Come out!

When I was little we had a children's book about a deer that wanted a baby brother. Finally his mom was pregnant, and he dreamed about all the things he would teach his baby brother. One line from the book stands out in my mind when he goes up to his momma's belly and says, "Come out!" I have been saying that to my belly for over a week now.

It was my goal to make it to 38 weeks, and nearly one week later Tater Tot is still baking. I guess after being told 3 weeks ago that he had to wait, he's being spiteful and stubborn. I am SO ready to have him here, not only to stop having all this prodomal labor and all the "fun" things of being nearly 39 weeks pregnant, but because Nathan and I are ready to welcome this little guy into our lives. Hopefully it won't be long now, because we only have 9 days left until his due date.
This is a horrible picture, but seeing as I don't really get more "ready" for the day than this any more since I'm working from home, this is as good as it gets. We took this picture 2 days ago, so I was 38 weeks and 4 days pregnant--just about to pop.

Friday night I fell asleep in the recliner about 10 pm. Nathan woke me up at about 12:30 am to go upstairs to bed. As soon as I got up out of the chair, a massive contraction hit me. I was like, "great--this is going to be a long night." Boy was I right. Didn't fall back asleep until 1:45 am. Then woke up again at 3:17 am to some pretty good contractions happening every 15 minutes or so. I laid there timing them until 4:43 when I gave up and came downstairs. No point in trying to sleep through these. I was bored, tired, and didn't want to watch tv, so what did I do? I wrote 24 thank you notes that needed to be done for baby showers I've had in the last month. Once that was done, I was hungry, so I cooked myself a big waffle breakfast at 5:50 in the morning. Lola kept giving me the stink eye for keeping her up, that is until I shared a waffle with her.

Then at about 6:30 I was still bored and my back and hips were hurting. Contractions were about 12 minutes apart by this point. I decided to do some stretching on all fours, and while on the floor, decided that my carpet was so disgusting from the dogs so as long as I was on all fours, I may as well spot clean the carpet, and proceeded to do so for about an hour. Of course by then I had worked up a sweat, and decided that with contractions now at 10 minutes apart I'd better get a shower because who knew what the day would bring--maybe a baby? After a nice shower, I was exhausted, so I laid down in bed again and tried to sleep, having to toss and turn to get comfortable and never really finding comfort, but eventually drifting in and out of sleep by about 9 am. Sometime after that Nathan got up and I heard him getting ready for the day, but went back to sleep. I was so tired.

At 11 am Nathan broke the cardinal rule in the Smith household--NEVER wake a sleeping pregnant woman. He woke me to tell me he was heading 1 hour south to the trainer's place to visit Brody. It was one time I was glad he had woke me and not just left a note. He had no idea what my morning had been like. As soon as I told him, he decided against going, and that he'd better hang out at home just in case. Well, of course, I couldn't ever fall back asleep, and so I decided that getting up and moving around just might keep this labor going.

So I got ready for the day and we headed out to run errands at Wal-Mart and Target, and got some lunch where Nathan insisted that I eat good protien to keep up my strength (the ever-concerned husband). All this while contractions kept going and getting stronger and were about 7 minutes apart by late-afternoon. Nate wanted to head home at that point, but I was NOT going to go home and sit, so we continued to run errands. Our last stop was Costco at about 6:30 pm. We were in the store when a HUGE contraction hit me. I had to stop walking/talking, and I thought to myself, "Oh boy--this is it! This is REALLY going to happen!" We eventually got out of Costco in between contractions and in the car we started timing them again--5 minutes apart. Oh goody! So we get home and I'm contracting too much to want to eat dinner. The contractions keep up, so I decide I need to rest. I'm exhausted after such a long day. So I sit down for awhile, and they continue, but the intensity drops off. "Great--just great." By 8 pm I can barely keep my eyes open. My lower back is killing me and I'm tired of 5 minute contractions, so I take a warm bath to find some comfort. Of course, I find comfort, but the contractions nearly stop. What the?! I get up and go to bed about 9:30 at which point the contractions were barely noticeable. I eventually fell asleep about 11 pm, realizing that no baby was coming. At least not today. Humph!

Today? Nata. Just a few braxton hicks. This could quite possibly be because I slept until 10 am, got up and ate breakfast, and then went back to bed until 2:30 pm (of course having bathroom breaks every 90 minutes). I was so tired after yesterday's shenanigans. This kid is such a tease. And those two little words keep running through my mind--"Come out!"