Contractions Update

So I continued to have regular contractions throughout the whole morning. Around 6, I felt like they were just starting to being more "building" and significant, and I was having more pressure/sensation in my cervix. At 6:30, I finally admitted to a half-asleep James that I was having regular contractions (he definitely woke up quick)!

At 7/7:30 or so, he went down to get the computer and we started timing them again. They were generally coming every 2-4 mins and lasting 60-90 seconds. I was also having a lot of sciatica pain during this time (but not necessarily at the same time as a contraction). It was funny to be sitting there with James facing the possibility of being in labor. All I could think about was that my birth tub liner and my birth kit hadn't come yet.

"If this is labor," I said, "I just wish we were a LITTLE readier." James laughed at me.
"Seriously!"

However, as much as these contractions seemed by the book, I was a bit suspicious because while they had changed and become a bit more intense, they hadn't changed very much over the 4-5 hours I was observing them, and they still weren't painful. I was thinking of the marker of not being able to talk through a contraction--it wasn't anything like that for me. In fact, talking with James distracted me and made them seem even less intense and sometimes nearly unnoticeable.

We called our midwife soon after this and left her a message--then around 8:30 we texted her to ask if she'd gotten our message and told her I was having contractions (she called us right back after that)! James told her what was going on and she said that she was with another Mom in labor (out of town) and that false labor is really common for first time Moms. She advised us to stop paying attention to the contractions, don't time them, and do something distracting like watch a movie.

So James went to work and I started watching Notting Hill (I LOVE THAT MOVIE!!!). At 10:00 or so (in the middle of the movie), my exhaustion finally caught up to me and I fell asleep.

I awoke at nearly noon to James calling me. I was pretty pissed off at having been awakened.

"Are you having a contraction?" he asked.
"I don't know, I just woke up!" I complained.
"Okay, well, good, I'll talk to you later."

But then I was awake. So today has been . . . unproductive in any sense. The contractions haven't gotten any stronger, longer, or closer together. I was too tired to accomplish anything. I watched a lot of TV and attempted to post on I-Village but was mostly foiled by slow pages. Now it's 5:00 and I haven't made anything for dinner. ::sigh::

Hopefully tonight I won't have any issue sleeping. Tomorrow we have our home visit midwife appointment where we'll talk about the plan for the birth, I'll meet the backup midwife, and show everyone the house, bathroom, etc. I think I also have the Group B Strep test tomorrow (send me "testing negative" vibes!). Marilyn and Mariclare will be here since they are part of my birth team--Mariclare will be taking pictures and Marilyn will be videotaping and generally helping.

I think Mariclare will also be coming over earlier to take pregnancy pictures with me and James! I will have to post some of them on here.

Anyway, so maybe tomorrow I will get to see if I am dilated at all and we'll see what position the baby is in. I have a feeling he is once again transverse so I want to know for sure how he is laying so I can encourage him to go head down and engage and stick there.

So that's that. It's nearly time. Oh, and funnily enough, my birth kit arrived in the mail today! And my changing pad. So I'm a little "readier" now. ;-)