Come Out, Come Out....

little girl; mommy wants to see you! Seriously, I'm all done with this whole pregnancy bit.

I went to an appointment on Wednesday afternoon with a raging headache and nausea. I was dilated 2-3 cm and 75% effaced and she stripped my membranes. The doc was concerned about pre-eclampsia so checked my blood pressure 3 times during the appointment. It went up each time - of course it went up each time...she was making me nervous. She then sent me for bloodwork and ordered me to stay home and rest on Thursday. Yeah...right!

I did stay home from work on Thursday and stayed on the couch for some of it, but really...this is not an easy task. At about 5am the contractions strated, but we sporadic. About 10:30am they regualted themselves. They were 4 minutes apart and last about 1-1.5 minutes. After an hour, I called the office. They had me come in - they don't send you to the hospital when the office is open. The doc checked me and I was a generous 3cm dilated. What the heck does that mean? It's like her saying 2-3 on Wednesday - which is it? 2 or 3? I said to the doc...as long as your in there, can you strip the membranes again? She did.

They hooked me up to monitors and couldn't find the contractions...meanwhile, through each contraction I was grimmacing and fighting the tears in my eyes. The nurse and doc both knew I was having them. After about 45 minutes of this, they sent me away for a couple of hours to have a light lunch and to go for a walk. The doc wanted to see me again in 2 hours for a re-check.

We went to a sushi place. I had salad and an avacado roll. I was hoping the wasabi would get things started. Then we went to Kohls and looked around. Following the advice of the former OB nurse I work with, I squatted (and pushed) many times in Kohls to look at items on low shelves and racks - figuring I would rather break my water at Kohls and have them clean it up than me clean it up at home! (just how does that work exactly? do you say, "wait...I need to clean up this mess before we embark on this 45 minute car ride to the hospital" or do you have some poor unsuspecting relative or friend clean it up for you?)

I went back the hospital knowing they were going to send me home. I hadn't progressed any further - the only thing she said was the head was a little lower (thanks due, I'm sure, to the squatting sessions at kohls) and that my cervix was feeling squishy...nice, huh? Once again..."go ahead and strip those membranes while you are in there. " She predicted I was in early labor and would be back that evening. Yeah, I wasn't. The contractions stopped being regular and went back to sporadic - oh the joys of being pregnant!

So...it's Friday. I decided to go to work, much to the amazement of my Mom. Here's the thing though, at work I can take my mind off how badly I want this over with - with the exception of the fact that everyone that walks by my office says..."oh, you're here?" YES....I AM HERE TO FORGET THAT I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE! Then the hubs calls to be supportive and ask how I am doing. It is with him that I can be truthful. I fight back the tears and say "fine," but he knows and can hear in my voice that I am about to lose it; he knows that I'm not fine and that I am exhausted, uncomfortable and just plain all done.

By the way...stripping the membranes....nothing more than a painful process that isn't working for me. I'm guessing it was something invented by the OB community to give the desperate mothers between 38-40 weeks pregnant some hope that it will happen. You want to give me hope? Go in there with your little crochet hook and break my water!

Now that I have ranted, I can go back to finishing my lunch and taking my mind off of it (which I am not doing very well).