Why are you still pregnant?

This is the reason I've stopped going to church or anywhere that people know me. They don't always say it so bluntly, but they're wondering is, "Why are you still pregnant? Don't you know that you can schedule babies these days?"

I'll tell you why I'm still pregnant. It's my mom's fault! My midwife said it's hereditary. I might be quicker than average at some things, but it takes me longer than average to cook a baby. Come to think of it, it takes me longer than average to cook a lot of things, like dinner. I don't mean that it takes me two hours to make spaghetti. I mean it takes me about a week to decide I should make dinner one night.

Okay, back on topic . . . why haven't I been induced yet? That's my fault. I knew when I got pregnant that I would probably carry this baby longer than normal. I was induced with Josh when he was seven days late. By some miracle, Liz was just one day late, but then Tali was 10 days late. Knowing full-well that this might happen again, I still chose to see a midwife instead of a doctor and midwives don't induce (at least not the typical pitocin way).

My midwives' office doesn't do anything to induce labor until you're a week late. I think that's general protocol for doctors also, but doctors are more likely to just schedule your induction for their hospital day, especially if you whine enough.

On Monday I had an appointment and was eight days overdue. They checked my anmiotic fluid level - A-okay. They did a non-stress test on the baby - A-okay also! Of course everything is just peachy in there. I have really created a comfortable environment where this girl wants to stay. Then the midwife gave me the option of continuing to be patient or trying to get things rolling along. I was running thin on patience, so we took the roll along option. She stripped my membranes, which helps thin the cervix and employed the use of a balloon catheter. If you're really interested in how that works, you can Google it. Simply put, at the least, it helps you dilate to 4cm. At best it will cause you to go into labor. It was pretty uncomfortable for most of the day, so I thought it was definitely going to put me into labor. At about 6pm, all the discomfort went away and once again, baby was A-okay and totally comfortable. And I was still pregnant.

24 hours later (last night) I was feeling quite crampy and had a terrible headache. I had just been telling Matt that one of the perks of being pregnant for me is that I never get headaches. The sudden change made me think things were changing and I was for sure going into labor soon. I went to bed and woke up at 6am with some pretty strong contractions that were eight minutes apart. Yee haw! This must be it. I stayed in bed until 8am and the contractions continued until about 10am. Then, of course, they just went away. This is about the fourth time this has happened. I'm thinking that since my body seems to have already done all this work, when it finally is time, it will happen very quickly . . . knock on wood.

I can't fathom that I won't have this baby within 1-2 days. It's getting a little ridiculous! But, if I'm not in labor by Friday, I'll go back in for another appointment and we'll decide what to do. Hopefully my next post will go something like this, "Wow, I woke up Thursday morning having contractions, went to the birth center and she was born 45 minutes later!" (Knock on wood again.) Either way, I'll keep you posted.