Due Date

Well, it's baby girl's due date...

We thought she just might make an appearance a day early, but things have changed drastically.

I started having pretty regular contractions at 2 a.m. on Friday morning. From 6 a.m. on they were 6 minutes apart lasting about 30-50 seconds. I knew it wasn't time to go in but at 8 a.m. I called Alberta Health Link to talk to a nurse and see when she thought I should go in. She said to start making your way to the hospital in four hours. So, that's what we did.

We knew that we were most likely going to be sent home because again, the contractions weren't really doing anything other than stay pretty consistent. After about 2 hours waiting and getting checked, I was 1 cm dilated and 75% effaced. They sent me home and told me to come back when they were 3-5 minutes apart, lasting about 90 seconds.

At 3:00 p.m. I was able to get about an hour of sleep, waking every once in awhile to breathe through some contractions.

At 4:30, I got in the shower and the contractions started picking up...like really picking up. Derek was timing while I was in the shower and I thought he was doing it wrong or something because I was having them consistently 3-5 minutes apart and lasting about 1 minute 10 seconds. They stayed that way for about an hour. We were going to go back to the hospital when one stupid contraction didn't come for like 8 minutes. After that, the contractions lost all consistency. Some were 6, some were 10, but none of them were close to 3-5 minutes apart anymore. They were, however, getting extremely intense. They started lasting closer to 1 minute 30 seconds and they hurt...pretty badly.

I called Health Link again at 8:30 p.m. knowing that if I went in, I'd most likely be sent home, but I also knew that if I didn't go in, I'd have trouble sleeping through the night, worried about what was happening. The nurse said that even if they are irregular, they recommend going in if they are lasting as long as they were for me...so I went in.

Yep, nothing had happened. 1 cm dilated, 80% effaced. (When the nurse told me I was 80% effaced, she tried to make it sound like that was good, like I had made SOME progress...yeah, I wasn't in the mood...)

We went home, got in bed and I was able to have a pretty decent sleep. I did wake to some painful contractions, I did take a hot shower at 5:00 a.m. this morning but really, the contractions have just slowed down immensely. When they do come, they last a long time (still about 1:30), but they really aren't as intense, as much as I'd like to say they are. So, that's where we are at. I haven't had a single contraction the entire time I have been writing this, so that should tell you something.

It doesn't look like baby is quite ready to greet us yet. With high hopes that she would come on her own and on her due date, no less, it's not looking so good. I'm frustrated, to say the least, but I know that she'll come when she's ready. I just hope it's not too much longer. 31 hours of labor is kind of long and there are no signs of it going any faster...

We'll definitely keep you posted.