Author Archives: sarahk

When Frank got up Thursday morning, October 7, I told him I was pretty sure we were having a baby that day, so he went ahead and called in to work. The bags were still packed, so we piddled around until it was time for my appointment. I wore my green and white sleeveless maternity dress, because I’d gotten in the habit of wearing that dress to all of my checkups so I was always weighed in the same clothes. This time, I think I wore socks and tennis shoes. Or my brown sandals. I already don’t remember.

We got in the car, and I put on the iPod with my labor & delivery mix. I started with “Heavy In Your Arms” by Florence & the Machines. Frank expressed (not for the first time) his amazement that a woman would sing about being heavy. I thought it was appropriate for someone with a giant baby belly.

We got to my appointment, and I weighed in at 171 on the doctor’s scale. I’d been 158 on his scale at the beginning of my pregnancy, so my final weight gain was 13 pounds.

The nurse took my stats (BP was good), and then the doctor came in. He smiled and said, “Thank you for not having your baby yesterday.” He told me a little about his daughter’s birthday and asked how I was feeling. I told him I was pretty sure the baby was coming and that my contractions were different and I’d been laboring all night. He checked my cervix. While his fingers were still probing, I asked how it was. See, I just knew he was going to say, “Oh, wow, you’re an 8, get over to the hospital quick!” However… “About two and a half… and 90%.” My response was my now-standard, “You have GOT to be kidding me.” I know I should have seen the progress in the effacement, because I knew that most first-timers efface fully before dilating at all. But since I’d been dilating for weeks, I just figured I was in the minority.

Now, I love my doctor, but sometimes he does stuff to me without asking or warning me first. He didn’t ask before the first time he stripped my membranes, and he didn’t ask before what he did next. He just said, “Apologies in advance for what I’m about to do…” I assumed he was stripping my membranes again, so I was like, “Yeah, go ahead.”

Then he did something way worse. I didn’t know what, but I knew it hurt. Hurt hurt hurt. Now that I’ve gone through the whole labor process, I can tell you that it hurt worse than labor. “OW!” “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” “What’d you do, break my water?” “I stretched your cervix. Now you’re a 4. You can go over to the hospital and check in. I’ll send you with paperwork so you can go right to your room. Get the epidural if you want it, get settled in. I’ll come over later and break your water, and we’ll have a baby today.” “Okay, thanks,” I said. He left the room, and I jumped down off the table and just lost it. Started bawling hard. Frank grabbed my glasses, which were falling off of my face, bowed in pain. I sobbed. Frank rubbed my back. “That hurt so bad. So bad. So bad.”

Thus ended my 19 hours of early labor.

Buttercup’s first laugh came during a diaper change. See, she loves diaper changes. Loves the nake-nake, as we call being naked. So I said something like, “I know you love being naked. But please don’t grow up and be a stripper.” And she laughed. Of course! Because that’s the kind of stuff we want to write down in the baby book.

Anyway, below is her first laugh that we actually got on tape.

Sorry this is very long-winded and overly detailed. I want to be able to recall it all later so I can tell Buttercup how much trouble it was to get her here.

Tuesday night, October 5, I was having big contractions, uncomfortable but nothing different. Several times in the preceding weeks, something had changed about my contractions, but the previous Friday at my doctor appointment, I was still at 80% and 2 cm. I was really uncomfortable Tuesday night and just really ready for Buttercup to arrive. I’d been walking, sitting on the exercise ball, doing squats and lunges, etc. Sex and spicy foods hadn’t worked (though sex had gotten me to about 50% effacement). I hadn’t done castor oil or herbal stuff, but I was going to ask my doctor about those on Thursday. My appointment with him had been moved from Wednesday to Thursday so he could be off for his daughter’s birthday.

That evening, I pressed on the inside of my cankle with a good deal of pressure for 15 seconds or so, working some reflexology or accupressure point related to the uterus. Trying to move things along. When I stopped, I noticed that I still had an indented thumbprint on my leg for a few minutes afterward. So. Pitting edema. Just what I’d always wanted!

I, of course, googled, because I knew pitting edema wasn’t good. And all the googlyspots mentioned preeclampsia, so I took my blood pressure. It was way high for me, 30 points higher on both numbers than usual. I decided not to panic and just sleep on my left side and take my blood pressure again in the morning. So I did, and it was still high. So we called the doc, and he said not to worry about the edema, that it’s not associated with preeclampsia. So that was a load off. He said my blood pressure was high the night before because I was worried, but when I told him it was still high in the morning, he told me to come in to the office.

I went and saw one of the nurses or maybe a NP or a PA–I don’t really know, she just introduced herself by her first name. She saw the pitting without ever touching me (I was wearing socks, which made a dent). She told me I was on bed rest until my appointment the next day, and I could eat nothing processed at all. She also said to go straight to the hospital if the baby wasn’t moving and I couldn’t wake her up with juice and side-lying.

Frank came home from work, fixed me lunch, and catered to my every whim while I lay on my side with my feet propped up on pillows. Not the most comfortable position, by the way. Around 2:30, I noticed baby hadn’t been moving for a while, probably napping, as she did from noon to 3 every day. So Frank poured me a glass of orange juice. I drank the juice and poked at my belly, trying to wake the baby. Normally I would have put the stillness down to napping, but since I was already on bed rest, I didn’t want to take any chances. So we started getting ready to go to the hospital. Threw the last few things in the labor bag (we had it down to a ritual by now), and when Frank went to the bathroom right before we were leaving, my contractions suddenly changed. This was 3:23 p.m., and I knew these were the contractions I’d been waiting for. Instead of just back labor and cramps, I felt like something clamped down on the top of my uterus, and I also had new pains in my sides. I was glad we were already on our way to the hospital for another reason.

Naturally, Buttercup started kicking two blocks away from the hospital. We went in anyway, just to get her checked out. They hooked me up to the monitors, and I was contracting every 2 minutes. Of course! The nurse was quite sure I was going to have a baby that evening when she saw my contractions. I was like, yeah, whatever. Buttercup was doing great, so I was just excited and feeling good. My BP was fine. My cervix was… eh, same. About 2.5 cm and 80%. They monitored the baby for almost 2 hours just to make sure she was doing well. The nurse was so sure that I would be back that night that she asked if I’d like to go walk around for an hour and come back and get checked again. Oh, sure, why not. So they put another gown on me so I was covered all the way around, and Frank and I went for a walk. We went to the floor where the nursery is (there weren’t any babies in the nursery, so that was a bust), went down and walked around outside the hospital, checked out the lobby, got Frank some coffee. We went back up at 6, and she checked me again. I was a little closer to 3 cm but hadn’t made much progress.

The nurse called my doc to fill him in, and she mentioned that I already had an appointment with him for the next afternoon. He told her to tell me to move my appointment to the morning if I didn’t have a baby that night.

So we went home. I had contractions, had a bath, sat on the exercise ball, walked around, ate 2nd Degree Burn Doritos (I’d decided the no processed foods thing was out the window since I was in early labor). Oh, I don’t recommend the Doritos if you’re in labor. Those are NOT fun to projectile vomit. Frank went to bed so he’d be good to go if I decided it was time to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. I dozed on the couch with a ton of pillows, watched some TV, listened to my awesome labor mix on the iPod, and got through the night. I slept as much as I could.

In the morning, I called and moved my appointment to 10:30.

Next up: the labor & delivery story. It might come in pieces.

Frank’s goes:

“Gonna change the dipe-dipe,
Give that butt a wipe-wipe,
So you don’t smell so ripe-ripe,
Gonna change the dipe-dipe!”

Mine goes:

“Stink Butt, Stink Butt,
You’re my baby Stink Butt,
Stink Butt, Stink Butt,
You’re my stinky girl.”

We’re hoping to instill the family traits of insanity and self-esteem in our little Stink Butt.

I heard the other day at a breastfeeding support group (yep, we sit around and breastfeed) that if your baby gets pinkeye, you shouldn’t go to the doctor for it, but instead put some breast milk on the eye.

So I was feeding her yesterday, and you know, I stare at her a lot when she’s eating. Not a whole lot else I can do when I’m playing dairy cow. So I noticed that her poor little cheeks are still chapped (they have been for a couple of weeks), and the lotion wasn’t helping. So yep, you know where I’m going with this. I rubbed breast milk on both her cheeks, just to see what would happen.

Today, no chapping, and her face is as smooth as her butt. Which is smooth.

You’re welcome.

I can’t believe it’s been 3 months already! She’s such an amazing little bugger, too. High points:

*She’s almost rolling over, both ways–Frank said she rolled from her tummy to her back, but I didn’t see it so it doesn’t count.
*She talks to me all the time, just jabbers away in her own language, and she’s really started laughing a lot. Sometimes she tries to laugh but can’t figure out how, so she’ll just yell for a while and then get frustrated and start crying.
*She’s really cute when she cries. It’s mean of me to think so, but I do, and I even giggle when she makes her sad face. When the bottom lip goes out, oh man, I just want to eat her up.
*She loves her little play mat and has this week started hitting the little dangly things on it and grabbing hold.
*She loves music. We get the biggest smiles and the most laughs when we play music or sing to her. And she just kicks and waves her arms. Gonna be a little dancer.
*She also loves baths. LOVES baths. She kicks and kicks, and tonight she discovered splashing and did that a LOT.
*Today she started this thing where she tries to turn onto her side while I’m changing her diaper, and she kicks and wiggles and grins hugely. Makes it kind of hard to change the dipe-dipe.
*She’s adorable in her little cloth diapers. I think she may have mastered rolling over by now if they weren’t so big and bulky on her. But we’ve only had 2 blowouts in 6 weeks with those, and we were doing multiple blowouts per day in Pampers and Huggies. So glad for pocket diapers!
*She doesn’t like shots.
*Or staying still.
*We still swaddle her, and I’m convinced that’s why she started sleeping thru the night at 7 weeks old. That and the fact that we were on a long road trip and she got lots of car naps. And she looks so cute all burritoed up. I hope we can swaddle her until she goes to college. Don’t want to give up the total cuteness.

I just realized, I never said who “she” is. I’m talking about my pet cricket, of course.

Nah, just kidding. Here’s the little Cup-Cup:
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I’ve decided that you’re more important than Facebook. Instead of writing little tidbits here and there on FB, I’ve had this blog for 7 years next Monday, and I’m not going to let it die–so my updates, however inane, will come back home to mm. Unless it’s something like, “Man, I’d like some warm socks.” Who knows, you may get that, too. (Man, it’s true, I’d like some warm socks.) Anyway, I love y’all and hate to see that you’re coming back less and less–you’re my internet family, yo, and I miss y’all. So my writer’s block can go jump in a lake. I’m back, baby.

Okay, so here’s your first boring update and can officially classify me as a mommy blogger (alas, I give in):

Buttercup is a sleeping champion. She started sleeping through the night (minimum 5 hours) the day after Thanksgiving, at 7 weeks 1 day old. I didn’t realize this was rare for her age, but according to other moms I’ve met and family members, it’s a big deal. The earliest she’s woken up to eat is 3:50 a.m., and that only happened twice. We usually put her down between 10 and midnight, basically whenever we go to bed, and she sleeps until about 6, wakes up to eat, then goes right back down for 3 or 4 more hours. She. Is. Awesome.

Last night, we decided we need to start putting her to bed earlier so that we’re not up till midnight trying to catch up on cleaning, laundry, writing, eating, etc. So we decided on a bedtime of 8 p.m. for her. Last night it ended up being 8:30, since it was bath night. She woke up at 9:30 to eat but then slept from 10 until 6 this morning, then went back down after eating until 8:30 when we woke her up for church. SWEET!

Tonight is our second try. She went down at 8:30 and woke up at 9 and 10 to eat. We’ll see how long she sleeps now. I’m hoping that as we keep doing this, she’ll figure it out and eat for longer right before her bedtime so she doesn’t wake up so often to eat.

Wow, I’m bored, and I wrote this. ‘Sokay. Y’all love me anyway.

I’ve had a hard time writing since Buttercup was born. Yes, because of the time factor, but also because I know there’s this big, looming thing I have to write, and I haven’t wanted to do it. My birth story. I mean, I’ve wanted to write it, and some of you want to hear it. But I wasn’t happy with how my labor and delivery happened, and it took me a couple of months to really be okay with it and not cry every time I think of it. I know it’s maybe silly, because no matter how it happened, the result was a beautiful, healthy, wonderful gift from God, and I’m so thankful for her. But I had a plan, and it was turned on its head from minute one in the hospital. And considering all the–I don’t want to call them complications, because it makes it sound like one of us almost died or something, and it wasn’t so dramatic as all that–but considering all the complications, it went a lot better than it could have. So it took going to Texas and sitting at Essay’s dining room table, telling her the whole story, and laughing till we both cried about it. Side-splitting laughter about poop and projectile vomit and the glorious revelation of being on oxygen during labor (I recommend that HARD). It took her telling me exactly the words I had been thinking all along but had been doubting as me just trying to make myself feel better, feel like anything but a failure.

I had no idea I would take it so personally, but it’s a very personal thing. I feel very imposed upon when someone asks about it, almost like someone’s asking, “Hey, so how was your orgasm last night?”. I feel like they should wait until I bring it up, maybe hint around and wait for me to take the bait if they really want to know. I think it is sometimes rude to come out and ask, “So, how was childbirth?” I never thought that until I was the one being asked, and before I went through it, I didn’t think it was a question I would mind being asked. I know most people don’t mean to upset me by asking–there’s only one person who asked about it who I know was trying to upset me, and that person is no longer part of my life. [Word of advice: Don't ever tell someone they're being too sensitive about childbirth when they're nine days postpartum.] And some people who asked how it was didn’t upset me at all by asking, because they were people I wanted to share it with. But it went nothing like I wanted, and I was really disappointed in myself after it was over, so just being asked tends to sting a little.

Today I went to a new moms support group kind of thing, and the leader said, “We always let new members share their birth story their first time here!” Like it was an honor to get to tell everyone. I wanted to say, “No, that’s okay, I don’t want to share it with perfect strangers unless they’re on the internets.” But I decided it would be good for me to tell it again, and telling it to people I never have to see again unless I choose to kind of made it okay. So I told it, a very pared down version that took maybe two minutes to tell. I hit the high points and the low points and didn’t give a lot of details. And it went fine. It was the first time I told the story without crying. So I felt good afterward, like I’ve moved on a little.

So I’ll be writing about it soon, before I forget. But first, I have yet another hospital visit that didn’t result in a baby to write about.

Yeah, sorry. I know if I don’t write about all this stuff in order, I’ll never get around to the earlier stuff.

About this trip to Labor & Delivery, I was not the least bit embarrassed. It was Saturday the 18th of September, and I’d been having contractions for almost a week. Frank and I went to walk the dog, because I didn’t want to stop my pregnancy walking even though I was very uncomfortable most of the time.

It was around 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon and we had gone about three quarters of a mile when I suddenly had a sharp pain in my belly. Off on one side and unlike any other pain I’d had. And the pain stayed. And stayed. And I had to stop walking and breathe through it. But I knew I wasn’t in labor any more than I had been. It didn’t feel like contractions, though I was having a rolling contraction (those ones where one ends and the next one begins right away) the whole time. It felt like I was having a gallbladder attack, only in my uterus. Oh man, it hurt. It hurt more than any part of labor. Hard to say whether it hurt more than having my cervix stretched (oh yeah, I’ll tell you about that later), but it was close. I mean, I’ve had gallbladder attacks. But they last about 30 seconds, and then they’re over for a long time, usually months or a year between attacks. This was that same kind of pain, but in the abdomen, and it lasted at least 10 minutes.

I didn’t know if I’d be able to walk all the way home, so I told Frank to go take Rowdi home and finish packing the hospital bag just in case. He didn’t want to leave me, but I told him to go and come back with the car if I wasn’t home by the time he finished packing. I got home, and we called the doctor’s office. Described the pain, and the on-call doc said to go ahead to the hospital in case I was in labor. I knew I wasn’t, but I was worried that something might be wrong with the placenta. So Frank dropped the dog off at the kennel, which is about 2 minutes from our house, and then came back for me.

We went to labor & delivery. Oh yeah. It was game day.

We weren’t sure where we would watch the game that night anyway, since CBS Sports and Cable One are stupid, and we couldn’t get the game at home or at my in-laws’. We were either going to find a sports bar (as if there would be a spare seat) or listen on the radio.

Anyway, we got to the hospital, and the first thing they told us was that the hospital didn’t get CBS Sports either. Haha. I love that they knew that would be on my mind.

So I got all hooked up, and the baby was fine. I was contracting as usual, and the pain had subsided in the car on the way over, since I wasn’t walking. They ran tests and whatnot and checked my cervix. I was something like 80% effaced but still only 1.5cm dilated. This nurse, too, was very surprised about the contractions. They had no explanation for my pain but went ahead and sent me home. We got home in time for the game and listened for a while on the radio until someone from the Twitters sent a link where we could watch online.

That was our third visit in one week, and we didn’t go back until the week we had her.

I had my weekly appointment with my doctor a few days later and mentioned it to him, and he said it was round ligament pain. I’d had round ligament pain every day during pregnancy, but much lower in my abdomen, and it didn’t feel remotely the same. Anyway, 2 Tylenol before every walk solved that.

I’m writing this post with one hand. This is why I haven’t written all the blog posts I want to write (about labor, Buttercup, etc.)–I only ever have the use of one hand (other one is always holding the baby), unless she’s actually sleeping in her bed, during which times I try to sleep too.

Anyway, hopefully she’ll be able to sleep during the day somewhere other than my arms sometime soon (though I’m not too hopeful since I do love holding her while she sleeps). Then I’ll be able to write. I have so much to say.

Y’all remember when I said I promise not to become a mommy blogger? I fear I’m gonna break that promise. I’ll try to keep it fun, though. Like telling y’all about the time when Frank made Buttercup pee in her own face. See? It can be fun.

Princess Buttercup was born 10/7/10 at 10:38 pm, weighing in at 6 pounds, 10 ounces, measuring 19.5 inches. She’s already grown to 6 pounds, 13 ounces and is 19.75 inches. She’s the most precious thing I’ve ever encountered, but yes, I’m partial. We love her so much and can’t get enough of her, even at 1:30 am when she wants to eat for the 3rd time in 2 hours.

We’re truly blessed.

Since the big hospital adventure, we’ve been back twice more. Monday night (the 13th) was when I went in to have the tests run. Tuesday I had contractions all day, and that evening they really started to pick up in intensity. They still didn’t hurt (still don’t), but that night they were strong enough that I woke up at 2:49 a.m., unable to sleep through the contractions. I hung out in the livingroom, letting Frank sleep as long as possible, because I want him well rested when I’m in active labor. Which could be sometime next year.

So Wednesday morning, Frank got up, and I told him how intense the contractions were. They were still 2-3 minutes apart, but now stronger. So he called in to work, and we took the dog for a walk. Until the contractions had become too intense to sleep through, I didn’t want to do anything to encourage Buttercup to arrive. I was only 36 weeks 5 days at this point, and I would have preferred she wait at least another week, but she obviously had other plans (or so I thought), and I seriously did not want to have contractions that kept me up all night for another 3 weeks–I’d be too tired to actually push her out! So we walked the dog, and everything got stronger, as expected. Frank took the dog to the kennel while I finished throwing a couple of things in the hospital bag. Then we drove down to the park near the hospital, because I could tell he was starting to stress about being so far away. I assured him we had plenty of time (boy, did we). So we walked around the park for quite a while, until he started stressing about being several blocks from the hospital. Apparently he feels the same way about hospital check-ins that he does about airport check-ins. He wants to be way early, while I prefer to walk on right before the plane takes off.

So we went to the hospital and walked around outside a little, then walked inside to walk around in the air conditioning. It was hotter inside so we went back out. By that point I was almost to the point of not being able to walk through contractions. Though thinking back on it, I had no problem talking through them (other than the intensity being strong enough that I would forget what I was saying mid-word), so it wasn’t even close to time to go. It’s now over a week later, and no baby, so I guess that part is OBVS.

Eventually, I decided I could go inside. Contractions were 3 minutes apart, and I figured by the time we got to L&D, I would be well on my way. Pish.

Waiting for the elevator to go up one floor (we looked everywhere for stairs, found none), I saw another girl from our childbirth class. “You too, huh?” I asked. “Yes. Hopefully this time for real.” I immediately got smug brain (like Jon Stewart levels of smug), thinking to myself, “Oh, poor thing. She’s been here before. How embarrassing that must be. I’m glad *I’m* not going to come in multiple times. I know my body better than most people, so I know they won’t send me home today. *I* am not gonna be the girl who gets sent home from the hospital.”

We got up to L&D, and while I filled out a couple of forms, I noticed that I wasn’t contracting as hard as I had been. I started to get that uh-oh feeling and promptly told Frank that if I got sent home, I would be mad at him, as this was all his fault for making him come in early (he easily accepted that and said he’d rather I be mad at him than come in too late). But in the back of my mind, I was also a little hopeful. Buttercup was still 2 days away from being a full-term baby, and I had all this dread that she’d come out and have to spend time in the NICU. When we’d done the hospital tour, I’d burst into tears merely seeing a picture of a baby with too-small baby hands in the NICU on the outdated PowerPoint presentation that still listed cassette tapes as a good way to bring your relaxing music with you to the hospital. I think it’s because I don’t want her to be whisked away from me with bad lungs and have to spend even her first few hours not hearing my voice and knowing that her mom is here for her. I knew she’d be fine, but I still wanted her to cook at least a few days longer.

They got us into a triage room so they could hook me up to the monitors and check me out. The precious little heartbeat was perfect, and my blood pressure was great. I was contracting every 2.5 minutes for over a minute each time. But by the time the nurse came in (this was maybe 7 or 8 minutes after we’d arrived on the 2nd floor), I knew I was going to be sent home. The contractions just weren’t as intense anymore. The nurse was nice, friendly, professional, for the most part. Before she even checked me, she was already starting to try to educate me on when is the appropriate time to show up at the hospital. That’s when the humiliation started setting in and my face started turning colors. I think that’s the worst part of going in too early. They assume you must not have paid attention in childbirth class (and, indeed, she asked me if we’d taken the class, which made me feel tiny) and feel the need to tell you all these things that you already know. It’s probably hospital policy, but to me it was still so embarrassing. She went through a ton of questions with me, including asking me what kind of pain medication I planned on having. I told her I wanted a natural birth, and she nodded and entered my answer.

She checked me, and I was still sitting at 1 cm, and 50% effaced. Then she started telling me all that stuff I already know. I felt the need to defend myself. Yes, when I came in, I could barely walk through the contractions anymore. In the minutes since then, everything had calmed down, but I wasn’t just whistling a tune and clicking my heels all the way up to Labor & Delivery. I politely nodded and uh-huhed and pretended I didn’t want to crawl under the tiny triage bed and cry. And then she told me something that any L&D nurse should know never to say to a woman approaching her due date, and CERTAINLY not one who’s just told her she’s planning on natural childbirth. “You’ll know it’s time to come in when you feel like you want to die.” After that, I couldn’t even look at her. I wanted to say something along the lines of “I will be requesting any nurse other than you when I actually come in to have my baby, because you’ve obviously never even heard of the Fear-Tension-Pain cycle, or you prefer that women have the fear that causes the tension that increases the pain so they’ll all get drugs and your job will be easier”, and I didn’t want to be nice about it. So I stared at Frank and didn’t look at the nurse anymore, because if I did, I knew I’d cry and also tell her off.

Ugh! Just writing about her comment has me tense and ticked off all over again.

So I got sent home. I waited until we were in the car to cry and thanked God that I didn’t cry in front of the tactless nurse. And Frank understood immediately that she’s not to be my nurse when we go in for the actual big event. We’ll be nice about it, but I just don’t see her as being supportive in the type of birth I want.

Now whenever my contractions get really strong (it happens every few days, is happening now), Frank asks me if I still have the will to live. :) So far, I do.

Yesterday afternoon I weighed myself on the Wii Fit. Despite showing a different weight for me than the doctor’s scale shows (partially because the Wii will take off for the weight of your clothes), my weight gain according to the Wii has tracked perfectly with my weight gain according to the doctor’s scale. So when the Wii Fit told me I’d gained 4.9 pounds from the previous week (I weigh once a week on Mondays), I was really surprised. According to the doc’s scale on Friday, I’d lost a pound from my previous appointment (probably because I’d worn jeans at that appointment), which made me think my weight gain had happened over the weekend. And sudden hefty weight gain is bad, can be a sign of preeclampsia. I’d also had shortness of breath on Sunday that was bad enough that I stayed in bed all afternoon. So we went to Walgreens so I could check my blood pressure — um, my Walgreens doesn’t have a blood pressure cuff, what is up with that? So we bought one and came home. I had to check my BP three times just to make sure the numbers I was seeing were right. 130/80 on the left arm, 140/90 on the right. And at the doc’s office on Friday, it had been 105/70. So we called, and the on-call doc told us to go ahead and go to triage at the hospital so they could run tests and make sure everything was ok.

I’ve been having contractions on and off since Saturday evening, and they started up again right before we got to the hospital. They don’t hurt so far. We got in and I got all hooked up to the monitors, and I was having contractions every 2 minutes that lasted for a minute each time. That went on the entire 2 hours we were at the hospital. (The tests all came back good, my BP came down while we were there.) And when we came home. And all night. And all morning. And all afternoon.

But they’re not intense enough, and I’m only dilated 1 cm (or was last night). They’re still regular, and basically, I’m on one minute, off the next. Sometimes I feel them all over my uterus, my low back, pelvis, and down my legs. And sometimes I just feel tightness in the uterus.

So I’m in early labor, and I could be there for days or weeks, I could have Princess Buttercup today or two weeks late.

I just want her to wait until at least Friday so she has a better chance of having mature lungs. Friday will be 37 weeks.

*I’m now at 36 weeks, 2 days. On Friday, I’ll breathe easier (hopefully figuratively and literally–please drop, Buttercup), because I’ll hit the 37 weeks mark, and Princess Buttercup will be a full-term baby.

*Last night I had my first contractions that I was *sure* were contractions. I’ve had several moments when I thought I could possibly be having one, but when I had them last night, I had no doubt. So they’re either Braxton Hicks or false labor or both, I dunno, I’m not really clear on the distinction between the two. I had 8 or 9 of them last night, and then they started back up during Bible class this morning and have been going off and on all day. Maybe I’m crazy, but I get all excited about them. It means she’s close. Now watch, she’ll come 2 weeks late. Please, no, Buttercup–3 weeks 5 days is long enough, don’t tack on 2 more weeks.

*Meanwhile, she has taken to rolling her knees and feet against my belly really hard. It actually hurts sometimes. But my favorite is definitely when she sticks her foot in my gallbladder. Good times. I do love it when she pushes her back up and snuggles her little bum right up against my ribs. It’s too adorable. And I love to tickle and poke her feet. It’ll be so strange when she’s not inside my body anymore. I will miss most things about pregnancy, but then, I’ve had it easy.

*I got swabbed for Group B Strep Friday. I was a little nervous about it, but it was nothing at all. Seriously less than half a second for the whole test. So hopefully that comes back negative and I don’t have to get antibiotics during labor.

*I’ve gone over my most worrisome questions about the birth plan with my doc, and he agreed to everything and said whatever I want is fine with him. I really like my doctor. Oh, and I’m going with natural childbirth, for many reasons. Don’t try to talk me out of it or wish me “good luck with that” as you snicker and roll your eyes, and for the love of candy canes and puppies, do NOT tell me that I “don’t have to be a martyr”. It’s not about that.

*I spend all my time in the bathroom now. My bladder is officially the size of a toothpick.

*I got asked last week if I’m having twins. That was awesome.

*We’ve finished childbirth classes. We started with 7 couples in our class, and by the end, only 4 were left, the other 3 having had their babies early.

*We also did breastfeeding class. I took a sock monkey with me as my infant standin. Sock monkeys are very good eaters. I was surprised that the men asked more questions than the women. And I was so glad Frank went with me, because there’s actually a lot to remember.

*And then we did CPR class. I was a total wreck, cried through half the class. Pregnancy hormones do not go well with infant CPR class.

*Total weight gain so far: 7.5 pounds. I think I’m going to make my goal of 15 max!

*More later.

ME: Oh, they have a breastfeeding class, too.
HE: Well, I don’t need to go to that.
ME: It says to bring your husband or other support person.
HE: Eh.
ME: And an infant-sized doll or stuffed animal.
HE: Okay, I’m out.