Reeeeaady, Seeeeehhht . . .

Whine, whine. I'm still pregnant. Friday the 3rd came and went, with very little excitement. I had another appointment today, at which we learned that my cervix is not very good at discerning my wishes. (When I say dilate, I mean DILATE, dang it!) So now I'm scheduled to be inducted into the world of Mommydom, on Friday the 10th. I'm kind of bummed about that, since from what I hear, being induced is no fun and makes things more painful than a "normal" birth. Greater risk for a C-section, and all that. Boo. But on the bright side, at least we know the baby will sure be here by Saturday. This whole episode has a definite ending!

We had lots of fun Saturday night hanging out with Miriam, Ryan, and Ava, and some of their friends. Miriam was right: Shoots is my new favorite restaurant. Yum yum. It's kind of like P.F. Chang's, except maybe not so full of itself. I prefer the atmosphere of PFC, I think, but I definitely like the prices of Shoots better. :) Ava was hilarious. She makes very funny cute little noises, kind of like a mix between baby and lamb. People keep asking us "Are you ready for this?", particularly when someone's child is being especially rambunctious. Well, no, we aren't, but good thing nobody gives birth to a one-year-old, huh?

Sweet Tooth and Stripping

I want to know why my OBGYN's office doesn't have candy. I mean, c'mon, even some dentist's offices will give you a sugarfree lollipop if you're good during your appointment. And they just stick things in your mouth. I really could have used a candy yesterday. For starters, they lost my chart (verrrry impressive) and then I had to wait, half-dressed, lying in a very uncomfortable position, for the doctor to come. So he could check my cervix (ow) and then strip my membranes (freakin' OW!). And I was SUCH a good girl. No swearing, no kicking the mean man in the nose, or anything. I think I deserve a lollipop.

As far as baby goes, things look good. Her head's really low. I'm about 75% effaced. If I haven't gone into labor by next Friday, they're going to induce me by the next Friday. So apparently, come heck or high water, I'll have my baby in two weeks.

Locked and Loaded

Now that I've discovered that someone actually reads my blog, it's much more fun to write in it. (Hi Miriam!) Tee hee. It also helps that I've quit my job and am sitting at home with nothing much to do but wait for the killer contractions to set in. Speaking of contractions . . .

Napoleon did something really good at his job last month, so his boss gave him a nifty bonus: "go take your wife to a nice restaurant, and I'll foot the bill up to $50." Eeeexcellent. The sad thing is, we had to do some serious thinking about how to spend that much. :) We ended up going to Chili's and getting drinks and appetizers, which we NEVER do, along with nice expensive entrees, and a dessert! Yee-ha, livin' the high life. My lower abdomen had been hurting all afternoon, but figured it was just a normal pregnancy symptom. We gobbled our yum-yum-yummy dinner, or rather, what we could of it: we ended up taking home four boxes, including the entire dessert. (I used to not be a fan of buying dessert at restaurants, since it always seems so expensive. But the last two times I've gotten it, the desserts have been HUGE and really really yummy! Plus, Chili's packed all the parts separately, which meant we assembled the dessert at home later so it wasn't all mushy and mixed together. I'm converted.)

So we headed home in our jolly, stuffed state. I don't remember what else we did that evening, probably because I developed a fever and chills, and basically felt like I had the flu. I know we went to the grocery store and the pharmacy, because we came home with a (pretty nifty) thermometer and found out I had a fever of 100.3 degrees. Yick. I was sent to get ready for bed, which, unfortunately, includes brushing my teeth. I should've known better. Goodbye, Chili's. I love my Napoleon. He insisted on doing the cleanup.

I slept probably a total of 3 hours that night, in 10 minute spurts. Ahhh, so restful. Napoleon went to work, and when he came home and found out I felt no better, he prodded me into calling the doctor, who told me to go to Labor and Delivery. Apparently, "constant lower abdominal pain and flu symptoms" is also known as "periodic contractions and labor symptoms." Oh. Good to know. They hooked me up to the contraction-and-fetus-monitoring-machine (which I would like to have one of at home), and when I could see the contractions on the screen, it was a lot easier to tell that the pain really was coming and going. Every 2-4 minutes. The kept me there for an hour, then booted me out and told me to come back when my contractions hurt too much to talk through. But first, they offered me morphine. Heh heh heh. Um, no thanks--I think I'll wait for the heavy-duty drugs until these contractions actually hurt. How's that sound?

So that's why I'm sitting at home, trying to figure out how to rearrange our stuff so that we can fit in the baby's stuff and the baby. My baby shower is set for Saturday, so I'm also trying to get the baby to agree to wait until at least then to make her first appearance. My parents are trying to get me to tell her to wait for another week, since they're on vacation all over the East and having fun. Napoleon is telling her to hurry and come out, because he's ready to hold the baby. I think I'll stick with Saturday. :)

I'm HUGE!

I have never felt so enormous in my life. Napoleon, sweet man that he is, tries to assure me that the baby is huge, not me. That does not make me feel too much better--she will, after all, have to come out of me. And, amazingly enough, it should be quite soon. We're into once-a-week visits to the doc. The visit before last, they told me they were going to test for group B strep, which I was okay with, since I'd heard that it doesn't hurt. And it didn't, so all is jolly and well, until the doctor says, "okay, now let's see if you're dilated." Uh, ok. He checked, informed us that he wouldn't even call it 1 cm yet, you're doing fine, see you in a week, and walked out of the room. As soon as he shut the door, I turned to Napoleon and said, emphatically, "OW!" How come nobody told me that getting your cervix checked stinkin' HURTS? Thinking about it later, my guess is that it's kind of overshadowed by the whole labor thing. And, ok, it didn't really hurt that bad, lest anyone think I've no chance of surviving actual labor. But still, they coulda told me!