L&D

Yesterday morning I had my 39 week OB appointment.

They measured me, listened to the heart beat, and then checked to see if I was dilated - Nothing.

My doctor, in more or less words, told me "not even close."  So that was disappointing.  Some ladies are dilated MANY weeks in advance, so me being 5 days away from my due date and not at all dilated was aggravating.  But, it can all change in an instant.

After the appointment, I went and picked up some bagels and drinks for my family and I to munch on while we chit-chatted.  I started having some really uncomfortable round ligament pain while we were talking.  The round ligaments, for those of you not so pregnancy-savvy, are a ligament on either side of your stomach that can easily be pulled due to the incredible stretching they do during pregnancy.  It is common to have round ligament pain, but pulling them is another story.  I started to be in so much pain that I could barely walk, and even laying down hurt quite a bit.  

I called my doctor's office and they said I needed to go the Labor and Delivery ward at the hospital and get checked out.  I woke my husband up, called my mom to watch Haven, and off we went.

They checked me in and put me in the triage room to assess me.  At this point, they checked me again and I was dilated to 1.5 cm!!!  That's a significant change from not even being dilated at all that morning.  I started to think we might actually have this baby.  They told me I needed to get up and start walking for a half hour.  So off we went, walking in circles around the L&D floor.  We got to see a couple babies in the nursery and watch some families meeting their newest little ones.  It was sweet.  And L and I had fun just walking and chatting, especially since I didn't seem to have any bad pain by this point.

They hooked up again and I was having mild contractions, and they checked me again but there was no cervical change.  Since I wasn't in active labor at this point, they said we could just wait a little bit longer and see if anything changed.  After an hour of just laying there, we still didn't see any change.  So we opted to go home.  They did tell me I was in pre-labor and that they wouldn't be surprised to see us again within 12-24 hours.  And I was so happy to know that I made some progress after weeks of cervical checks at the doctor's office and no change.

The only good thing about going home was that I was so hungry!  L made my day by picking up the Indian food I was dying for, and we went home to our little princess who was wondering where we were.  She was very happy to see us and started being very clingy and acting out a little bit.  Scary to think what will happen when we bring a baby home for her to compete for attention with.