Pregnancy Update - 38 Weeks

We've had a somewhat eventful last few days but as of the moment, baby Ava still has not made her appearance. On Saturday, we went up to the mountains to do a little hiking and have a picnic (we saw two moose!!) and on our drive back, I started having a lot of contractions. As we made it back home, I started thinking that this could be it because the contractions were getting pretty close together and I was having back pain as well. Well this could have been really exciting except that the only two days that we didn't have ANYONE to watch Jayden was Saturday and Sunday so this was actually highly inconvenient! We were just completely baffled about what to do because we really didn't want to have to take Jayden to the hospital with us but we just couldn't think of what else to do. 


Our biggest concern was not leaving him with someone that he wasn't already at least a little familiar with. Most of our friends were either out of town or their husbands were out of town and since they have kids, they wouldn't be able to come watch our kid. Well thankfully we thought of calling Jayden's daycare and told them what was going on and asked them if they could call Jayden's daycare teacher who I really like (and I know is single and doesn't have kids of her own) to see if maybe she could come over and watch Jayden. Blessings of all blessings, she was willing to come and sounded more than happy to be of assistance to us! We ended up going to the hospital about 7pm even though I still felt ok other than just having a lot of contractions that were close together. They weren't hurting but we didn't want to wait any longer and have to call someone in the middle of the night so we felt it would be best to just go and get everything checked out. At this point we had also called DJ's parents and they were headed to Laramie to stay with Jayden but they wouldn't get to our house until well after Jayden was asleep. Jayden's teacher came over and by the time we left to go to the hospital, he was so excited to have her sole attention that he barely even noticed that we left. We felt sooo relieved that his teacher was able to come over and Jayden was so happy to have her there.


When we got to the hospital and got all checked in, including changing into a horrible hospital gown (those are the worst things ever!), they checked me and I had only progressed 1 cm since my appointment on Tuesday, regardless of the fact that I had been having consistent contractions for about 7 hours at that point. The nurse was skeptical that it was active labor since I should have progressed a lot more after having contractions for that long. So at that point I was 4 cm dilated, 80% effaced and it was 8:30pm. The nurse suggested that we walk for a couple of hours and see if that did anything to get things going quicker. And, boy oh boy, it definitely made me have more contractions (read: 2 minutes apart with contractions lasting well over a minute) but it got to be so painful to walk, that I decided to sit on the birthing ball for awhile and the contractions almost immediately slowed down. By the time they checked me again, I had only progressed a half of a centimeter and I was exhausted. I felt like walking was definitely the thing to do to keep things going but I was dead on my feet and could barely keep myself upright, let alone what would happen if I got to the point of having to push. I knew I would never have the energy to do that and I would be miserable. I did not want to remember Ava's birth that way. On the other hand, having contractions so close together and that were painful by that point, it seemed crazy to go home and not know when to come back; we really didn't want to have the baby at home or in the car! So we finally decided that I would stay overnight and that way if the contractions continued to get stronger, we wouldn't need to deliberate about when to come back to the hospital. Unfortunately, even though it was hard to go to sleep initially because of the contractions, I slept in spurts until finally I noticed that I was sleeping pretty good because the contractions had stopped!


The doctor came in the next morning about 6:30am, checked me again, and I had not progressed at all. So we all agreed I should go home and wait it out where I would be much more comfortable. It was so crazy because we went from thinking that we would have a baby by the morning to leaving the hospital still pregnant and completely clueless about when our baby girl would arrive! So it's been two days since I left the hospital, DJ's parents left yesterday and I am still having tons of contractions. Every baby and pregnancy truly is so different. Here I am 4 cm dilated, contracting constantly and having my patience tested because days keep passing and still no baby. Craziness!


I have noticed some additional changes in my body since Sunday so I know she'll be coming soon, but how soon??? NO CLUE! One good thing about our "test run" though is I realized that there were a few things I didn't consider bringing to the hospital that I really wished I would have had so we're just more prepared now then we were before the weekend!