Within Reach

The arrival of my baby boy is finally within reach. I went to my OB appointment this afternoon and she scheduled me for an induction on Thursday morning. I have to go into the hospital tomorrow night at 8, so they can start medicating my cervix and about 8 hours after that, they'll start me on the Petocin. Not that I'm real excited about being induced, because I've heard it's a harder labor, but I am very excited to meet this little boy. I'm also excited to get this watermelon out of my belly.

Today I was 1cm dialated and 70% effaced, so she was also able to scrape my membranes in hopes to kick start labor on it's own. All I know now is that after that little experience, I know I am way too big of a wuss for natural labor. Bring on the epidural!!! Anyway, I'm hurting a lot in my lower back tonight, so I don't know if that means anything or not. Maybe I'll end up going in tonight. Who knows? All I do know is that my little guy will be here within a couple days!! I guess this means no New Moon for me. Maybe when he's a month old I'll leave him with my mom for a couple hours so I can still catch that movie while it's in the theater. But I'll definitely take a baby over a movie anyday.

So here's to given birth! Should be quite the experience. I'll let ya'll know when he's here.

Tears work

So I have to update the status of my work situation, because it's easy to bitch but sometimes I forget to comment on the positive things. After having a very "pregnant" day the other day and getting really upset about my "boss" making suggestions about my maternity leave again, I lost it and called my mom while crying to ask for her help. Well she had a talk with the boss and the next day he called me into his office to apologize for putting pressure on me about my time off. He just explained that he's gonna miss me while I'm gone because I've become such a good salesperson. Nothing like a good compliment to make all my hormonal moodiness fade away. He agreed to leave me alone about it and he's now being very flexible with my schedule during my last week or so of work. For instance, today I felt like I got run over by a freight train (I came down with an even worse cold than I've had for the last month) and he let me go home after just a couple hours of work. It might have something to do with my non-stop coughing and nose blowing. Or maybe the fact that I sound like Pee Wee Herman when I'm on the phone with customers. Either way, I'm at home now trying to rest up before this baby comes and that makes me very happy.

Speaking of coughing...I managed to cough my mucus plug out. Hopefully the baby is soon to follow.


P.S. For those of you who haven't caught on yet, my "boss" is also my dad. Gotta love him!!

So Close I Can Taste It

38 1/2 weeks

Well I'm at 38 1/2 weeks right now and my due date/induction date are so close I can almost taste them. I still have to wait until Tuesday to meet with the Dr. to schedule my induction, but her nurse did call me back and tell me she's not on-call again until the 23rd and that's most likely when she'll induce me. My due date is on the 24th. So if I don't go into labor before then (and I doubt I will) I'm most likely looking at only 10 more days of being pregnant. I can not believe I'm already to this point. It seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant and now the baby will be here any day. I will definitely have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Another good thing is that if I induce on the 23rd, I can still see New Moon before I have the baby. Woo hoo!!

Control Freak

For those of you who know me well and even for those that don't know me very well, but read my blog on a regular basis, probably know that I'm a control freak. Yes, that's right, I have no problem admitting it because I have no intention on changing it either. I try to control every aspect of my life and want to plan every last event no matter how unpredictable the event. This of course includes the birth of my child. You have no idea how crazy it drives a control freak like myself to not know when my child is going to be born and be able to plan accordingly. Even worse, is that my baby is due 2 days before Thanksgiving, so the thought of not knowing how to plan my holiday has been driving me nuts. BUT, I've managed to find a way to control even the most unpredictable of events.

Back in September when I took my child birthing class that was offered by my hospital, the labor nurse teaching the class gave us all a golden nugget of information. She let us all know that our hospital allows women to induce at 39 weeks if necessary. At first I wasn't that interested in doing that, but as I got larger and more uncomfortable I began thinking more seriously about inducing early. I had mentioned it to a few of the doctors I was seeing in my practice, but my suggestions kept getting shot down. Well finally at my last appointment the Dr. I saw told me I was measuring big and she wanted to get an ultrasound. Well when the ultrasound estimated my baby at already being 8lbs. 3oz., I was determined to induce early. So as I was on my way out of the office, I grabbed my nurse and asked her about inducing early because of the size of the baby. She said she'd talk to my Dr. and get back to me later that evening.

At around 5:30 last night, I got a call from my nurse letting me know that she had discussed my ultrasound with my Dr. and my Dr. had decided that when I come in on Tuesday she would schedule me for an induction. It would have to be on a day that she was on call, but she said my Dr. was on call that Thursday. So I was super excited. But then she mentioned Nov. 12 being the date that my Dr. was on call and due to all my excitement I didn't realize until I hung up that she was looking at the wrong week. So now I'm not sure when my Dr. is on call next week, but I will soon find out. Either way, she indicated without being able to tell me 100% for sure, that I would be induced next week. I just about went through the roof with excitement!!!!! Seriously, did I really get my way once again? Most women have to wait at least a week after their due date to be induced and I'm getting to induce several days before my due date. I guess my gross weight gain has paid off after all and has given me a big enough baby that they want to get him out of there.

So now let's just pray that my Dr. doesn't change her mind when I go into see her on Tuesday. God knows I have little patience and won't be able to handle waiting much longer. Here's to being a control freak even in an uncontrollable situation!

Future Linebacker

I went in for my ultrasound this morning to see how big this little boy is getting and boy did I get a surprise. Well, actually I wasn't that surprised considering how huge I'm getting. The technician gave me a current estimated weight of 8lbs. 3oz. I almost hit the floor. No, just kidding, I was actually happy about this because maybe it will encourage my Dr. to let me induce on the 20th. I'm praying so hard!!!! I really don't want to wait another 2 to 3 weeks for him to arrive, because he could be 10lbs by then. I have absolutely no desire to give birth to something that large.

I was hoping to get a really good look at this baby since the last time he was so small I couldn't tell much, but this time he was too big to see much. I did get to see the cute little foot that is always kicking me in the side and one of his eyes, because the other one is facing my back. But the best thing of all was seeing all that hair on his head!! Yep, they could identify hair on his little dome and I was very pleased. Now I know all the heartburn was worth it.

My question is, do newborns this big actually fit into the newborn size clothes? I know the tags always say 5 - 8 lbs, but I was wondering how accurate that is. He's got some pretty cute newborn outfits that I would hate for him to miss out on.

Anyway, I will keep everyone updated on my little linebacker. Hopefully it won't be much longer!

Walking Zombie

A zombie...that's what I've become in the last week or so. I think I'm getting a total of 30 mins of sleep at night and it's beginning to wear on me a bit. This wouldn't be so bad, but I'm still working full time and will be doing so until I go to the hospital and have this child. I don't mind working, because it's better than sitting at home all day with nothing to do, but some sympathy about my situation would be nice! My "boss" doesn't seem to understand the whole maternity leave thing. I can't count all the times over the last month or so that I've been asked to come back before Carter is 6 weeks old. I'm already working up to my due date, what more do you want?! Also my remarks about most women quiting a couple weeks before their due date or taking off more than 6 weeks once their baby is born are bashed as if I'm making it up! So the latest suggestion was that I take 2 of my 6 weeks off before the baby is born. If you do the math, that means going back to work when Carter is 4 weeks old. So needless to say, I am running on no sleep and I totally lost it after that remark. I don't think I'm asking for anything extraordinary by expecting some flexibility in my schedule these last couple of weeks and wanting to stay home for 6 weeks after the baby is born. But I want to know what other moms have done. Because all the ones that I have talked to have left work a couple weeks early or have taken a little longer than 6 weeks off after their child was born. So moms out there, what did you do?

On another, less annoyed note, I had my 38 week check up today. I'm still not dilating or thinning, but my belly is measuring a couple of weeks ahead. So the doctor scheduled me for an ultrasound tomorrow to see how big this baby is getting. I'm hoping he's big enough that they suggest inducing me early. I just don't see the point in doing it if that wasn't their intention. But I won't be seeing the Dr. to discuss it until next Tuesday anyway.

Anyway, I'm going to try and scrape up my remaining sanity off the floor and do something productive now. I'll keep ya'll updated on what I find out from the ultrasound. Later!

Warning: Girl Stuff

If you're a guy and you still chose to open up this blog and read it, don't say I didn't warn you first.

I went for my 37 week check up yesterday and was hoping and praying the Dr. would say I was 100% effaced and 4 cms dialated and would send me over to the hospital. But, that didn't happen. Instead I got the news that no pregnant lady this close to her due date wants to hear. "You haven't changed a whole lot from last week." There was absolutely no dialating going on, but she did tell me my cervix was beginning to soften. I'm not sure if that's very significant, but at least it's some progress. I guess this still doesn't surprise me a whole lot, because I've only had a handful of contractions, but it's still disappointing. I really don't want to go into labor right now, but I would like to know that I was making some progress and if my baby came by the 20th, I'd be very happy. My Dr. got called into a delivery yesterday, so I didn't get to see her and had to ask her nurse about possibly inducing early. My hospital allows women to induce at 39 weeks, but all the doctors at the place I go to seem to be against it. I keep throwing dates out there and they keep getting shot down. My nurse said we could talk about it with Dr. Moss if everything seems to be progessing well by then. Once again, not what I wanted to hear. What I wanted her to say is "Sure! What date would you like for us to schedule you for? Do you have any special requests? Would you like a mint on your pillow when you arrive?" I did throw Nov. 20th out there for suggestion and she just said, "well we'd like for it to be a day that we're gonna be there to get you started." At this point I wanted to throw myself on the floor and say "No! It's my body and my baby and I want to deliver him when I'm ready!! He's big enough already! Come on lady, look at me!" But I acted like a coward once again and just said, "okay".

When the nurse practioner came into check me, I excessively complained about my back pain like it was the worst thing in the world, once again hoping she'd say, "Well that's not gonna work, we better just go ahead and get that baby out of there then." But instead she told me to take Tylenol (as if that works for any kind of pain) and if the pain continues or gets worse to let them know. I wanted to say, "And if the pain does get worse, what are you gonna actually do about it? Because I'm telling you right now that it makes me sick at my stomach at times because it hurts so bad and you're not doing anything about it." But once again I just said, "okay."

So now I will continue to impatiently wait for some kind of progress or for this baby to decide to just show up. Let's cross our fingers and hope it's not much longer.

21 days

That's all I have left...21 days. At least that's all I have until my due date and I'm not even considering the thought that I would go past my due date. Actually, that's because I'm seriously considering inducing on the 20th. My hospital is fantastic enough to allow women to induce at any point after 39 weeks, so why not take advantage of that? I've discussed it with Brett and I think I've got him on the same page. Even though he is scheduled to take his vacation starting the 30th, if I induce on Friday the 20th he can just take some unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave law and ride it out until Thanksgiving in which he gets paid holiday time. So it would give him a couple weeks off, some paid, some not and since we already filed his family medical leave paperwork with his company, they can't tell him no.

Anyhow, just please pray that my Dr. doesn't try and talk me out of inducing on the 20th. Even though they say you can do it, I know that they like to talk you out of everything you want to do most times. So I will try and be firm about it, because I really don't want to be pregnant any longer than I have to be. It's been an amazing journey, but let's face it, pregnancy is not fun and it really gets hard during the last month. In fact I find my attitude turning from "I can't wait to meet my baby" to "I can't wait until I'm not pregnant anymore!" I know it will all be worth it in the end, but when you're in constant discomfort, it's sometimes hard to remember why you're going through what you are.

On a more positive note, I did start having some contractions yesterday afternoon (I think). It's hard to determine what a contraction feels like when you've never experienced them before, but I think I was having them. Over the course of the last few days I've been having some pretty bad back pain along with some cramping that feels like period cramps. I didn't think the cramps were contractions, until yesterday. I could feel a cramp coming on and then my stomach would feel a bit tighter and then it would ease up after a minute or so. I think the contractions (if that's what they were) were so weak, that it was hard for me to determine for sure that's what was going on. I had several of them in a row, a few minutes apart, but then they went away after I drank some water and laid down. I wasn't expecting to be rushing to the hospital last night, but I'm at least hoping for some progress in my dilation when the Dr. checks me tomorrow. Cross your fingers!!!