40-Week Doctor Visit

We made it to the due date! So we knew today's doctor appointment would be a big one.

I've managed to lose a little bit of weight (after a week with TWO trips to the Pop Shop!) and the nurse said my blood pressure was good, although Bill said it was a little higher than it usually is. I don't know how he knows that, because I have no idea what those two numbers mean, but whatever. The nurse said it was good.

Dr. G came in and right away asked if I wanted her to "strip my membranes." I don't know exactly what that means, but I've read enough about it on BabyCenter to know that it hurts a lot. I told her I wasn't really interested in having any pain, but that she's the doctor and obviously whatever she thinks is best. She said she would just do it "a little bit." OK, sure.

She listened to the heart beat and said that the baby had some good accelerations and that it sounded great. She said I'm measuring good too. Then she went to work down below.

First she said that I'm about 3-to-4 centimeters dilated, definitely up from last week, and that it's good that my body's doing a lot of the work. I told her that I haven't felt any contractions -- some tightening, which I guess is contracting, but nothing painful. She did the "membrane stripping" and I managed to hold off crying until she left the room but it hurt ... soooooo ... badly. I felt like, Hey, while you're ripping out my uterus, why don't you just pull out the baby? Get it over with. No such luck. I asked for the epidural already. Again, no such luck.

She wanted to put me on the fetal monitor, to see if I'd have any contractions, so I got dressed and went to the monitoring room, a closet-sized room just big enough for a (comfy) leather recliner, a guest chair and a table with the monitor on it. Bill and I took our seats, and the nurse told me to roll on my left side. She attached the two straps to my belly and the baby's heart beat filled the little room. She gave me a button to push whenever I felt a contraction or the baby kicking, and then she left us alone. I sat there for a bit, feeling nothing but cramps (like bad menstrual cramps). Bill said it was like being on Jeopardy but not knowing the answers and not getting to push the button. Yeah, Bill. Just like that.

The baby kicked a few times, so I pushed the button, but still no contractions. The doctor came in after about 15 minutes to check the monitor printout and I told her that I hadn't felt any contractions; she informed me that I was having one right then, and had had one about five minutes before. She asked my pain, on a scale of one to 10, and I went on about how I felt crampy and whiny and didn't want any pain. Not really an answer to her question, but that's all I had at the time. She said she thought that I definitely would be in labor by tomorrow, and left us again for more monitoring.

She came back again about 15 minutes later and said that the contractions had stopped, so they'd schedule an induction for Monday and call me to let me know when to be at the hospital.

"If I don't go into labor before then?"
"Right."

So really, there's no way of knowing. I'll either go into labor on my own or get induced on Monday, Aug. 3. But I'll definitely have the baby by Aug. 4. Right?

Who knows.

For now, I'm sitting home, feeling crampy and telling Bill when I feel what I think are contractions. He's working from home, but has opened the Contraction Master for "timing" purposes. Nothing significant to report so far.

Bill got up to make us some lunch, and while he was in the kitchen, I said I thought I was having a contraction. He ran into the living room to plug it into the Web site, and Mae jumped up at his movement, thinking that he wanted to play. Then I said I wasn't sure if it was a contraction or not, so he started to walk back into the kitchen, but then I said I wasn't sure again -- it might have been a contraction -- so he turned around again and ran back, jumping over the dog. Mae grabbed her towel and started jumping around, trying to play, and Bill was all frazzled. He said, "We don't know Mae! We don't know what's happening!" I was laughing so hard, and I already had to pee, so I hobbled my way to the bathroom before I peed my pants.

I don't know. I thought it was funny. Maybe you had to be here.

So we're just waiting and I'm cramping and a little sore and bleeding a bit. Kind of like having my period, except I know it's going to get way, way worse, instead of better, and I'm going to get this amazing gift at the end of it. Well, I guess more like in the middle, because I'm going to feel way worse than menstrual now, and way worse than menstrual after the baby is born. Either way. I'll have a baby soon!

Today's weight gain: -2.4 pounds
Total weight gain: 34 pounds
(Back down below the 35-pound weight limit! For now. Woohoo!)