runlindsayrun

Maybe Baby

I felt good today until around lunchtime, when my nerves started to kick in. I'm not sure why these 'overdue' appointments have become so stressful for me, but they have. Fortunately, I'd thought ahead and planned to leave early - early enough to pick up some Starbucks and go spend a half-hour with Anja, whose office is just two blocks from my obstetrician's office. It was so nice to see her... It took my mind off my appointment completely.

When I got to the obstetrician's office, she could see me right away - so I had no time to get nervous again at all. And the second she walked in, I felt relaxed again. She is such a good doctor, and I realized right away that half of my stress from the last couple of weeks would have been eliminated just by seeing her instead of the other doctors I had to have appointments with in her absence. She's so great at answering questions, respecting what we want, and explaining what's going on and what our options are.

She did a quick internal exam and confirmed that I'm still totally effaced and she thinks I'm probably close to 4 cm dilated. She did a 'really good' membrane sweep, which was not as bad as I'd feared at all. It was really no big deal (whew!). So we're hoping that might work and put me into labour later tonight... If nothing happens, we're booked for a fetal assessment at St B tomorrow at 10.30. If everything checks out then (and she's confident that it will), Geoff and I will go home and - if labour still hasn't started on its own - I'll be getting a call with an induction time for Saturday. She warned me that St B is very busy, so if there are no beds available, there's a chance they could bump me from Saturday to Sunday. But regardless, we should have a baby by the end of this weekend. Yay!

I'm feeling calmer about the induction, too. She explained that because I'm effaced already, the cervical gel would be unnecessary. Instead, they'll induce with an IV drip - which I was a little uncomfortable with, but she let me know that they'll be starting me on the very lowest possible dose. Because I'm so far along on my own, she doesn't think it will take much to get things going... She actually laughed and said that this might be the gentlest induction they've ever done, because there's really no reason at all that I haven't gone into labour on my own sometime in the last couple of weeks. My body is totally ready for this, it might just need a tiny bit of help.

I experienced a few extra little blessings today too. I looked outside this morning, and my car was covered in ice and snow - but by the time I needed to leave, it had all totally melted away. And when I got downtown, I spent about four seconds looking for a parking spot before the *perfect* one opened up right in front of me. These sound like such small things, but they felt like little hugs from God :)

So it's a matter of 'hurry up and wait' again (or still). So far, I'm feeling okay since the sweep - just kind of crampy with some lower back pain.

If there's no baby by tomorrow, the silver lining is that I'll get to spend Geoff's birthday with him - we're talking about going for lunch and catching a matinee of Quantum of Solace. And that's not such a bad consolation prize :)

PS - Radiation went awesome today for my mom. She sounded so good when I talked to her this evening and we compared notes on the day's medical adventures - and even better when she heard the news that she'd be a grandma again so very soon.

Labels: Baby Talk, The Boy

posted by Lindsay @ 5:49 PM