Ways to irritate a pregnant woman

I like to think I am a pretty non hormonal pregnant woman, at least I was the last few months. Lately, when someone looks at me I can feel my devil horns sticking out.

While (if you have ever met a pregnant woman) you know it's not hard to do a few keys things to irritate her. I want to compile a blog post so we can nip this in the bud and allow all pregnant women everywhere to enjoy the final weeks of their pregnancy. Some of these I know are felt universally by most pregnant women and some will only pertain to my life. Regardless don't break the cardinal sins of pregnancy etiquette.

1. do not call and ask "have you had the baby yet?"
 I can assure you when I do, someone will call you. This is especially true if you are a family member.

2.do not say "oh, I bet you must be miserable!"
Carrying around an extra person for the last 9 months has been a few things, but hearing that I am miserable and must be "dying for labor" is really annoying. Personally, I like having my son in my belly. NO amount of uncomfortableness will make me agree that I should just "be induced" out of convince.

3. do not tell me which days I can have him
Guess what? I am not in charge here. I can't work around your vacation, or work schedule, or when your dog is in a beauty pageant. The little guy floating in my belly is in charge, and he will come out when he is damn good and ready regardless of whether or not it fits into your schedule.

4. do not tell me "you should just be induced"
Um, women have been doing this for centuries. My body knows what my son needs and he knows when its time to gtfo. If he is still in there, he has a reason to be. Trust me.

5. dont blame things on the hormones
If you walk into my house and I am bawling on the floor, do NOT ask me if I am hormonal today. Simply hug me, say everything will be ok, and back away slowly. Only I can blame my raging hormones.

6. do not steal money out of my bank account
For the love of all things holy, we found a fake check on our bank account today. NOthing can be done about it till Monday. I am having this baby in two days (hopefully sooner), people. Do not make me go crazy on you.

7. Do not tell me about your L&D horror story
Oh hell no. Do not ever do this to a women who is less then a week from her due date. I do not want to hear about what part of your body hurt the worst, how many stitches you had, that your baby was born blue, or you comparing the pain to breaking 500 bones at once. I am well aware that something could go wrong, it's one of my greatest fears and bring up those fears repeatedly is not helping me.

8. when you think you have a witty pregnant comment, hold it in.
I have heard everything from "are you STILL pregnant?" to "you look like you swallowed a watermelon" I assure you that you are not funny. I know what I look like, thank you.

9. don't ask me if I am in labor yet.
If I stop walking because my kid headbutts my cervix, I can't breath due to the weight on my lungs, or I need a second to sit because I'm carrying around an extra 30 pounds, it does NOT mean I am in labor. It doesn't mean my water broke or that I am going to pop a baby out at any second. Don't ask, I can promise that you  will know if I am having serious contractions.

10. Everything is fine in moderation
I know everyone around me is excited. Hell I am so excited, but this is my daily life. I don't need one person calling every 3 hours to check on me. I don't want to sit around with my girlfriends and discuss the horribleness that is child birth, I do not want my money stolen and these are things people do on a daily basis (well not the money stolen part). I know there are good intentions behind each act though and I love all of my family, regardless. I also know this is my hormones trying to break free (but don't you dare blame them). Be patient with me and I will be patient with you.

40 weeks… Come on Walker!

40 weeks. I was never sure I would make it to this point.

I had my last doctors appointment today. I am still dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced. However, with my blood pressure still reaching mild hypertension my midwife decided it would be best to have him sooner rather then later. We go in Sunday at midnight to start cytotec and then they will break my water Monday morning.

While this is not the route I wanted to go (induction was never part of my plan), most importantly I will have a healthy baby in the end. Regardless of how he gets into the world, we are beyond ready to have him here.

The issue with an induction for me right now is being able to count down. I want labor to be this spontaneous "It time to go to the hospital" thing. If it wasn't for the high blood pressure I would be demanding that birth experience. Obviously, I need to make the best choice for both my baby and myself so we will be being induced (I will have my fingers crossed that I will go into labor on my own this weekend, but with the high blood pressure comes light bed rest. I'm not allowed to over exert myself.)

Here is my 40 week (and LAST) bump picture! I will take a picture on Sunday before we head to the hospital.

First trip to L&D

So I took my first trip to L&D tonight.

I woke up this morning with my right ankle swollen, it got worse throughout the day. Finally, I started googling it to see why only one of my ankles were swollen. Everything told me it was completely normal as long as I wasn't pitting (which is where you push on the swollen skin and leave an indention) well I was pitting. This is a sign of preeclampsia.

So I called the on call doctor at my hospital and she told me to check my blood pressure and if it was high to head into labor and delivery. Unfortunately, I don't have a way to check my blood pressure at home, so I went up to Wal-mart to have it checked (on call doctor told me this was fine). I checked it three time. All three times it was in the extremely high category, the lowest being 163/105

So we went to L&D, the nurse there was a complete and total grump. She lectured me about how dumb I was for thinking this could be anything other then just normal pregnancy symptoms. She accused me of trying to get myself induced because I didn't want to be pregnant anymore (100% not true, everyone knows how terrified I am of being induced). She told me it was clearly because I was trying to hard to have the baby (this is after I told her I had slept all day). Oh, also that Wal-marts machines are crap and I should have never taken my blood pressure there (again, on call doctor told me to go there to take it). She checked my blood pressure and it was back down to normal. I was SO relieved. The last thing I want is preeclampsia. I want my son to come when he is ready. I am still really pissed at how dumb the nurse made me feel though(even though the on call doctor TOLD me to come in).

39 weeks and a minor freak out

I have come to the conclusion that I am going to be pregnant forever.

Realistically, I know that I am only 39 weeks pregnant. I don't even have room to start complaining yet.   Honestly, I don't even know if I am 100% ready for labor. The idea is still really scary.

So, according to my charting skills my due date should be Oct. 23rd, my midwife wants to go off my last period date which makes my due date Oct. 21st. When we decided this at the beginning of my pregnancy, I thought "no biggie. It's only 2 days." Boy, was I wrong. Now that I am sitting at 39 weeks 1 day (39 weeks 3 days to her) the idea of an induction start looming over my head.

I.am.terrified.

At todays appointment, I was still 2 cm dilated, 70% effaced. I have had contractions all week and they have done nothing to help move this process along. I am feeling discouraged, beaten down, and downright irritated with my body.

I do not under any circumstances want to be induced. Those two days could make a lot of difference now! My midwife wants to induce me at 41 weeks. That is a week from Monday on here calendar. A WEEK AND A HALF. Sorry for the caps, but I am serious having a panic attack.

So I have a week and a half to get this child out. I turned to the internet for natural ways to induce labor. Here is the gist of what I found:
-sex
-walking
-castor oil (no, just no)
-red raspberry leaf tea
-Evening prim rose oil
-bouncing on a ball
-climbing stairs
-spicy food

Well, starting today I am on a mission to evict baby Walker as nicely as possible. I have been taking the prim rose oil for 2 weeks now and bouncing on a ball. A friend of mine gave me a recipe for a labor cake. I will make a post about that tomorrow, when I make it (I think it deserves it's own post).

It's not that I don't want Walker to bake for as long as possible, believe me I do. I want a healthy strong little boy. I just can't imagine having to be induced and I don't want to lose out on precious time just to be told next week that I am still 2cm and 70% effaced.

Also, I am well aware that those checks mean nothing. I can still go into labor tonight. However, I need to be proactive about this. I need to feel like I am helping my situation along and doing everything in my power to prevent being induced. It's okay to call me a control freak, I know I am one. As a matter of fact I can't stand that I don't know what day he is gonna be born on. That is entirely the control freak in me.

Do you know of a natural way to induce labor that I haven't listed? I would love to hear it!

Tomorrow starts operation outside baby. Wish me luck!

Possible last belly pic? Lets hope so!

I am sick...

This is a vent post. 

I am sick of people telling me when I can have this baby. 

I am sick of being told that I am dumb for not wanting an epidural.

I am sick of having my parenting techniques questioned. 

I am sick of being judged based off my birth plan.

I am sick of being uncomfortable when it comes time to fall asleep.

I am sick of feeling like an impatient person just waiting for something to happen.

I am sick of feel anxious.

I am sick of being nervous.

I feel like I am hitting a brick wall repeatedly

I am sick of feeling any of this

I am ready to be a mom. 

38 weeks

I am so behind on this weeks update.

I am 38 weeks and 4 days right now. Contractions are almost a daily thing at this point. We are trying to get little man to come whenever he is ready. At my doctors appointment I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. We joked about me having the baby this weekend, clearly that isn't going to happen.

I am still on the fence about wanting him here. I want him here, but at the same time I like having him right below my heart. I can't imagine a safer place for him. I am also terrified of all the things that come along with becoming a mother. I can't wait to hold my baby boy, but I am in no rush to force him out.

This weekend was also the OU vs Texas game. OU was favored to win by 14 points, yet the unthinkable happened. We lose to the longhorn 36-20. I don't do well with my team losing, and I am still a little bitter about it. I think it's because I didn't wear an OU shirt yesterday (none of them fit me, next child I will be investing in an OU maternity shirt).

At this point, I am going to guess there will be a week 39 photo. We have decided to not induce until 41 weeks, so a little over 2 weeks tops!

37 weeks

Woah. Full term... FULL TERM! How is that even possible? There is no way I have been pregnant for over 9 months.

I have been the luckiest pregnant women in the world, I swear. I never got morning sickness, I never felt uncomfortable. I haven't taken any trips to L&D or had any unexplained bleeding. Everything has been absolutely perfect and as if I could as for anything else, I still enjoy being pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I am dying to meet my son. I can't wait to physically hold him in my arms, but I am enjoying having him roll around inside of me. I am aware that I will never get this time back and I refuse to wish it away.

We had our weekly doctor appointment yesterday. Everything checked out and unfortunately there has been no change since last week. I am increasing my dosage of evening primrose oil and picking up the walking a bit. It's not that I want to get him out fast, I just want to avoid being induced. If I can convince him to start showing a few more signs that he plans to come sometime in the next three weeks, I will leave him alone to cook as long as he wants.

We are very fortunate that Ben has managed to save up some vacation days. He will stay home with us for a week after we deliver. I am so glad he gets to spend some one on one time with Walker as well. I know he is jealous that I get to stay home with him for the next year. I am making it my mission that he feels as included as I can make him in everything we do at home. Ben has been working serious amounts of overtime lately to ensure that we will have everything we need for a few weeks once little man is here. I really don't think I tell him enough how much we appreciate the things he does for this family. He really is the rock that holds everything together.

As for everything else, I have the Tulsa Zoo Run tomorrow. We (best friend and I) are only doing the one mile fun run, but being as pregnant as I am (and the high is only 64 tomorrow!) I don't want to over do it. I am really excited about it though. I think we will have a blast.

I am still thinking Walker will be born on the 19th. I don't know why, but that date sticks in my head. I was right about his gender so maybe mommy intuition won't fail me this time either ;)

Countdown to baby!

Tomorrow marks 37 weeks! 21 days till Walker is due!

I have Walker's bag all packed and ready to go, and the car seat is installed in my car. Now I just need one more thing....

my hospital bag.

Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion, but I won't pack  my hospital bag. Everyday I wake up thinking "Today, I will finally pack it!" Never happens. After two weeks with many failed attempts, I have given this some thought.

I don't want to pack my hospital bag because that is the final step. We are completely ready for baby boy in every way. We have all the necessities and I can't wait to meet him, but I am terrified.

I am scared of labor, meeting  him and not feeling that instant connection, and not being able to be the mother I have built up in my mind. Once I pack my hospital bag, it means it go time. I'm just not ready for that step. I am well aware that I could go into labor at any point, but I still feel secure in knowing that I haven't and probably won't at least for a few more weeks.

I know he will come regardless of whether or not I have a hospital bag, but this is the only sense of control that I have. I can't control when he will be born or how he will be born, but I can control when I pack my hospital bag. For a control freak like me, that is enough for now.