Baby Watch Day 1

So here we are...one day AFTER Baby Fisch was supposed to make his debut. Oh well, they say the first ones are always late. Here's a recap of the past few days. ***WARNING*** the following post contains graphic words such as 'internal exam', 'mucus plug', and 'cramp'. If you have aversions to any of these I suggest you stop reading now and go back to previous posts about nurseries and baby showers!!!

So I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday afternoon. I have been seeing Elizabeth, a midwife who is part of my OB practice. I really like her midwifey attitude that having a baby is part of being a woman. It's not an emergency situation that needs to be treated with lots of medical intervention. She's really been helpful with my hope of a natural childbirth experience. Anyhow, she did an internal exam to see if there was anything exciting happening down there. Last week, there wasn't much of anything going on. Unfortunately, it wasn't much better this week. "Your cervix really wants to do SOMEthing' she told me. That made me feel slightly better. The bad news was that 'hospital policy' is that they don't typically let you go past 41 weeks of pregnancy. So we went ahead and scheduled my induction (gag me) for next Friday night-June 4th. I'm really hoping that we just won't need it. Elizabeth doesn't seem to think that we will, so I'm going to believe her! After that crappy news, I felt pretty angry. So I decided to start putting the natural induction methods into full gear. We went out for Indian food, I ate a ton of pineapple, massaged the hell out of my Spleen 6 pressure point on my legs, etc. I was still pretty annoyed Friday morning (the due date) as I headed into work. Luckily the COH Fairy came (only my work friends will understand that statement) so we didn't have to staff that station that day and it put me into a slightly better mood. At lunch, Matt was telling us the story of how the pied tamarins like to hang onto him like Velcro and had me laughing until it hurt (as I was chowing down on more pineapple and red raspberry leaf tea). I went to the bathroom before I peed myself and low and behold my mucus plug came out! Unless you have been 40 weeks pregnant with a pending induction looming in your future, you have NO FREAKIN' IDEA HOW EXCITING THAT MOMENT WAS!!!!! It gave me hope! Hope that this kid WILL come out on his own. Hope that I won't have to endure a balloon being inflated against my cervix all night to induce labor. Hope that I won't have to deal with contractions on steroids otherwise known as Pitocin. Hope that this kid will come out before he's old enough to drive! Well, after that happened, I announced my excitement to my co-workers. (And then had to explain what the mucus plug was and why it is so glorious to see it outside of me). Desiree then began to panic. Seriously, the look of fear on her face was priceless. But she did make a good point "It's Memorial Day Weekend on a Friday and you live 45 miles South of the Zoo...towards the beach.". Good call. That could have been a 3 hour car ride if I left at 5:30. So I finished up my day quickly and hit the road by 3:45. An hour and 20 minutes later I was safe and sound at home. I am glad that I left early because quite a few people I know (my mom included) began active labor within a few hours of losing their MP. I unfortunately would not be so lucky...

Saturday May 29th:

I was pretty tired last night and went to bed relatively early. I was hoping that some strong contractions would wake me up, but they didn't. I was pretty crampy and had a lot of tightening in my lower abdomen (Braxton Hicks contractions) but nothing that was serious labor. I was up this morning pretty early at 6 and lost some more of the MP which is good. It means things are moving around and dilating in there! I also felt compelled to clean the bathroom which was disgusting. I figured if I started labor and wanted to relax in the shower, I could do it a lot better knowing that it's been properly disinfected. As I scrubbed the toilet, Josh woke up (didn't seem too thrilled). We had made plans to meet my parents at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge for a talk on shorebirds and the horseshoe crab population. (Hey this kinda thing fascinates me, and now that my parents are AARP members they have to attend stuff like this). It was actually pretty interesting. Then we headed down to the beach where there were a TON of crabs getting down and dirty in the sand! Delaware Bay has the largest population of horseshoe crabs in the world I'll have you know. I continued to have some pretty strong cramping and contractions, but nothing worth timing or getting stronger. Just more clues that Baby Fisch seems to be getting the energy to start squirming his way out! After a delicious lunch and some Gramma Dee Dee special cupcakes, we headed home to where I am now. Sitting on my exercise ball, typing this, getting ready to take a nap and then head out on a nice long walk once it cools down a little outside. I have heard that Cheesecake Factory Godiva Chocolate cheesecake can induce labor...maybe we'll hit that up tonight!!! Fingers crossed for a holiday baby!!!!