40w3d

You know what's the worst part about going past your due date? The phone calls, e-mails, IMs, etc just "checking in," "wondering how you're doing," "any news/any changes?" I know they are well meaning but damn it's annoying. If there were any news, I think I'd have shared it. And since I haven't had the baby, what's there to talk about? I've never been interested in the sympathy people seem to want to bestow upon pregnant women and I'm even less interested in receiving any now. Maybe I'd feel different if I had had an actual difficult pregnancy, but since I haven't, it annoys me to have people cluck about how hard things are and how horrible I must be feeling, blah blah blah.

Still kind of running ... last week was down to 13 mpw. I would've liked to do 5 on Saturday, but stopped at 4. The baby is at zero station (the narrowest part of the pelvis aka "engaged") so it's understandably a little uncomfortable. I think the head is pressing on a nerve because my left leg has been bothering me more lately. I only ran 2 on Sunday because it was again uncomfortable - my hips/pelvis were bothering me along with braxton-hicks. I don't know how much I'll run this week. I ran 2 this morning, but it felt like crap. I'm sure part of that is that I didn't really sleep last night, so I felt like a slug anyway. I figure I'll just take it day by day - having run up to 40 weeks is a big enough accomplishment that I will not feel bad at all if I don't make it to the day of delivery.

On that note, I think I'm heading for an induction. At my appointment last week, I found out that I hadn't dilated at all in the two weeks since my last check. I'm more effaced and as I mentioned above, the baby has dropped. I am so confused about the lack of change for dilation - since all the internet advice suggests going for a long walk to get labor going, how am I not having any labor signs when I've been running (especially with the baby having dropped)?? I get to go into tomorrow for a biophysical profile - basically I get hooked up to the monitor for 20-30 minutes and they watch the baby's heart rate and then we get an ultrasound to check breathing and amniotic fluid (or something like that). I'm really hoping that they don't ruin the gender for us - I can't even begin to think about how extremely pissed off I will be if I find that out tomorrow after not knowing this whole time. If everything looks good, they'll let me go until next week before inducing. I'm allowed 10-14 days, and I did let them know last week that I want to wait the full 14 days if possible. Inductions scare me, because they all seem to go the same way: unbearable contractions from pitocin -> epidural -> slow or stalled progress = c-section. I don't even want a hep lock (IV access) so you might imagine how I feel about being hooked up to an IV. I'd like to hope the baby will decide to come out before it comes to that, but I'm not feeling very optimistic about that - other than the braxton-hicks while running, I haven't had anything resembling a contraction yet.

It's 43 degrees here today, which is amazing. I think I'm going to be really nice to my poor, sad dog and take her for a walk.