Warning: this post is full of details about how early stages of labor/late stages of pregnancy feel to me. I use medical terms and list it bluntly, so if you don't want to hear it don't read it. This is for me and my memory of how this went, because I am discovering my memory of how it went with Josiah is a blur.
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| 38 weeks 6 days. Was having such bad contractions that night that I wanted one more picture just in case it was the last. |
I am now more pregnant than I have ever been. Josiah was born at 38.6 weeks. Today I am 39.2. My theory is that with Josiah my body was forced to ovulate at day 14 of a 28 day cycle and my cycles not on mediation are more like 32 days and the delay has been before ovulation. So if I use that delay to put this pregnancy at the same time with the last, I would expect this baby to be born about 4 days later than Josiah was to have the same time gestation time. That put's it at December 1st. We'll see. This has been quite confusing for me. Every evening I think, "This is probably the night I will give birth," and then I succeed in sleeping. I still get up a bunch of times due to contractions and a full bladder, but then succeed again in falling back asleep. When morning comes my body isn't contracting regularly any more. Each night the contractions get stronger, except for last night. I commented that I was going to laugh really hard if it was the night we went to the hospital since the contractions were much milder than the last 3 nights. It didn't happen though. I did wonder when I woke up at 2 am because of some bad contractions but they let up after I went to the bathroom, so I slept again. Each night around 5-6 I start having contractions about 5-8 minutes apart. They cause period like cramping in my low abdomen and back. I feel a low of pressure in my pelvis and I at times can't keep sitting or laying or walking or whatever I am doing. They are always easier if I can relax my upper body and if I can sway my hips.
Two days ago I started to loose my mucous plug. Bryan and I stopped following the Dr.'s orders to not do anything that might progress labor ;) and that probably contributed to the loss of the mucous plug. It has been a 2 day process of pink to blood tinged mucous coming out, like the light day of a period, except with more pink to red than brown colored. No big chunks came out, just gooey mucous. I feel really cramps all the time like it's my period weather or not I am contraction. When I have a contraction it just makes the cramp sharper and the pressure much greater and makes me catch my breath and squirm.
Feeling even just the tiniest bit constipated seems to make the contractions extra bad, so I ate a lot of fiber and significantly increased my fluid intake. It took a couple days, but that doesn't seem to be a problem any more. However now I have to go almost every time I go to the bathroom. I think the baby's movements and the contractions are overstimulating my poor colon.
I am pretty sure I can tell the baby has dropped. I can fit a whole hand between my chest and my uterus. The part of my belly below my belly button seems much bulgier. Also, the rib pain that I have been feeling is also much less meaning that the baby is not pushing up on them like he was.
I got a stretch mark which is new to me. It is down low maybe below the pants line even on low rise pants, and it really isn't much compared to what they can be. We'll see if I get more. I showered last night (and Bryan shaved my legs for me) and I lathered everything with vitamin E oil mixed half and half with some kind of body butter (same thing I do after every shower). I just don't get to shower that often so it isn't really much more than once or twice a week that I put it on. So far it has made my skin pretty stretchy, but the lower part of my abdomen is really stretched much more than it was now that the baby is so much lower, so I can see why I got one.
I have been having that pinching sharp feeling on my cervix that I saw I mentioned around 38 weeks last pregnancy. The one that Dr. Payne described as the baby's head turning on the cervix thinning it. It's uncomfortable but makes me hopeful that some progress toward a baby coming out is being made.
I think nesting has started. I fear every night that this kid is coming to I go like crazy during the day trying to get as much done before he gets here as I can because I am supposed to rest afterword to let everything heal up nicely. Twi and Jason came to stay from Thanksgiving mid day to Sunday mid day. I have been including them in my nesting since Jason asked what they could do to help. With everyone's help in just a few days we have cleaned the garage, which was a disaster, put up Christmas lights, acquired put up and decorated a christmas tree, took a few desired maternity pictures, covered the garden with the rest of the maple leaves, tacked the tarps back down on the barn roof, hemmed 6 swaddle blankets and died two of them red, moved the newborn clothes to the night stand in our bedroom, scrubbed the master bathroom and created a newborn diaper changing station, and not on my list and Jason's idea was remove remaining bits of wedding nail polish from my toes and paint my nails red. Boy to I feel loved. They have been here taking care of Josiah for me, cooking meals and keeping the kitchen clean and the dishes done. Letting me work on whatever little things I can accomplish and doing all the hard tasks so graciously. Twi takes Josiah outside to play all the time to wear him and her both out. I just assumed my list wasn't going to get accomplished and I was ok with it, but now there is very little to nothing left that I need to do now.
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| Looking for the right Christmas tree. Josiah insisted on carrying the saw. |
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| Josiah stole the saw from Bryan after he started cutting. |
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| "Let me do it Papa." |
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| Loading the tree in the truck. |
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| The view of Mt. Hood from the tree farm. |
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| Looking cool and keeping busy at REI |
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| I want to take a repeat picture with the baby and crop the mirror portion of this picture to have me holding the baby. We also took this the night that I was contracting so bad I thought the baby was going to come and if we didn't take the picture I wouldn't have one. |
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| Josiah helped decorate the tree. |
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| A combo of the kiss the belly and kiss the toddler picture I saw and loved and a christmas tree maternity silhouette that I loved, so we combined the two. It was late and night, past Josiah's bed time, and he was quite fussy but the picture turned out great! Thanks to baby #2 waiting till Twi and Jason could come to take the picture for us, and help decorate the tree. |
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