40 Weeks

The due date came and went. After a month of contractions and false starts, everything kind of stopped. What was up with that?!? Everything was moving along at a fast pace–he dropped into position kind of early, lost my mucus plug, having contractions, was slowly dilating and effacing…and then for it to all STOP was confusing!

On our due date we went to the doctor for a Non-Stress Test. Basically I just hung out on a bed for about 30 minutes while they monitored the baby’s heart rate with belts attached to my belly. His heart rate was perfect. Then we had an ultrasound. She checked his positioning and then measured the amniotic fluid levels (all good). We saw his heart beat on the ultrasound, he kicked and waved and we even got to see his little lungs practicing breathing! After that we saw a midwife (not our usual one) and she discussed induction. We decided to schedule it, with the hope that he’d decide to come on his own now that we had a date scheduled!

I had the day off from work so I went home, Michael went to work. I did some cleaning and laundry (washed the sheets on the bed because I figured THAT would make him come, right?? Freshly washed sheets = water breaking in the middle of the night, right??), gave Bella a bath, went to the gym and did the elliptical with the hopes of it moving things along. Took a nap…tried not to think about how it was my due date…

The midwife suggested I try acupuncture so I went in on Tuesday the 15th and she did acupuncture for nudging labor along. She did certain pressure points and then attached something similar to TENS to several of the needles–kind of a weird sensation. I had some mild cramping later that evening but no contractions.

Emotionally I was having mixed feelings. I was of course happy and excited to meet our little guy, disappointed he wasn’t here yet, and then also starting to get kind of worried–worried about potentially being induced and having complications or having a higher risk of having to have a c-section…all of those worry thoughts kept creeping in and I tried my best to just live in denial and NOT think about any of it.

Wednesday the 16th I had mild cramping all day that kind of increased, but no real contractions. After work I went in again for a second acupuncture treatment. It was really nice and relaxing and I actually fell asleep this time. Nothing seemed to nudge the baby though.

Thursday we went back to the doctor and other than him being slightly lower, no changes. She did a membrane sweep and said that’s it’s really a 50-50 gamble on whether it does anything at all, but worth a try right? We did another NST and everything was still good and normal.

At this point it’s looking like induction. This kid is stubborn and not ready to come out! I should have known. When we did the ultrasound for his anatomy scan and to find out what we were having he was stubborn even then! He kept his legs crossed the entire time and refused to move so we could see if it was a boy or girl. The tech had me change positions, drink water, pee, everything–trying to get him to move and show us the goods. He waited the entire hour exam until the very end to uncross those legs. STUBBORN! 😉

So no changes, no updates, no baby yet. I’m going to take it easy this weekend.

In other news: my cousin sent me this gorgeous handmade quilt she made for the baby!

It’s so beautiful and goes perfectly with the nursery! So cute!!

And Bella is READY to be a big sister. She’s over it and tired of waiting. 🙂

Me too, Bell. 🙂