The escapades of a person desperate to get this baby out

Had another appointment with Carole on Thursday. Measuring 38 weeks, hurray! All is well with the baby, and my stats are great too. The waiting game continues, and I hope not to make it to my next appointment on Monday. There's a full moon tonight, and Carole predicts a very busy weekend for the midwives, birth-wise, so I hope to be among the bunch, ideally tonight :) June 25 would be such a nice birthday (although there are only a few hours left today, and no sign of labour right now...so this had better be a precipitous labour or else June 26 is also a lovely day for a birthday!).

I've been super-desperate to get labour started, so I asked Carole to do a "stretch and sweep" and anything else (non-drastic, non-medical) that might kick-start some action. She gave me a tincture to drink (done), homeopathic pellets to use (done), and said to make sure I eat some of Josh's super-spicy Vindaloo when we went out to our last dinner date before the baby is born, yesterday (done). I asked her how long the S&S takes to do, and she said "as long as you can stand it". Hmmm, that didn't sound very comfortable, but I knew that from researching it beforehand, and asked her to do it anyway. She attempted, and it did indeed hurt like the dickens! OUCH! Apparently, my cervix was still very posterior, so she could barely reach it. She had to ram her arm up practically to her elbow, and it still kept "slipping away" from her reach. She managed to reach it eventually and stretched it to 2 cm dilation, but wasn't able to do the sweep as I was in too much discomfort. Dangit! She did say it was very soft though, so perhaps my Evening Primrose Oil routine had some effect. Also, the baby's head is nicely engaged in my pelvis, or as she said "not floating around". I've had some bloody show after this adventure, and got my hopes up again, only to wake up this morning still very much pregnant...

All this most likely means very little, as these assessments are evidently poor predictors of impending labour. Things can seem unfavourable (like the posterior cervix) and labour can start a few hours after that assessment, or you can be dilated 4 cm with a super-soft anterior cervix and baby practically falling out of your crotch, and still not give birth for weeks (ACK, I hope that's not me!). Ultimately, there is just no way to know for sure, but it definitely is fun to anticipate and hope...

What isn't fun is getting obsessed about it and driving yourself insane, like I've been doing this week. I go back and forth between "I'm going to be fanatical in inducing this labour myself, RIGHT NOW!", and "que sera sera, baby will come eventually, I'll just stop focusing on it and relax". Also not fun is the prodromal labour I've been having. Each night I get two or three contractions, not very strong, but still different than the Braxton-Hicks ones I've been feeling since mid-pregnancy, and get all excited. They start in my lower back and take over my abdomen like period cramps, so I get even more excited (it's amazing how much hugely-pregnant women look forward to cramps! This is probably the only time in our lives...). I look at the clock, feel another one after about ten minutes, and get even more excited, and then they stop. BOO! How long can this go on? Stop teasing me, you evil universe!

On another note, I got my bead swap beads in the mail this week! SO EXCITING! There are about 20 of them, one from each woman in my online due date club. Each one of us sent 20 of the same bead to a central person, along with some quote or inspirational message, and the central person divided them all up and sent one of each bead back to each person. The point is to foster a sense of community, unity, and support, even though it's from people we don't know in real life, but that we've gone through our pregnancies with in the virtual world. The beads are all so lovely, and so meaningful, and the messages are very thoughtful. I strung mine up on some green ribbon as it was all I could find, and pasted the messages on a big piece of paper to focus on during labour. Here's a picture of my necklace, which also makes a great nursing necklace once baby is born. YAY!