Project Mini-Me Phase 2 is Complete

(For the record, I went into labor two hours after I left the acupuncture appointment.)

Due

Today is one of my two due dates - the one calculated from charting when I ovulated. I decided to hedge my bets by adding acupuncture to my repertoire of things that will encourage labor. I have had no experience with acupuncture in the past, but got a good referral from one of the midwives and had my first appointment this morning. Wasn't uncomfortable, and I especially liked the guided visualization she put on for me to listen to while I stewed with the needles in me. The plan is to schedule three appointments, assuming I need them all, within a week.

I have been having contractions randomly for the last few weeks, with no big sign that things are ramping up but everything pointing in the right direction. Not too anxious about it - pretty confident things will get going before midwives start talking about inducing me. In the meantime I am distracting myself with projects around the house and a few hours a day in my glass studio.

Libra Territory

I thought it might be nice to have another Virgo in the family, so we could achieve majority vote, but it is official that our little one will be a Libra:

Libra is the only inanimate sign of the zodiac, all the others representing either humans or animals. Many modern astrologers regard it as the most desirable of zodiacal types because it represents the zenith of the year, the high point of the seasons, when the harvest of all the hard work of the spring is reaped.

There is a mellowness and sense of relaxation in the air as mankind enjoys the last of the summer sun and the fruits of his toil. Librans too are among the most civilized of the twelve zodiacal characters and are often good looking. They have elegance, charm and good taste, are naturally kind, very gentle, and lovers of beauty, harmony (both in music and social living) and the pleasures that these bring.

They have good critical faculty and are able to stand back and look impartially at matters which call for an impartial judgment to be made on them. But they do not tolerate argument from anyone who challenges their opinions, for once they have reached a conclusion, its truth seems to them self-evident; and among their faults is an impatience of criticism and a greed for approval. But their characters are on the whole balanced, diplomatic and even tempered.
Librans are sensitive to the needs of others and have the gift, sometimes to an almost psychic extent, of understanding the emotional needs of their companions and meeting them with their own innate optimism - they are the kind of people of whom it is said, "They always make you feel better for having been with them." They are very social human beings. They loathe cruelty, viciousness and vulgarity and detest conflict between people, so they do their best to cooperate and compromise with everyone around them, and their ideal for their own circle and for society as a whole is unity.

Maybe my body's so used to being pregnant that it will forget to go into labor?

What would Emily say?

I would like to have an Emily the Midwife action figure to bring home with me - I always come away from my appointments with her feeling much more upbeat and less anxious about anything to do with pregnancy. My impatience about the continuation of pregnancy and lack of labor/baby gets dissolved enough to last me through the next week.

She confirmed that everything is going well, reinforced that edema is *not* a symptom of pre-eclampsia, that all the lab work etc shows I do *not* have pre-eclampsia anyway. She reminded me that swollen feet are normal at this stage in a pregnancy, that I don't have to stay off my feet if I don't want to, and advised me to stop taking my blood pressure at home, but "for god's sake if you're going to use that blood pressure wrist cuff take your readings lying down with your arm at your side." She said my husband can drink two liters of water a day if it makes him feel good but I should only drink when I'm thirsty.

Yesterday I had a huge burst of energy after my appointment, made two ginormous batches of soup (for which there is no room in the freezer), did an hour of yardwork, laundry, dishes, etc. Didn't even feel that tired at the end of the day, though I got a good night's sleep. Wonder if that was that burst of pre-labor energy people talk about, or just an extra good version of a Good Day.

Kitty gets it

The cat, who has been snubbing me in favor my husband for the last few weeks, did a bizarre and adorable thing last night. I was curled up in bed, and she crawled under the covers, crept right up the base of my belly where the baby's head was, and started doing little cat kisses on my bare belly. Baby was moving around a lot so I was a little afraid that the cat would be alarmed and attack, but it all turned out well and I was left with a warm fuzzy feeling that our new family would get along ok.

Division of labor

My husband and I had a very good talk a few nights ago about our experiences at the hospital. He readily agreed to be the "unconditional support cheerleader" and let the medical pros be in charge of telling what is going wrong. I also had a talk with our doula about it, to make clear that we will have a happier marriage and a better birth experience if we can count on her to be the project manager so my husband can let that part of the labor/birth/hospital experience go. So we done good, and I feel much better about the whole adventure.

I had a lovely day yesterday, complete with double-helpings of ice cream and a nice walk on the beach, and by evening I had swollen feet and hands, a headache, and high blood pressure readings. So I got an unexpected tour of the Labor and Delivery department at the hospital last night.

Before I went in, the doctor told us on the phone that best-case scenario was they did a couple of readings, ruled out pre-eclampsia, and sent me home. Worst case scenario was that they determined I did have pre-eclampsia (which could really screw up my liver permanently) and they would have to induce labor. Fortunately, I fell into the best-case scenario category, and was on my way out the door an hour later.

For most of the time I was there, I had four monitors on me: one reading the baby's heartbeat (which was generally 130-150 bpm, right where it should be), one monitoring contractions (still not sure how this monitor worked - it showed contractions and coughs but not deep breaths - the nurse kept saying it just measured my belly moving in and out but there must be more to it than that), a finger cuff checking my O2 saturation and a blood pressure cuff. Three good BP readings and a urine sample later, I was sent home. I am having contractions about three minutes apart, but since they aren't all strong enough for me to feel, they don't count as real labor contractions.

My husband says he thinks I will miss some early signs of labor because I am pretty well conditioned and may not have discomfort with contractions that would hurt otherwise/other people. We'll see - certainly I wouldn't mind missing out on a few hours of discomfort.

The frustrating thing about the whole experience is that husband, and through him, our doula, got hung up on the idea that our little escapade last night was due to my not drinking enough water during the day, so I felt lectured, blamed, defensive, and eventually angry. Told husband in a few ways that I needed the gentle sweet unconditionally supportive side of him, but didn't get it. Project for the next few days: to get this message across now that we aren't as stressed with the experience of being anxious at the hospital.

And to top it off, my parents are in town today. I am heading to the hotel to pick them up now; not looking forward to being fussed over, but hey, Mom offered to make a few chicken pot pies for the freezer, which I think is nifty.

Watched Pot

Thank goodness for caller ID. My mother-in-law has been calling every few days to ask "if there's news" and talk about nothing in particular, and it's making me a little nuts. Today I got calls from both my mother-in-law and my mother within an hour, both asking if I was still pregnant. This will get tiresome if it goes on for another four weeks!

Bras

I hardly ever wore bras before I got pregnant, but by about five months it was positively indecent, and I struggled to find something that fit properly. This was complicated by the fact that I was having a lot of rib pain, which made anything tight across the ribs unbearable - prickly nervy itchy type pain that drove me crazy. I was complaining to a well-endowed friend about how uncomfortable I was, and she sort of rolled her eyes and commented that most women had to learn to tolerate the discomfort of wearing bras sometime in high school, that I had gotten off lucky to have had an extra twenty years without them.

Before I got pregnant I wore a 34A. The bra that fit me best in June was a 42NB (which stands for "nearly B", as I learned). I went to a pro this week to get fitted for a nursing bra, and I was a 36B. This means that my rib cage expanded EIGHT INCHES when I was carrying the baby high, and in the last three weeks as she's dropped my rib cage has contracted SIX INCHES. Also my rib pain has almost completely subsided, much to my relief.

I got a polka-dot nursing bra, even though it's a little silly looking - babies like looking at black and white contrast patterns in their first six months of life, so maybe it'll keep her interested when she's nursing. Then again, maybe she will start associating me with a Holstein cow...

I feel like Jabba the Hutt

The pre-pregnancy rules still apply: shower before noon, plenty of fruit for breakfast, and getting out of the house at least once in a day makes me a happier human being.

Things I tell the baby every day

Now that we are full-term, I've started telling the baby at least once a day:

• We can't wait to meet you! We are so excited to be your parents.
• Things are all ready and it's safe for you to arrive whenever you want.
• We are going to have so much fun together.

We met with our doula today, who gave me a CD to listen to, the second track of which is labeled: "Do not listen to Track 2 unless you are at least two weeks within your due date!" I'm going to check it out tonight. Wouldn't mind a little magic to get the ball rolling, although I know it's not really up to me at this point, the Little One is calling the shots....

Back to "Normal"

After a rough time Friday and Saturday (going out in a crowd of people was overstimulating and exhausting) and a day of house projects and a quiet restaurant Sunday, I am feeling more like myself again. Earlier in the weekend I likened the difficult phase to that of a pregnant cat starting to look for her dark shoebox in the corner of the basement.

In the classes we've taken, we've been told that one of the things we humans do to make labor more difficult is overthink things. Women tend to do better when they are able to be more primal, less left-brained. I feel like I got a taste of that when I was having these emotional ups and downs and irrational anxieties. In labor, I will have to trust husband and doula a lot in order to get past my analytical side.

Jumpy

In the past three months or so, I've had these little mini-panic attacks that come and go in a matter of seconds. Talked about it with the therapists, with husband, and concluded that they seem to be purely physiological, probably related to lack of oxygen as I started having more trouble breathing. Last week I noticed that they tended to happen when we were out to dinner, so my new theory is that it's a blood sugar thing.

Yesterday I experienced an entirely new kind of anxiety that was a little more alarming. Baby started moving in a new way - for four weeks she's been head-down-to-the-left, butt-up-on-the-right, and all of a sudden with a mighty thump and a few painful seconds of rib jabs, she was mirror image, and then she started rotating again and stopped with her butt square in the middle of my rib cage. This was the beginning of my feeling disturbed - I stopped what I was doing and napped on my left side with kitty for a few hours, and when I woke up, I felt scared to leave the house and desperate for my husband to come home. So I spent the next four hours pacing the house waiting for J to get back from the airport. Felt much better after an evening of cuddling and company, and woke up this morning (after eight hours of sleep - imagine that!) with baby back to butt-on-the-right and seemingly settled.

Called therapist to ask about hypnotherapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques to get me through the next few weeks, as I can't expect my husband to escort me every time I leave the house... but still glad we have a nice three-day weekend together in the meantime.