Since the incident this past weekend with contractions that went nowhere, Baby 2.0 has shown absolutely no signs of wanting to leave her current abode. Which is frustrating, since we really want her to hurry up and get the heck out of there.

Also, my sister is here this week, so timing-wise, it would be SUPER convenient if this child would go ahead and make an appearance. In-home childcare for Catie, at the ready! Woot! Let’s go, baby!

39 weeks pregnant. Feeling like Violet freaking Beauregard.
And yes, I took this in the bathroom at my OB’s office. Their mirror is cleaner than mine.

On Wednesday, I had an OB appointment. My doctor walked in, and said, “Wow, look at that face! You look pretty miserable!” Uh, yeah. So I listed my current complaints symptoms:
* Headaches almost every day. (Sometimes every other day, but they’re still pretty ever-present. When I’m not pregnant, I get headaches maybe once a month, if that.)
* Certain, ahem, digestive issues. (No additional comment needed.)
* Sometimes I’ll just get light-headed and dizzy for no reason.

Honestly, the dizzy thing freaks me out the most. You know the sort of head rush feeling you get if you stand up too fast? I’ll get that out of the blue when I’m not doing anything. The other night it happened while I was standing in the kitchen talking to Dave and my sister. Sudden dizziness, double vision, the works. I sat down on the kitchen floor and leaned against the wall, and it took probably 15 minutes for the feeling to pass. It was really bizarre and unsettling.

So, when I mentioned all of this to my OB, she said, “Ok, you convinced me. I’ll call the hospital to see when they can induce you.”

I know a lot of women would do anything to avoid being induced, but I had Pitocin with Catie, so I’m not scared of that. I just desperately want this baby out of me so I can start to recover and feel like myself again. (And yeah, I know that the newborn phase is it’s own special sort of hell, but the difference? Is that I love my babies, but I hate being pregnant.) So, hearing my OB say that she’d induce labor is like my own personal version of the Hallelujah Chorus. There is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Thank God for that.

My OB said that she’d call the hospital at the end of the day, then call me to let me know when I was on the schedule. No biggie, right?

So, fast-forward and cue about a dozen or more phone calls back and forth to her office (where I was told by her nurse, “Sorry, she’s at the hospital delivering a baby and I don’t have any info”) and to the hospital (where I was told, “Uh, we don’t see you on the schedule”). It took a ridiculously long time to find out anything, and obviously I was getting really frustrated because I just want to get this baby out of me.

FINALLY, my doctor called me back and said that she got me on the calendar to be induced… on May 31st. Which is my official due date, yes. But it’s also next Tuesday, and my sister won’t be here by then, and it means more days of feeling sick and miserable.

So, I’m back to trying natural induction methods. One of the few that I’d read about that actually seemed promising was acupuncture. My family is big on acupuncture – my mom uses it to help manage her chronic pain issues, and my dad and sister have both used it to help with various injuries. I managed to get a very fast appointment with a local acupuncturist, and tried it this morning.

It was… weird. The first session involved needles in my hands, ankles, feet, ears, and the top of my head. I was supposed to rest like that for 20 minutes, but after 10 minutes, I got suddenly dizzy and sweaty and had to stop. The second session involved needles in my lower back, and I almost fell asleep during that part. So, part of it kinda sucked, and part of it was totally relaxing and nice. Weird.

I have another appointment with the same clinic tomorrow, assuming that this first one doesn’t send me into labor today (fingers crossed!). I can’t really tell much so far, except that Baby Girl has been going NUTS ever since the acupuncture appointment. I’m not having contractions, but she’s squirming around all over the place, so I hope that means that something is happening in there.

Anyway, worst-case scenario, this baby is coming in 4 days. But I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later. We’ll see!

Hi there! How’s it going? Allow me to tell you about my action-packed weekend, ok? Ok.

So! Saturday. My awesome cousin offered to pick up Catie and take her to the Got To Be NC Festival because, let’s face it, even though it sounded pretty fun – and, as a bonus, had the promise of copious amounts of fried food – I am in no condition to be hiking all over the NC State Fairgrounds. So I said yes, please, take my kid away from me for a few hours and thank you so much. They set off around 10 a.m., and I promptly went back to bed.

While I was lying down, I started having contractions. I timed them (did you know there’s an app for that? Because of course there is), and found that they were every 20 minutes. Mild but still regularly patterned contractions. That seems promising, no?

I decided to see if I could move things along, so I went downstairs and got on the treadmill. I walked for about 30 minutes, and by then, the contractions were every 10 minutes. Crazy, right? So I told Dave and started making phone calls, and we packed the rest of our stuff, because hey look at that, we might be having a baby today!

Meanwhile, Catie came home, tired and sweaty and happy. (Apparently it was pretty awesome, because she’s been telling me about all of the things she saw and did at the “Festy-buhl” ever since.) We chilled out for a while, and the contractions got a bit stronger and were coming every 7-ish minutes on average. They stayed that way for several hours.

I called my doctor’s after-hours line and talked to the OB on call, and she said not to go to the hospital until my contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart and I couldn’t walk or talk during them. That sounded… weird to me. I mean, if labor is that intense, shouldn’t I already have my drugs by then? (For the record, no, this isn’t my first baby, but with Catie, my water broke first, so I never had this whole “ooh, is this labor or not?” thing. This is a whole new, unknown world for me.)

Since I was able to be up and about during my contractions, we figured that we still had a long way to go. Dave packed an overnight bag for Catie and we had a back-up plan to get her to my cousin’s house just in case we had to head to the hospital in the middle of the night. Everything was set. So we went to bed.

Or rather, Dave and Catie went to bed. I lay there and couldn’t turn my brain off, and I jumped at every twinge of a contraction. Which I suppose makes sense under the circumstances, but I was beyond exhausted and just needed to sleep. Finally around midnight, I took half of a Xanax (which I’ve really avoided taking since that whole incident back in March, but I’m very thankful that I kept them for emergencies). That finally took the edge off enough that I could go to sleep. I still woke up a lot with the more intense contractions, but I was able to fall right back to sleep.

This morning, contractions were still in the 7-10 minute range, so I tried the treadmill again. I only walked for about 15 minutes before my lower back started to hurt, so I gave up on that. I thought I’d try my prenatal yoga DVD, since that has some good stretches in it, and I thought it might help the baby “drop” more.

So, I did the yoga DVD, and the contractions… stopped. Like, completely. Not even a twinge. Nothing.

What the hell??? How does that even happen?

Did I seriously just experience “false labor” for over 24 hours?

I just… I… WHAT?!?!!

I’m completely and utterly baffled. And kinda pissed. I went through all that pain and discomfort for NOTHING???

I don’t know, y’all. But this baby had better hurry up and make for the exit soon, or she’s going to be in BIG TROUBLE when she finally shows up.

I’m 38 weeks pregnant.

Just to give you some perspective on this, here’s what I looked like at 19 weeks pregnant:

And wearing the exact same shirt today, at 38 weeks:

I know, right?

I had my 38-week OB appointment today, where I learned that Baby 2.0 is doing just fine and dandy, despite the discomfort she’s causing her mama. I’m apparently only dilated 1 centimeter. I said that was pretty discouraging, but then my OB reminded me that, “Fortunately, it’s not a predictor of anything, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Which I suppose is true, I was only at 2 cm when my water broke with Catie, and she showed up a few hours later. So, fine. I’ll try to be patient.

But I gotta say, I am so ready to:
a) meet this little girl, and
b) not be pregnant anymore.

I feel bad for whining because I know so many women would give anything to have a relatively uneventful full-term pregnancy. But the aches and pains are getting to me, as well as the million other things (not being able to walk upstairs without getting winded, the swollen ankles, the constant heartburn, not being able to sleep more than 2 hours without getting up to use the bathroom, etc.). So, yeah. I’m tired and everything hurts and I’m whiny about it.

It’s also really hard to remember that this is all going to be over soon. I’m now at the point where I’ve been pregnant for so long that it feels like “OMG I’m going to be pregnant foreeeeeever!!!” Maintaining perspective is a challenge. I try to keep reminding myself that I have two weeks left at the most, but it’s difficult.

P.S. I was trying to hold out and not cut my hair because I firmly believe that no major hair decisions should be made during pregnancy. But the split ends were making me insane, so I went and asked for “just a trim.” The lady took off about 2 inches, which is a bit more than I wanted, but I like it. I feel better now. And I can still get it into a ponytail, which is my main requirement for that initial newborn phase.

P.S.S. I’m debating getting my eyebrows waxed too, as long as I’m taking care of self-maintenance stuff, because lord knows they are a mess.