39 weeks and counting

Wow. Blogger is way different all of a sudden. (Or is it, "all of the sudden?" I see that phrase both ways and the latter always makes me do a double take. It just doesn't sound right to my ear.)

Anyway, I owe you all an update on the latest doctor's appointment today, so here goes. Basically, everything is pretty much the same as last week.

I got a call mid-week to say that they reviewed my chart again and did recommend coming in for another ultrasound check of my fluid levels after all (which I was kind of relieved about since I thought the initial recommendation not to check it anymore seemed a bit odd). AFI today was 8.4, which is consistent with last week's 8.8 and the time before that's 8.7. So, that's good. No c-section necessary today. They will continue to check it weekly as long as it stays at that level.

The midwife also checked me out to see what progress has been made down under and sadly, the answer is none. In fact, things have actually moved in the opposite direction. Bummer. Last week I was 70% effaced, 1 cm dilated, and baby was at a -1 station. This week, only 50% effaced, still 1 cm dilated, and baby is at a -2 station (which means her head is higher than before.) Ugh.

She did "stir things up" (those were her words for stripping my membranes), and I currently feel very crampy as a result. But here's hoping that helps my body take a real step in the right direction toward actual contractions and labor over the next several hours and/or days...

I also shared my tale of hip pain (which has gotten progressively worse with each passing day) with the midwife and she helped ease my fears about something being very wrong (read: broken or fractured) with my bones, and insisted that it is actually fairly common. She also felt pretty confident that the pain would go away soon after the baby is born and things start shifting back to normal, so that was a slight bit of good news.

I expressed my concerns that I haven't really been able to do much walking to help self-induce labor due to the amount of pain I'm in. She suggested focusing more on my positioning and mentioned that I wasn't doing myself any favors by sitting around in a reclining position (which is pretty much all I've done for the past week) as far as getting the baby into position and moved down in my pelvis.

Soooooo...I'm not really feeling very confident in anything I can personally do at this point to help move things along, which is immensely frustrating. And since she also indicated that they would let me go as late as 42 weeks into this pregnancy before resorting to forced measures (I had previously believed I could only go to 41 weeks), that means there could possibly be up to 2 1/2 more weeks of this torture! Ahhhhh!!!

So much for a "quick" update. And so much for trying to keep things positive on the blog. I'm just feeling kind of down today. And sick of the hip pain. And crampy. And just kinda "blerg." Sorry about that. But there's your update. Have a nice weekend.