Still Pregnant

I am still pregnant.

Plans for today include putting Moxa on my toe . . . this is a Chinese Medicinal herb practice in which a coal made of Moxa is lit and then the hot coal is put near an acupuncture point (and/or injury) to increase qi-flow to that area.

So there's this one point on the pinky toe of either foot that is connected to stimulating labor. We're doing that now--ie, I am sitting here writing this blog while James is holding the Moxa coal near my toe.

Other plans for the day include finishing raking the leaves in our yard (I'm so glad we are almost done, geez we have a lot of trees!), and then I'm going to mow the lawn on our riding mower (ie, take a long ride down a bumpy road, LOL). It has been broken for months and we just got it back and fixed, so I'll do the final mow of the season, which will also include blowing the final "spread out leaves" into piles so James can haul them into the tiny strip of woods we have that separates our yard from the neighbor's.

So those are all my "trying to get labor started" plans for the day.

And last but not least we'll go to buy a fishnet in case I give birth in the water and we need to skim the birth pool (LOL). We've been meaning to do this for ages but keep forgetting when we are out of the house.

In other news, it's been like 5 days now since I printed out the checklist and hung it on the fridge and it has definitely helped me be more productive--though I think I had a shift in the productive direction to have even typed it up and printed it in the first place, so maybe I was just ready to start being productive again, anyway.

But along with me using the list, I have also been trying to train James to use it--he responds really well to to-do lists but I want to make it more ingrained as a daily-use tool, so that when we are home for a month with a baby it will help him stay more focused and productive while I'm spending the majority of the time feeding the baby. Ideally, instead of me having to tell him what to do, he'll be able to look at the list and see what needs to be done. So I figure the more practice we can get in with it before Little James is born, the better off we'll be!

Finally, I have another "labor induction" acupuncture appointment on Tuesday--if I haven't gone into labor on my own by then. So, hopefully we'll have a baby by Thursday at the latest. Stay tuned!

Acupuncture!

So I had my first (and hopefully only) acupuncture appointment today for stimulating me to go into labor. God I think I was in the best mood ever when my friend Craig came in to needle me. He was like:

"So if you are still a week away from your due date, you might end up going a few days early if we do it today. Is that okay?"

"GOD, YES, IT IS AWESOME. DO IT. DO IT NOW." I said. And the look of eye-rolling joy that those caps conveys is a perfect vision of what I looked like in that moment. Picture those horses who look insane and their eyes are rolled back in their head and their mouth is hanging open. That was me.

"It should work pretty well since you are young and healthy and everything," he went on.

(YES AWESOME THANK YOU.) I was as freaking jovial as a kid on Christmas morning, and that is after only like 5 hours of sleep--easily half what I need to feel rested.

So now I'm guessing any time between tonight and Sunday. So probably the 10th-14th. That window is like half as big as my original 9th-18th one!

Anyway, if I'm still pregnant on my due date, I have another appointment then.

Thank You Acupuncture!!

As I've mentioned, I go to get weekly adjustments from a chiropractor, who also happens to be my good friend. Her partner, who is an acupuncturist, is also my good friend. Though I don't get acupuncture nearly as often, it is definitely useful for some things.

For instance, a few weeks ago when James David was still head up, I made an appointment for yesterday to get him to flip over. Craig (my friend) said that it was pointless trying to flip them sooner because they would just flip back. So I made the appointment just in case I got here and he was still head up.

Luckily, as we know, he is head down and engaged. The shooting pains down my inner thighs and my 2X per hour bathroom trips are evidence of that. (And, on happier notes, less heartburn and more ability to put on my own socks).

So when Craig walked into the room yesterday and said: "So what are we treating you for today?" at first I was like: "Uuuuhhh, I don't know! He's head down and engaged, so that's good, and it's not time for him to come out yet, so I don't need acupuncture for that yet . . . " Finally I ended up explaining about the back pain I have been having.

So he did his thing and I sat there with needles in one arm and one leg, wiggling my back from time to time, per his instruction, and I could actually feel things happening in there--a heat flowing through . . . afterwards, I went merrily on my way.

And you know? It helped SO MUCH!!! It isn't completely and totally gone, but last night was the first night in maybe a week that I didn't take Tylenol just so I could fall asleep. Over the last week or so, I've been asking James to rub it so hard and so often in this one spot that I think I have bruises now. Well last night I was able to let them heal because I needed minimal back rubbing as I fell asleep.

I am just SOOOO grateful. Especially since in the past, when I've had acupuncture, it usually takes a couple days before the treatment reaches its full effectiveness, so I'm hoping it will continue to be really manageable!!

I don't know why I sound so surprised. Acupuncture has done miraculous things for my back pain in the past. But usually back pain is supposed to be caused from blocked qi that is caught in your stiff muscles (according to chinese medicine), and I guess I figured since mine is caused from carrying a baby around in my uterus that he might be less able to help me. But I was so wrong. I could feel that qi getting unblocked as I sat there, hehehe!!

I am just so so happy, it's been pretty miserable the last couple of days.

I made another appointment for 3 weeks from yesterday (the day before I am 39 weeks), so I can get acupuncture to make the baby come on time. Craig has great success with inducing labor and said none of his patients have EVER gone more than 1 day past their due date. So I made that "Let's kick the baby out now" appointment.

But honestly if my back pain comes back I might just try to get acupuncture every week for that, because it helped SO much!!

THANK YOU CRAIG!!!

(Incidentally, Craig is the brother of my friend Steph who I just learned is pregnant . . . so he'll be an uncle in May!)