Apologies to the internets

Bun is still in the oven my friends. Apparently Calvin's little update promted ya'll to think I was in active labour. I think I'm in some kind of labour, but as to how active it is - that is questionable. I have contractions where it gets hard to breathe, my belly gets hard & there's some cramping & sometimes tingly pain in the cervix region, but nothing is so bad as of yet that I can't deal with it by relaxing & breathing. Some are worse than others, but I'm really not having that much difficulty or pain that I can't cope with. Mind you I haven't really moved from the couch that much today either so that might have something to do with it.

Yesterday I had another stretch & sweep - this time at home. More cramping & bloody type after effects. No chance to rupture the membranes as the bun's head was in the way - basically would've got poked in the head with the crochet-hook contraption. So we made the decision to go to the hospital this morning for a Non-Stress Test & possible Cervidil insertion. Off to the Monfort bright & early we go to get hooked up to a fetal heart rate / contraction monitor thing for about a half an hour. I had to drink some apple juice & poke at the belly a bit so we could get some reactions from the sleepy-head baby but we got it going good enough to have a positive test. This is how much fun it was.


Not stressing & hey, my pants match the belts!

The Cervidil thing was another matter though as hospital policy was not to let me escape after it was inserted since I am now post-dates. We didn't want to hang out at the hospital for a possible 24 hours with nothing happening so we decided to wait until Monday to do it. Instead we did another stretch & sweep & attempted to break my waters again - no luck though as the head was still in the way of the bag. The s & s brought on some crampy contractions again & Josée was encouraged enough to tell us to go home, pick up some castor oil on the way, have a castor oil root beer float & do some pumping..... oh ya, we went & got a breast pump yesterday after the 2nd sweep as nipple stimulation is supposed to increase oxytocin levels & therefore bring on contractions.

Ya, so pumping prior to having a bun in my arms is very weird. We got a Medela single electric one & it's pretty comfortable but kind of loud so I have to turn up the television when I use it. It did seem to bring on some contractions but I needed a break so they eventually subsided. Same thing today. The castor oil root beer float was not too bad, but way way too sweet. Even Calvin tried some to be supportive. We both thought it would work pretty quickly but turns out it can take 4 - 6 hours to go through your system. Well it's through now & it really wasn't bad - I've had way worse with a spoonful of ice cream or an IBS episode. Calvin didn't like it so much though - poor guy doesn't have the same experience to prepare him for a painful butt explosion.

So if these contractions (which at the moment seemed to have disappeared) don't do anything tonight, it's off to the Monfort or possibly the Civic tomorrow. I guess it'll be induction time.... I would prefer this to unfold naturally on it's own time, but everyone seems to want this bun out of me sooner rather than later. I can't say I don't agree, but I wish my body would do it on it's own rather than have to succumb to the synthetic hormones. Whatever.... it'll all work out in the end. Plus I have this to look forward to.


My incentive