Pre-Labor (I hope) Update

So on Tuesday, my due date, I got acupuncture, and I definitely felt like it started something. Since then, I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions non-stop, and I'm pretty sure I lost my mucus plug or some bits of it over the last day or two. I've also been feeling increasing pressure on my cervix.

Last night I was desperate enough to try taking a long walk--I wanted to harness the power of these Braxton-Hicks! Plus, my Dad has been pushing the walking for a week now. So James and I went to UConn and I waddled around at top speed and raced up and down many sets of stairs. I will say that this had the effect of making the contractions I was having more painful. However, if we would stop for even a minute, they would stop being painful, and once I returned home, that was it. They might have been been painful because I was asking my poor abdominal muscles to hold up a 30 pound uterus while I jostled it all over.

Anyway, I couldn't fall asleep last night, partly because my back was hurting, and partly because I drank caffeinated tea all day yesterday. I eventually fell asleep on the couch watching Harry Potter 4 and with my ribs belted together.

And now it is Thursday the 18th--the last day of my prediction window that I felt was incredibly realistic. ::snort:: Anyway, honestly, if it wasn't for the acupuncture, I would have little hope of giving birth before 41 weeks. But my friend claims his patients are more or less "on time", within a couple of days.

So I have another acupuncture appointment today at 1pm and considering all the pre-laborish stuff I've been having for two days straight, I'm feeling good about the possibility of going into labor tonight. Please send little James all the evacuation vibes you can possibly spare!! ;-)

TMI: Losing my Mucous Plug?

If you are the squeamish sort, you can stop reading right now!

So for all you non-pregnant people, there is a wad of mucous that grows in your cervix during early pregnancy. It helps to protect the baby by sealing off the uterus from the "outside world", therefore preventing infection, water, etc, from getting inside the uterus while the baby calls it home.

Obviously this needs to come out sometime before the baby is born, and I think mine has started to. I have been having increased "discharge" for a WHILE now, but for the most part it has been very watery and clear. But since this "false labor" incident, I have increasingly had (mostly small) pieces of white/yellowish much thicker mucous resembling something nearly the consistency of undercooked egg whites. This morning I had kind of a LOT of it, but there is no blood in it at all yet, so I wouldn't call it "bloody show" (another awesome word for the fun aspects of pregnancy), and I have a feeling that this is actually a rather small amount of the mucous plug that I am seeing, even though it seems like a lot.

For people that have been pregnant before: does this sound like the mucous plug to you?

Traditionally, losing the mucous plug is supposed to somewhat correlate with the onset of labor. Meaning some people go into labor that day, others might go another week or two before they go into labor . . . but apparently if you lose the plug too early, your body will just regenerate a new one, so honestly it doesn't mean much.

My suspicion is that the more "productive" feeling contractions I was having the other morning did succeed in beginning to dilate and/or efface my cervix. I could almost feel this happening (and can still kind of feel interesting things happening down there) and that the mucous plug, therefore, is starting to come out. But I could still very well go right up to my due date--I'm not going to get too excited/worried yet because while it does mean something, it also doesn't really mean much.

But that is the fun things happening in my world right now! LOL.