progress

i'll try and spare you all the gory details of the last few weeks of pregnancy.

i had my 36 weeks check up yesterday.
i'm dialated at 2cm
a little over 1/3 of the way efaced
the dr still wants to induce - as do i.
i wasn't sure at first that i did, b/c the labor is harder-but with the epidural it shouldn't really matter. inducing is just so much more convenient. we can arrange child care for teege and make sure that big TJ is home for everything.
the dr told us we could induce as early as the 23 or the 29th. we picked the 23.that's 2 weeks from today! ACK!
the dr doesn't think-based on my examination yesterday -that we won't make it to the 29th without her coming on her own. (which wouldn't be a bad thing. the 23 is a tad bit early -2 weeks anyway- but if we go with the 23 then TJ won't have to go back to work the day after he gets home from being going so long.he can just be at home with us, making the mad dash to stock the freezer and clean the house and make sure we have all the things we need before we go in to have the baby)

the fun part of yesterday:
ok so when the dr's go in and examin things and see if you've made any progress toward delivery things can get irritated.
after my appt mom and dad packed us all up(me,teege, the dogs) and brought us back to their house for the easter weekend.) we'd been here for a few hrs when i started having some significant discomfort. (great. the baby's going to decide to come and i'm an hr away from the hospital and there's no way that TJ would be able to come home b/c he's not done with school)
i went to rest on the couch, thinking that if i relaxed so would my contractions.
i've had millions of contractions already. it's something that your body does to ready it's self for labor. when i asked several months back now if the 'practice contractions' were supposed to be more frequent and uncomfortable with a 2nd pregnancy i was told it was normal. not to worry unless i was having any kind of pain or more than 6 of them an hr.
so i've been going about my business all this time just kind of ignoring them.only stopping to pay attention when my legs would hurt or i'd feel like i couldn't breath for a few seconds.
yesterday that all changed.
i had 9 contractions -with some back pain- in less than an hr.which means that most of them were about 5 minutes apart -hint hint-this is when they tell you to go to the hospital-and then there was one that was 10 minutes apart and the next one was 8. at this point i called the clinic.
i knew to expect cramping and achiness for the rest of the day after my appt.but this was crazy. it was very similar to when i went in to active labor with teege, only not as unbearable.
the dr said this: "if you're just too uncomfortable then by all means go to l/d and i will meet you there. or you can put your feet up for an hr or so, drink lots of water, and see if things slow down first. if you get to l/d and they hook up all the machines and start to monitor your activity and the discover that your dehydrated the first thing they're going to do is make you drink water anyway to see if things calm down.then you'll be sent home if it works and then you'll just be frustrated"
so i handed teege over to my parents and sat back down with LOTS of water. and after about an hr and a half things were almost back to normal. a few small easy contractions an hr.
the thing is -it can take your body weeks to go from prelabor -where you have all those easy contractions that 'get things ready' for active labor- or it can take a matter of hrs. to be that uncomfortable and have made that much progress since my last appt i was afraid to go to l/d for fear that i had made even just an ooch more progress. if they decided i was in labor they would have to try and stop it. i'm not having this baby without my husband here.not if it can be helped.
so since i was an hr away and didn't want mom and dad to have to drive me all the way back and bring me all the way back to their house once we knew it was a false alarm was more than i wanted to deal with.
so things are better. i'm still a bit uncomfortable, but that's just the price you pay i guess.

i'll keep you posted.
i have another appt next wednesday.
over the next 2 weeks i have to get the house ready and make up a few meals for the freezer.get some cleaning done, some bottles washed, find my breastpump and get it steralized......and hope that in the meantime i don't throw myself in to labor by overdoing it. and do the little luxeries i want to have done before i go to the hospital like get another pedicure, get my eyebrows waxed, get the dog to the groomers -just b/c to my still pregnant nose he still stinks.
i'm just going to take it one day at a time.

and it will be alright.