Day 5 of Overtime

Thursday:  Still waiting.  Weird that if I hadn't of canceled we would have a 1 day old baby right now.  I spent the first part of my day showering and getting ready, including shaving my legs.  It was SO HARD!  Definitely a painful and uncomfortable experience to lean over my belly.  I had vowed I wouldn't shave my legs again until the baby came but I had dark prickly hairs on my fat ankles and I just couldn't stand it.  So, I shaved my legs.  Then I actually put on real clothes (I've been living in Jackson's t-shirts and basketball shorts) and did my hair.  One reason I probably felt so bad yesterday is because I needed a shower, I didn't really get dressed, do my hair, or make up.  So I felt pretty gross to begin with.  Today I put in the contacts, did the make-up, straightened my hair and even wore earrings.  I know.  Over the top.
     Anyway, the point of today is that I had my dr's appointment.  We discussed options and my preferences.  I'm grateful that my doctor doesn't try to push anything on me.   If it were his wife, he would have gone through with the inducement on Wednesday, but he's respectful of my decision.  Anyway, he said the baby is getting pretty big in there.  He's at least 8 pounds by now.  This of course is only by an external exam though, no ultrasound data to back it up.  But, we discussed the risks of waiting longer compared to inducing, etc.  I know 2 weeks is pretty much the cut off point these days, and I don't actually feel comfortable waiting that long anyway because the risks are substantially higher.  Anyway, moral of the story is that if the baby still hasn't come, I check in on Sunday night and get induced on Monday.  The baby will be 9 days overdue by then.
     I feel really good about the new plan.  Even if I do end up getting induced, I'm glad that I gave my body and the baby some more time and I feel like it's a happy medium between the potential risks of both  scenarios.  I also feel like I'm following my instinct and my body and that of course makes me happy and confident in my decision.
     I did make a little progress though.  I was dilated to 1.5 centimeters today.  I know, nothing substantial, but at the same time I've been at a 1 for like 3 weeks so I'm happy to see a change.
     I ended the day with going out with Jackson and our good friends Donny and Aleksandra.

 I haven't been out in AGES.  We've lived in the live music capital of the world for a year and tonight we finally went to our first live music venue.  Don't judge.  We went to Darwin's Pub on 6th street and I met Matt Noveskey from the band Blue October.  That was cool!

  And we got to listen to some mad guitar skills from a local band.  As I sat there at the booth, enjoying being out on the town, I turned to Jackson and said, "I'm 5 days overdue... in a bar".  Our friend Donny then referenced one of my very favorite movies which made my night.  I was happy to complete the quote as he had left off the best part at the end -


Baby In A Bar

   

Day 4 of Overtime

Wednesday:  My high spirits were on vacation today.  I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked and I was just overall in a blah mood.  I couldn't bring myself to clean so I spent the day fiddling around and cutting out fabric pieces for my diaper bag.  I'm so glad my back doesn't yell at me anymore when I'm up and down on the floor!  Our friends Donny and Aleksandra invited us over for dinner so I met up with Jackson at their house.  Aleksandra is from Poland and made a delicious meal that I can't pronounce let alone spell, but it was full of all kinds of meat and sausage and sauerkraut.  I was a huge fan.  Old wive's tale to bring on labor for today:  eat spicy food.  Done.
     After dinner I was feeling especially emotional and wasn't sure why.  Jackson took me into a different room and cuddled me on the couch and got me talking the way he is so good at doing.  Once I started talking I realized that I had talked to like 20 people that day who all asked the same questions - "When's that baby going to come?  What's your plan for housing?  Are you buying the house you've been looking at?  Are you staying in your apartment?  Are you staying in the ward?  Will you have family stay with you after the baby comes? " etc.  I had no answers for any of it.  I just said "I don't know" over and over and over and over and over.  That for some reason takes it's toll on you.  Especially when I am a planner.  It doesn't matter if my plans come to pass or change every day, I just need to have one.  So anyway, Jackson worked his magic and got me feeling much better and resolved some concerns about our plans.  I went home and spent the rest of the evening content to sew my diaper bag.  It's going to be super cute.

Day 3 of Overtime

     Tuesday:  Made it through another night.  On day 3 the soreness from jogging was gone so I was back to my old pregnant self.  Or my new pregnant self rather.  Because my old pregnant self was miserable with intense back pain and an inability to get comfortable.  But, for the last 2 weeks I have felt better than I have in months!  Seriously, I've been feeling amazing.  My back pain suddenly decided to go away on my last day of work.  I can't blame work because I had back pain for 4 months before I even started work, but for some odd reason my back has felt amazing and my energy has returned.  This makes waiting for the baby so much easier!

     Day 3 consisted of more chores and then lots of errands.  I ordered fabric online to make a diaper bag and car seat canopy and it came in the mail today so I happily went off to the fabric store to buy other supplies.  After perusing fabric stores for zippers, snaps, iron on vinyl, interfacing, thread, elastic, and velcro I went on my merry way to buy groceries.  We ended the evening going out to eat with a bunch of friends at Double Daves which is a weekly tradition since their pizza rolls are only 75 cents on Tuesday nights.  In between assuring people that no their eyes are not deceiving them, I am still pregnant and no I don't plan on being pregnant forever, I enjoyed my greasy pizza and happily took myself on home.  

Day 2 of Overtime

     Monday:  Jogging Sunday night was a terrible idea! I was so sore the next day with some intense pelvic pressure and soreness. I spent much of my day on the phone with various people and going back and forth about being induced on Wednesday.  After debating and examining my own personal feelings I decided to go ahead and cancel my inducement date.  I'm nowhere near in agreement with the opinionated doula that offered her advice and caution against inducement, but I do know that I felt more comfortable giving the baby some more time to come on his own.  I figure going into labor naturally is an obvious preference to forcing my body and the baby into it before they are good and ready.  Besides, I like the element of surprise.  It's weird to me to schedule the birth of my baby.  Also, I would prefer to not have that medical of an experience.  So, I canceled and made an appointment to see my doctor on Thursday for a routine weekly check-up.
   Then, I tried the next labor-inducing old wive's tale: pressure points and essential oils. A lady in my ward is a massage therapist and offered her services. I went over to her house and she ended up working on my legs and feet for almost 2 1/2 hours! She was such a doll, and made it her personal challenge to reduce the swelling. She did fabulous. Didn't get rid of it by any means but my feet and legs were smaller than they've been in a VERY long time. And it felt so good! She sent me home with a mix of oils to rub on my belly and lemon to put in my water.  Labor still didn't come but I won't complain about that intensely long massage!
     I went home and made a blueberry buckle cake really fast for an FHE treat.  We had a group FHE at a friend's house and the cake was a huge hit.  I highly suggest trying it.  Follow the link to the recipe and add about 1/3 cup uncooked oatmeal to the topping.  Delicious!
 

Day 1 of Overtime

     The baby's due date came and went yesterday.  Today I attended all 3 hours of church and women everywhere were offering suggestions of how to induce labor naturally.  I of course have already done ample research on the matter in the weeks leading up to this point but it was fun to hear individual success stories.  Here's the plan if the baby doesn't come:  I check into the hospital Tuesday night.  Since I am not in a "favorable condition" for inducement (meaning I'm not sufficiently dilated and effaced ) they will give me a pill to start contractions.  By morning the contractions should have done their job and I should be sufficiently dilated to start the pitocin and induce labor.  The baby will come one way or another on Wednesday.  I am not exactly thrilled with the idea of being induced but I also don't want to wait and have him come that close to our anniversary on the 14th.  Call me selfish but I need my child's birthday to be sufficiently separated from my anniversary so as to be able to celebrate both separately.  So, inducement it is.  He'll be 4 days overdue anyway and my doctor fully supports the idea.  Anyway, regardless, bringing on labor naturally is still the preferred method.
     So, I made a new friend in the ward who just moved in and is due with her 2nd at the end of September.  She said with her first, she went for a jog with her husband when she was one day overdue and her water broke an hour later.  I spent the day getting pumped up about the idea and figured it was worth a try.  So, tonight I pulled out the biggest shoes I own and Jackson stuffed my feet into them for me.

     I was extremely giggly as we prepared for our jog.  Fully inspired and full of energy because of this video:  

  Unfortunately I am not blessed with such awesome dance moves so I'll start with jogging.  

     We proceeded to go jogging around our apartment complex with walking in between.  It went amazingly well even though my legs felt like they were full of lead and my feet had no support and were overflowing my shoes.  It was a fun experience even if it doesn't bring on labor.  Although now I can't complain about the resulting pelvic pressure and soreness! 

     Tomorrow a woman in my ward who is a massage therapist is going to try some pressure points.  After that, my relief society president has offered the trampoline in her backyard.  She said it worked for her once!  I'm just having fun with it at this point.  I have nothing better to do and I get some good laughs out of it.  And hey, if something works, then great! 

Breaking, Ripping, and Fixing

     As part of this nesting phase I'm in, besides cleaning more than I have in a very long time with a much better attitude about it, I have also been getting some sewing done that has been needed for a while.  Once upon a time I washed our amazingly soft 500 thread count sheets and made the mistake of putting the fitted sheet in wrapped around the base of the washer.  It apparently didn't go over too well with the agitator and our beautiful sheet came out like this:

     Complete with the mummy and all.  I was very sad about it and I finally sat down to fix it this week.  A hole that size with so many frayed threads was a bit harder to fix than I expected but better than paying for new sheets at this point.  I sewed the softest cotton I could find on each side of the sheet and ironed on wonder under in between the layers in the hopes that the adhesive secures all of the separated threads and helps it to stop from fraying and separating even more.  Here's the obnoxiously LARGE patch! 

We'll see how it holds up after I wash it! 

     Also, a couple of days ago through a series of unfortunate events I managed to drop one of our plates.  It shattered in pieces on the floor and I burst into tears.  It was our first broken dish and I'm in love with our dish set and was heart broken.  Jackson once again reminded me that it's no use crying over spilled milk and I dried my tears and tried to mend my heart.  P.S.  the plate was covered in bacon grease so I ended up with baking soda all over the kitchen floor AGAIN.  :) Anyway, today I stopped by Bed Bath and Beyond to see what kind of warranty we might have on the dishes.  They kindly informed me that they have a very open return policy and I can just bring the plate in and they would replace it for free.  I looked at the worker incredulously and re-emphasized the fact that I had dropped the plate on the floor, that it was my fault.  He said it was no problem.  It's a lifetime open return policy.  (Isn't that AMAZING?!  Any dish we break in the future will be replaced at no extra cost!)  So, I went out to my car and brought in the biggest shard of the plate identifying the make and model and within minutes had a brand new plate in my hands.  No paperwork, no purchase verification, no cashier transaction.  Just take the plate and walk out.  Thank-you Bed Bath and Beyond, as if we didn't love you before.  

Jackson with our newly replaced plate!

     My other big accomplishment this week was sewing a pillow case.  I know, a pillow case is probably the easiest thing in the world to sew but I'm still excited about it.  You see, my younger sister gifted me a memory foam body pillow a while back in the hopes that it would help me sleep better with my growing belly.  It's abnormally sized, long and skinny so even normal body pillow cases would be too large.  I measured it, cut, and sewed.  Then I seam ripped because there wasn't quite enough room to get the pillow in and re-sewed with a smaller seam allowance.  And here's our wonderful pillow nicely covered and protected: 

 I am especially pleased with how the hem turned out, it looks so professional! 

     It feels nice to clean and sew again and to not have to pay for it in the form of excruciating back pain. This ease of pregnancy symptoms (except for the swelling which never gives me a break!) has made this last week of pregnancy so much easier.  Before, I was so anxious to get this baby out of me but this week I have been much more content to wait.  Although, now that he is due tomorrow I am anxious again!  I'm pumped up for labor and currently have a "Bring it on!" attitude so it would be nice if he came, I dunno, like tonight?  Please, please, please don't make me wait until Wednesday to be induced! 

July

     I do believe it is time to update our blog!  No, the baby still hasn't come.  You can stop reading now if you want, I know that's really why you continued reading after the first sentence...
     Even though we still are lacking the 3rd member of our family, I figured I would give a brief update on this past month.  First of all, we have been house hunting.  We have learned a ton in the process of applying for a mortgage and working with a mortgage broker.  We found a house that we love but are not so sure about moving away from the area of town we live in.  We are still putting off the decision and remaining content in our apartment complex that we are convinced is the best complex you could ever ask for.
      We have also survived an abnormally HOT month!  During the entire month of July there were only 3 days when the high was below 100 degrees - and on those 3 days it was 99 degrees.  We're going on the 18th day straight of over 100.  And we're talking 105 and 106 degrees, consistently.  Try being 9 months pregnant in that!  I'm sure it has contributed to this:

     No I have not gained 100 pounds.  I know it looks like I have.  And yes, I used to have legs like the girl behind me in this picture.  I tell you what, swelling is no fun!  We measured my calf the other day at 16.5 inches!  I was amazed.  It took one of Jackson's hands and one of mine to reach all the way around it.  I describe it as feeling like my calves are about to split open combined with shin splints.  I also had to break down and pry my wedding ring off of my finger and stow it away as my fingers have taken to swelling as well.  I do miss that ring! 

     We also survived our first real illness as a married couple.  Jackson came down with a bad case of strep throat.  After 3 days of a 103 degree fever that I just couldn't break with over the counter medicine, cold cloths, and cool baths, we finally took him in.  Here's Jackson in a cold bath waiting for a couple of friends of ours to come over and give him a blessing: 

     Poor guy.  He was miserable!  I was amazed at how quickly I jumped into a motherly role and forgot about my own pregnancy symptoms and was able to get up multiple times a night to take care of him and  monitor his fever.  Once he was diagnosed with strep and we got some penicillin in him he recovered quite quickly.  

     On July 18 we celebrated my birthday.  It happened to be 24 hours after Jackson had started on antibiotics and despite still feeling quite under the weather he surprised me and took me to see Harry Potter 7.2.  He felt so bad that he was sick on my Birthday.  I still had a great day though, complete with a manicure and pedicure (compliments of my mother-in-law) and a night of scrabble during which I finally beat Jackson!  

     Other than that, Jackson is still the entrepreneur and has started a new venture that I will let him explain but that we are pretty excited about.  I am officially on maternity leave as of one week ago and have been nesting like crazy.  I feel better than I have in months!  Such energy, it's amazing!  

     The crib is made, the hospital bag packed, and the car seat ready.  Our baby boy is due tomorrow.  I sure hope he starts making his way into the world because we are very ready to meet him!