crappy weather

Tonight we are supposed to get a bunch of freezing rain, again. For those of you not in St. Louis the weatherman said today that this storm might even be worse than the one we had in early December. They also said major power outages are expected again. Oh goodie! Now I can be 9 months pregnant with no heat trying to sleep on an air mattress in my living room! ok, I know that the weather people are often wrong, and I'm really hoping this is one of those times. Or, maybe I'll get lucky and go into labor so I'll at least get a hospital bed and some heat out of the deal.

frustration

The frustration has set in. I know it's still not my due date, but I'm so uncomfortable I'm ready for this pregnancy to be over. I've done everything I can think or that I've heard to try to speed things up but so far nothing is working! I'm definitely not interested in drinking castor oil, YUCK! It rarely works, and just makes you sick, so I'm not that deserate yet. I'm hoping since the weather here is supposed to get really crappy I'll go into labor this weekend. I am trying with everything I have to will my body into labor, but I don't think it's going to take. It sucks that the dr. said my body is making progress, but clearly it's just not enough.

38 weeks

Went to the dr. again tonight. He checked me and I'm at 2cm!!! He said that with all this past weekends happening he wouldn't be too surprised if I went into labor soon. We reviewed my charts from when I had Nathan, and at my last appointment before having him I was dilated to 2-3cm. Even though I was induced with Nathan, when they hooked me up I was having contractions every 12 minutes or so, so I'm hopeful we are moving in the right direction this time. I'm still not sure I'll know it when I am in labor right away, but I know eventually there will be no doubt. I am so happy that I'm making progress and the dr. seems hopeful it won't be long now. Since this is baby #3 I think my body finally has it figured out. I lost the 1/2 pound that I had gained last week, so that's good news. No more weight gain. If you are like me you are all looking forward to the post that says the baby has arrived.

more excitement

I had some minor bleeding last night. After a screw up with my dr.'s after hours line, my doc called me back and said we should probably go to the hospital to get checked out. This was at 10:30. Luckily the kids were still up, we're such bad parents, so we threw them in the car and headed to the hospital. We got there and I put on the hopistal gown and they hooked me up to all the monitors. Meanwhile, Sean and the kids went and filled out the registration paperwork and then sat in the waiting room until the dr. had checked me and determined everything was fine. He did say I was dilated to 1cm, yippeee! They said it was likely bloody show and nothing to be concerned about. They also said to take it easy, but I'm not really limited on my activity either.
The kids thought it was great fun because there was a baby in the nursery for them to check out and a tv in the waiting room. Then as we were leaving the ARCH helicopter was there and the kids were quite fascinated by that.
We are still just waiting, which is all we can do right now. The dr. said I could go into labor tomorrow or it could still be a couple of weeks. I love how direct they are!

minimal progress

so this is not a pleasant topic, but I wanted to update everyone on the progress here. I lost my mucous plug yesterday. For those of you that don't know exactly what that means, consider yourself lucky! This doesn't mean I'm any closer to labor, or any further, but it is a good sign that my body is getting ready for labor. It also gives me more hope that this time I may actually go into labor on my own, and hopefully sometime before or close to my due date. I am also hoping this will mean that at my dr. appointment on Tuesday he will say I'm making some progress and am starting to dilate.

I pretty much have everything ready for the baby at home. All the clothes are washed, and the sheets are on the bassinet. Now I'm having a freak out that we will end up with a baby of the opposite sex than we originally had planned for. Tonight we bought a baby book so we can get the footprints in it when the baby arrives, but I wouldn't buy anything gender specific just in case. We installed the car seat base last weekend, so all we need now is a baby!

Emma is really getting excited, and Nathan.... Well I'm still not sure he knows what he's in for, but he's been more whiney and clingy lately. I don't know if he is aware that things are about to change drastically, or if we'd be going through this anyway. I'm getting pretty excited too. I can't wait to meet our new family member and see how the kids react to having a new baby in our house all the time.

funny story

Last night after my appointment we took the kids by the hospital so they could see where mommy and daddy would be when we go to have the baby. The hospital I am delivering at is pretty small, and therefore not really busy. All the babies were in their mommies' rooms, so we were showing the kids the nursery and looking at some pictures they had up. A nurse stopped by and was talking to us and asked what we were having. I told her, and then added at least that's what they tell me. She said that very day a woman delivered who was having a boy, only it turned out it was a girl. SURPRISE! I can only imagine what a shock that would be. So even though the ultrasound tech spilled the beans, you never really know!

37 Weeks

Had another dr. appointment today, but I have no news for you. He didn't do a "full" exam, so I don't know if I've made any progress. I go back in a week and he said he would check then. The good news is I only gained 1/2 pound this past week. Yea me! I'll spare you the details, but I know for a fact that my body is getting ready, but there are no signs of how soon labor will actually arrive. Only 3 weeks to go!

On a side note Sean and I and our kids all have birthdays linked to the 3s, so I'm convinced I'll either have this baby tomorrow, the 13th, or on my due date, the 23rd. I know this sounds crazy, but all the important events in our lives have come on dates with 3s, so why should this baby be any different.