or hopeless about how our bodies look during pregnancy and after childbirth. This blog is really important, I think, because it shows pictures of what REAL women look like, not the doctored up, Hollywoodized versions we might have in our minds!

Besides, we mommies have EARNED these bodies! And we worked damn hard for them! We are beautiful and that's just the way it is!!

38 weeks

I tend to look at the 38 week point as the final countdown! Although it could still be several weeks until the big day, baby is pretty much done developing and the birth could really come any time and things would be fine. I am continuing to do well. I can feel that the baby has gone further into my pelvis, as I am having quite a bit more pain and pressure there. It feels like my joints are coming apart! But it's all normal, and it's a good thing at this point. I had some strong contractions last night, but I think I brought them on myself by just having a busy day and doing more than I probably should have. After a snack, a big glass of water and a nice long shower, they had mostly gone away and were completely gone by the time I went to sleep. They all help though, and I try to focus on that rather than thinking of it as a false alarm. Overall I really don't feel that anything is really happening, so we're just taking each day as it comes. Will lifts up my shirt and yells "BABY OUT!!" into my belly button so I am hoping one day soon, the baby will listen to him and come out to see us!

My blood pressure is good so that part will always make me happy!

Today was a pretty good day! I got together with some fellow La Leche League members to work on a few things and that went well. One of the girls has a son about my son's age and they were playing together so well, that we stayed for a good part of the day! Since we didn't have to run interference with them very often, we got a lot of work done. I'd been wanting to go through this stuff for a long time and it was good to be able to sit down and do it! It's getting me really excited to be breastfeeding an infant again! And the boys had a lot of fun, they played together exceptionally well, working out their own problems, cooperating, sharing, it was all really good!

We moved some furniture (well, my husband did the moving) in our room to make room for the baby's co-sleeper. It's neat, it's like a big bassinet that attaches to a regular bed. I am hoping that will make life easier for us for night nursing. Will still really needs to be in the crib and I don't really want to buy another one of those! Even though we didn't take any furniture out of our room, it still looks a lot bigger to me. It will be exciting to see the room all set up, although I'm not sure we'll leave it that way for now. The co-sleeper is pretty big and I need a lot of room to get out of bed in the night right now.

I feel like I'm in a pretty good mood today. I hope I still feel like this tomorrow! Seems like I'm irritated most of the time these days. That annoys me too! *sigh*

Nothing's happening...

In case someone is looking at my blog to see if anything is happening with my pregnancy, you're out of luck! There is nothing going on at all. The only thing is that all I want to do is sleep, and I don't want to go anywhere or do anything. Otherwise, nothing has changed or is happening at all! I'm pretty certain there will be no baby this week. :)

37 weeks and scabby cat update!

All is well, and quiet, with the pregnancy! My blood pressure is excellent, my weight is still good, the baby is doing fine and measuring right on. The doctor said that I could to into my own little labor and it's just a matter of time! So that was all good news. I wound up having to call her later in the day, but I'll keep the day in chronological order so I don't mess up the story. :)

Later in the day I had to take our scabby cat to the vet for a check up. My friend came with me to help carry the cat in and entertain my son. The vet thought she was doing well, she hasn't lost any weight and her fur is growing in nice and thick and shiny. She thought the scabbiness was improving as well, and agreed that continuing to give her cortisone shots could be more of a risk than a benefit at this point. (I don't want a diabetic cat and neither does she!) So we didn't even get charged for the visit, and she would like me to call her back in a couple of months to let her know how things are going.

While we were at the vet, I started seeing spots. After a few minutes of that, I realized I was getting a migraine! I haven't had one in over 8 years but I knew right away that's what it was. I got us all home, dropped off my friend at her house, and got everyone out of the car. By that time I'd missed calling my doctor's office by about 7 minutes. The aura (the flashes of light/spots) was just about ending and I knew I had about 30-45 minutes before the pain started. I called her answering service and about an hour later she called back, and offered to call in a prescription for me. The funny thing was that I'd taken Tylenol before heading to the vet, because my back was hurting from all the running/sitting I'd done earlier and I didn't want to sit there in pain. Usually, in my experience, taking Tylenol for a migraine is like taking a pee on a forest fire! But, I think this migraine was to be a really mild one because I never really did get a bad headache. My husband picked up my prescription and I took some of it, and although I felt a few twinges (and now I'm hearing static - weird!), it never did get bad. The last one I had lasted for 3 days! Clane took care of Will the rest of the evening and I got fairly OK sleep. Today I am tired and feeling a little out of sorts but my headache is gone and I haven't needed to use anything else for it.

But all through this, the baby has been doing her usual sleep for several hours, then wake up and kick me, pretty much like normal. And my blood pressure continues to be excellent. I'm just taking it easy for today. So we'll see how this all turns out!