I've been meaning to write this post for quite some time, but mommyhood has kept me very busy. I must admit it's harder and more time consuming than I thought. Yes, I was one of "those" people who kinda wondered why new moms fall off the grid for awhile. I mean babies sleep a lot, so why are thy so busy? Well, let me tell you... my eyes have been opened and hopefully this explains my tardiness with posting.
At my 39 week appointment I was told that I was hardly dilated at all. At this point I was so sick and tired of being pregnant and just really wanted to be done, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Though I was not quite desperate enough to try castor oil because it doesn't sound smart or safe to me... After some "googling" I found that many ladies had had success with raspberry tea leaf and evening primrose oil. Many of the women swore that it helped them go into labor while others said that it sped up labor when it finally did start. So it seemed like it could only do good things so I started drinking several cups of the tea a day and taking the evening primrose oil. Well it seemed like it was helping things along because after taking them I would have some contractions in my back, although they never lasted, even with walking for hours on end.
At my 40 week appointment I had progressed to a 3 and was 70% effaced, so it definitely seemed to be helping. My midwife said I would very likely go into labor on my own within the next week, but we scheduled an inducement for Tuesday the 22nd of January just in case. They instructed us to call the hospital around 5:30 so they could tell us what time they wanted us in (which would normally be around 7:30 am.)
Since I was done working, Eric and I spent every extra minute of the week walking on his days off, and in the morning before he had to go to work. We walked around Home Depot, Lowes, the Mall, Fred Meyer, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and more. Basically we walked around every store that had significant square footage. Needless to say we quickly ran out of stores in Idaho Falls. That's okay, because by Saturday we were pretty tired of walking around stores when I would only get mild contractions after walking for hours, and as soon as we stopped walking, they stopped. So I finally decided, to give up, and just enjoy my last few days relaxing, because no matter what I did, it was all going to end on Tuesday.
As the time got closer, I started to get pretty nervous. Nervous of labor (which was the pretty much my biggest worry about getting pregnant in the first place), nervous about the end of life as I knew it, and nervous that I was going to someone's mom. All of these reasons terrified me, but it was too late, I was going to have deal with all of these issues on Tuesday. If it weren't for the woes of late pregnancy, I would have considered canceling the induction, and just waiting for the inevitable.
But it turns out, our baby girl was going to come on her own, but just at the very last possible moment...
