Doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo DOO da-doo-doo-doo-doo
I’ll take Children Who Will Have Their Reluctance to be Born Held Over Their Heads for the Rest of Their Lives for $400 Alex!

Mom and I went to the outlet malls down in Clinton today, just so I had somewhere interesting to walk around. The walking makes my contractions stronger but they’re still not stop-and-catch-my-breath painful. But at this point I’ve been in early/practice/pre/whatever you want to call it labor for three days and I AM NOT HAVING FUN ANYMORE.

After buying about a dozen tiny, adorable, totally unnecessary newborn outfits (including BABY MADRAS SHORTS) at the OshKosh store, we went into the J. Crew outlet…where I ran into my midwife. The one from my hospital, the hospital next to my house. It’s like the universe is totally mocking me – “Ahahaha just try to stop thinking about being pregnant! Pretend the waiting isn’t driving you insane and I’ll send you a sign that you CANNOT ESCAPE”. I was hoping the surprise would send me into labor right there next to the pink pants embroidered with tiny green whales – but no such luck. It’s looking more and more like I’ll make it to my induction on Wednesday.

Just in case the spicy food thing works, dinner tonight is Tabasco with a side of chicken fingers. Tomorrow it’s Tabasco with a side of Tabasco.

NO BABY. I am so frickin frustrated. After 12 hours of contractions – HURTY ones – I was only dilated another 1/2 cm and no more effaced. The doctor was sleeping when we got to the hospital so he told the nurse to admit me and hook me up to the monitors. She and I watched my contractions for an hour and said “Yup, those are contractions.” But only moderate ones. To be honest, they didn’t hurt nearly as much as I had feared so I sort of suspected it was going to be a while. E immediately fell asleep in on the pull out chair so I was left to stare at the monitor myself. I couldn’t move or roll over because that would move the sensors on my belly and the nurse would come running in to check the baby’s heartbeat. The bed was awful, the room was hot, the strap from the monitors was itchy and I was so so so tired I immediately started asking to leave. I finally agreed to walk up and down the halls just to get out of that bed. Around 6 am the doctor gave me a choice – stay and let him do something to make me progress or go home and see what happened. I went home. Now that I’ve had a few hours of sleep I feel SO MUCH BETTER but still disappointed.

Since I woke up about an hour ago I’ve been feeling my contractions again. I’m going to walk around the block for the next four or five hours, yelling at my stomach and promising the baby anything he wants if he’ll just get born. I’m still going to tell myself I’m in labor, it’s just early labor. Otherwise I’m going to end up back at the hospital begging for the Pitocin drip and the epidural just so I don’t have to keep calling everyone with updates. E and I are both so so SO grateful for everyone’s prayers and positive thoughts. I’m totally overwhelmed by how much love I get through my silly little Bebehblog and I feel like I’ve somehow failed the internets by not having a baby to post about yet.

Last night while we were waiting to go in, Mom and E and I watched Twilight. I’m afraid that might have been what made the baby reluctant to come into the world. Blame it on the sparkly vampires, those gay pride parade looking a-holes.

S0 I just called my doctor. I’ve been having pretty steady, strong contractions since 5 o’clock, about 5 minutes apart lasting for a minute. Those are the VERY SPECIFIC numbers I was supposed to get before I even bothered thinking about going to the hospital. They practically tattooed it on my stomach during the birthing classes – DON’T COME IN until you’re 5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for at least an hour. E is obsessed with timing contractions and was upset that the numbers were more like 3 min, 5 min, 4 min, 3 min, 4 min, 4 1/2 min, 6 min but I just called it good and decided this was labor.

The truth is, I feel pretty ok. My stomach gets really tight and uncomfortable but it’s far from unbearable. The weirdest part is the pressure goes all the way through my lower half, not just in the front like the Braxton-Hicks. It shouldn’t be that surprising, considering I’m due to push a medium sized bowling ball out of my vagina in the next 24 hours or so, but the sensation really is strange. My doctor said I can come in whenever I want, but until it’s uncomfortable I’m better off at home. My only fear is waiting TOO long and missing the window for an epidural – but since my pain tolerance really isn’t that high I doubt there is any way I could be 8 cm dilated without knowing it.

The current plan is to hang out on the couch a little while longer, maybe take a bath, make sure I’ve packed everything I need and then head over to the hospital. I’ve been waiting so long for this to finally be IT that believing it really is is kind of hard. Can I really be sitting here typing this if I’m having a baby??

I decided my nursery could not be complete without a rocking chair, so I told E I was buying myself one. We’re calling it my birthday present, although my real birthday present will be NOT BEING PREGNANT. Mom and I went over to Babies R Us to pick up the glider I had registered for, but apparently they’re in the process of changing their stock so they didn’t even have a floor model left. I was very annoyed. So we went to Target and bought almost exactly the same chair, including the ottoman, for $100 less. Plus Mom works at Target and let me use her employee discount – Thanks Mom!

Here’s the final pictures of everything all put together, including the lamps and the rocker. The absolutely adorable Wild Things dolls are from my sister and I luuuurve them. She also painted the little table next to the rocker. I’m really really pleased with the way the whole room turned out.

And this is my final notice to my bebeh:

Happy due date to me
I don’t have a baby
I’m done being pregnant
But my fetus thinks it’s funny

I’ve been having some contractions since last night, but never often enough or strong enough to send me to the hospital. E is on duty, so unless the pain gets REALLY bad or my water breaks I won’t be having the baby tonight. STUPID DUE DATE WHY DON’T YOU MEAN ANYTHING? Mom and I walked again today, about 3 hours of shopping down in Mystic. The weather isn’t really nice enough to be outside but laying on my couch is doing nothing to get this baby out of me. I can’t stand the thought of spending the weekend with E and Mom both staring. WAITING. Have you had any contractions? How many now? Does it hurt? Do you feel different? Did your water break? Do you think it might soon? I can’t wait until I can tell them “Yes, I am in pain! I threw up! Wanna see my mucus plug?”

Tomorrow I’m going to visit the health food store for some desperate measures. I’ve heard that besides the raspberry leaf tea, you can use Evening Primrose Oil to start labor. Unfortunately, you don’t take the capsules orally. I’ll let you imagine the delivery method yourself. I might try the teeny tiniest bit of castor oil too. I’ve been threatening the baby with these unpleasant ideas all day but his response is “Go ahead woman, all the pooping in the world doesn’t bother me! I love pooping! Just wait till I get out there and show you poop!” My baby really is kind of a jerk.