2-4 Days till due date

Ok, I better get this down, because I’ve been busy (…busy not being in labor, that is!).

I’ve been getting up and getting beautified in the morning, in hopes that labor will decide to come on when I am well rested, well dressed, and well made up with my hair and face. I think that is the most annoying thing.  I feel like I am getting ready for a date and I am just sitting around waiting for my date to arrive at my house to pick me up… And I’m starting to think my date is standing me up. Has that happened to any ladies? You get super beautiful and spend 2.5 hours getting ready for a date, and you get stood up? That depicts my feelings at the moment.

Two days ago, I just prepared the house (at turtle speed) for mom’s arrival.  I accomplished very little, but the house was presentable by the time she arrived. Nothing too exciting happened during the day. 

That night, I had a cortisol rush and was unable to fall asleep for several hours. After I finally fell asleep, I only slept for maybe 2 hours, then I woke up and was unable to sleep. I decided to get out of bed at around 3am and read. I finally got a bit drowsy and thought I would have success falling asleep, so I returned to my bed at 4:30am. I was unable to fall asleep until after Fernando got up for work, which was at 6am that morning. I finally drifted off to sleep and was awakened at 6:40am by the sound of the children chatting with each other in the monitor. I was so bummed that I got woken up, and I was beyond exhausted for the entire day. And because I was so tired, I skipped the coffee (because I just couldn’t even think in the morning). 

Yesterday, 3 days till my due date, we went to my prenatal appointment. Right before leaving for my appointment I lost a big chunk of my music plug. I was dreamily wishing that I would arrive to my appointment and be at 5cm and baby would come that afternoon. 

At my appointment, we discovered that baby is presenting posterior, something that literally happened the night before. Baby had been facing my back but looking toward my left side for at least two months. S/he did not move out of that position, and days before I’m supposed to give birth, s/he decides to move to a less favorable position!  Silly baby. Midwife recommended hands and knees and cat/cow exercise. I felt boarderline depressed and frustrated when I learned that baby had moved. I thought, “If only baby had come one day earlier, things would have been better!” I have since come to terms with baby’s position (as of yesterday). I can still birth this baby. I can trust baby. I can trust my body. Babies can move! I feel like this is a test in my trust in my baby, my body, and God. 

Also, the juicy cervical news disappointed me for some reason. I only advanced 0.5cm from last week. I was 3cm yesterday and was 75% effaced. I know 3cm is more open than 2.5cm, but I feel like at this rate I will be pregnant for a few more months.

After my appointment, we headed to the mall.  My sister was determined that we were going to “shop this baby out.” I did spend quite a bit of time walking. Rebecca was wearing her pedometer and supposedly walked almost 5 miles yesterday. I was pretty pooped out after our day shopping. The fun part for me was that I found a top that I plan on wearing during labor, and I also got a light bathrobe for labor. Not only can I wear the robe in labor, but I really needed a light bathrobe for summertime. I wear my giant bathrobes all the time! 

Last night I decided to follow my bedtime routine a little bit more strictly, and I also took some benedryl. I slept really well, but I woke up around 1am and had period-like cramping in the style of contraction waves. They would come on every few minutes and last for a few minutes. I got up to pee probably 3 times in less than two hours. I also had several stronger contractions sprinkled in, and I kept expecting to see a bloody show. I didn’t think that I was in labor at the moment, but I thought, “Oh, I bet this means that I will be starting labor and having a baby in the next 24 hours!” I decided to go to sleep, which was easy to do thanks to the benedryl, and I figured if I kept getting woken up by contractions, that it would mean that I probably had begun active labor.

I slept fitfully the rest of the night from 2am-ish until 7am. I felt happy and refreshed in the morning. The weather was absolutely crazy, so we decided to abandon our shopping plans for the morning. It was snowing, sleeting, hailing, raining, and thundering. By late morning, mom and Rebecca went shopping and I stayed home with the kids. They got home right after I put the kids down for a nap. The only thing I did while they were gone was run up and down the stairs 10 times, and hands and knees, and dance with the kiddos.

In the afternoon, Rebecca and I set out to look to exchange out some of our body jewelry. I got a pink nose ring with a bigger stud than what I had before. Then we went to another place because Rebecca decided she wanted to get a tragus piercing. That took a really long time, but the bonus is that after 5 years, I added a little bling to my tragus piercing and exchanged out my dull silver ball with a pretty iridescent pearly one. 

After we changed out all our bling, we headed to a nail salon by my house to get a pedicure. After spending forever trying to figure out which colors we wanted, I sat down and realized it would be a super long wait until we were able to get our pedicure, and we only had about an hour until dinnertime. We decided to make an appointment first thing tomorrow morning. Rebecca was quite distressed that I might end up not pedicured for labor, and I said, “If I go in to labor and don’t have a pedicure, I don’t think I will be complaining at this point!” After that, we quickly walked to the grocery store next door and grabbed a few things plus a Starbucks coffee. We got home, ate dinner, hot pie, and ice cream, then played with the kids. That has been my day/past few days!