Andy and I really needed the eleven plus days off of work. We enjoyed the heck out of our kids and reveled in the lack of schedule and commitments. In all honestly, I am surprised my adventure-seeking husband didn’t get cabin fever because, well, we were in the cabin (cabin being our home) a lot. It was great.

There was a pretty big sucky part to the time though, actually two pretty big sucky parts but the second one was planned. Before I go into more detail let me warn you that this is a TMI post so if you don’t want to look at us differently because you know some intimate medical information, please stop reading now. Don’t worry, its nothing too crazy but I always want to error on the side of warning you.

Okay, you are still reading, so considered yourself warned.

His response was first of all to drink a lot of water. As I am starting to exercise, it makes sense I am burning through even more water than my body is already utilizing for breastfeeding so if I want to maintain healthy breastfeeding that will be key. Point taken…I do plan on hydrating myself as I am typically very bad about this.

He also mentioned that producing 1 cup (8 fluid ounces) of breast milk requires the same amount of calories as running a competitive 10K.

Wow! I have ready varying numbers of calories burned while breastfeeding so this was a surprise to me.

He said breaking down my food and water and then repurposing it into breast milk is the highest caloric expenditure my body is capable of doing.

Again surprising and I have to say I am not sure I believe it, but it would be very cool if it is true.

His advice is to do light exercise but focus on breastfeeding. If I don’t want to go to the gym, pump in between feedings to produce more breast milk and run even more competitive 10Ks a day.

So that’s the bad. The three good takeaways from this weekend are:

1) I had my stitches removed on Friday which also removed all of the uncomfortable itchiness I was experiencing. Apparently the stitches the pinch hitter doc used to sew me up after labor were quite wirey and probably would not have dissolved for a long time which causes me to wonder WHY AND THE HELL THEY WERE USED but whatever, it’s over.

2) We have still been able to spend a lot of time with Chrissy and Andy’s family which has been a lot of fun.

3) Any uncomfortableness around discussing boobs with any member of Andy’s family is now gone and it has been fully exonerated from the list of awkward conversation topics. Then again, with his family I am not sure that there are many things left on that list.

The contractions went on for literally hours at an insane intensity. At some point, my legs were completely numb and I felt like a helpless beached whale. Each time they moved me from side to side, I implored them to be careful with my legs as if they had never done this before. My cervix was not thinning and dialating as fast as they thought it would/should so at some point, they called the doctor and he recommended they give me some pitocin.

I questioned this logic. Like the breaking of my water, why did I need pitocin if my contractions were already crazy off the charts? The nurses kind of agreed so they said they would put it on the smallest dose available. Again, I felt I had somehow signed away my ability to make decisions regarding my birth process and gave in, not knowing if I even had an option not to comply.

I honestly don’t know that the pitocin did anything because the contractions continued like before, crazy close and off the chart. I have heard others talk about watching the contractions on the monitor and finding some humor in the fact that they could not feel them but I cannot say I was as light-hearted about the process. The one good thing (okay, two if you count the fact that I was not in pain) about the epidural was that it allowed me to get some much needed rest. Since we had not slept much the night before and since it was now looking like Saturday night was going to be long as well, I knew I needed to sleep. So I did and Andy said I appeared to be doing so quite peacefully.

When I wasn’t sleeping, there wasn’t much else I could do. They wouldn’t let me eat even though I was starving, which I understand since especially in the case of a VBAC, there is a risk of it turning to a c-section which I would not want food in my stomach for. I drank some soda and juices and it gave me the worse heartburn. I longed for an Oreo milkshake!

I tried not to wake Andy up, but he heard me use the bathroom at which time we both found ourselves awake until about 3:30am when I had said for the hundredth time, I just don’t know if these are contractions or not. Andy said that everything we had learned in class said that I should “know” if they were the real thing and meanwhile fired up his Droid tablet and started researching what contractions should feel like. After the description of “true” constractions was read, it was clear I was not experiencing that. He next read the descriptions of pre-labor and Braxton Hicks (false labor) contractions and I was quick to dismiss that I couldn’t be having JUST Braxton Hicks contractions. To test it, the Droid recommended drinking a glass of water and then trying to sleep. I upped the ante and drank a full glass of water AND ate half of a honeydew mellon (the ones we bought at Costco last weekend are to.die.for) and sure enough, fell asleep and slept until morning.

How embarrassing. I am a 33-year old woman who has been through plenty of hours of child birthing education and I didn’t even recognize Braxton Hicks contractions. I felt bad for causing us to lose sleep on the last few nights when we might actually be able to get decent sleep.

This morning I had my doctor’s visit. The urine and blood pressure tests were great. Baby’s heart rate is perfect. I am measuring at 37 centimeters which at first concerned me (should be 38.5cm, corresponding to the number of weeks pregnant), but the doctor said this could be explained by the fact that the baby has dropped. He “checked” me and said I was 1.5-2cm which surprised me because I thought surely I had progressed with my mucus plug loss and such but he said not to worry. I actually thought he forgot to “strip my membranes” when he was checking me for dilation because it really didn’t feel any more painful than last week’s checking but it turns out he had done the deed. It was fast. Not painless but not horrible. He said many women say it is the most painful thing they have ever experienced so perhaps my membranes are less sticky or something. Don’t you just picture membranes being sticky and buggers to strip? My mental image is my own internal version of seaweed stuck to coral, but that is probably totally off.

Anyway, so…labor could still be some time from now. Or it could be tonight. It is hard to say. I have another appointment Friday to strip membranes again as apparently it can sometimes take a couple of times to get things moving.

Time has passed since I originally started this post. On my drive out to Eagle for investment club I realized that the tightening I have been experiencing probably are contractions. I recall my doctor saying some time ago that a belly having a contraction feels like you are touching your forehead whereas a belly not having a contraction is more like the firmness of your lips. This is pretty accurate although (TMI) I would compare the contracted belly to a hard penis instead. They do not hurt yet, but I suppose if these really are contractions, that will come with time.

A couple of other things I notice is a really sensitive scalp which usually lets me know hormones are a-ragin’ and a need to use the bathroom a lot. I think my body wants the waste out of my system quickly…another sign labor could be imminent.

There is a good possibility that my birth story started today and it started with donuts. More on that later so stay tuned. Tomorrow should be exciting…or maybe just another false alarm.

I describe this only because I warned you this post was TMI, but it basically looked like a really snotty farmer blow. I know, gross, but really not that bad. I actually think the other words used to describe the losing of the mucus plug, “bloody show” sound grosser than the actual mucus plug itself.

A little while later, I snapped out of my extreme tiredness and started to feel like my normal 38 weeks pregnant self. While it was nice to feel better, I was kind of hoping for a rapid transition into early labor.

From the limited research I have done, people go into labor anywhere from hours to a couple of weeks after they lose their mucus plug…so while this is progress, especially since I never lost it with Belén (she was born by planned c-section at 39 weeks), I still may have a ways to go.

We have a piper down. I repeat, a piper is down.

Damn, I love that movie. And if you don’t know what movie I am talking about, this is one of the 84 awesome quotes from only the best movie ever, So I Married an Axe Murderer.

If you have not seen this movie, you now know what you are doing this weekend. I am not exaggerating that if you drop all of your weekend plans and instead watch this movie over and over again until you know at least the top 20 best lines, you will not regret it.

Speaking of, I think I know what I am going to do tomorrow since this gorgeous weather we have been having is supposed to turn to shit (BTW, I am cussing more and more as my due date approaches so you have been duly warned). Boo! It has been far too long since I watched So I Married an Axe Murderer AND I have yet to expose Miss Belén to the movie, so it’s a date.

I don’t really know why I am going on about SIMAAM tonight except that when I thought about the word “down” the piper quote was naturally the first thing that came to mind.

What is all this about down? Well…if you follow me on Twitter or are a friend on Facebook, this is old news, but Miss Eloise has decided to go head down again. Yay, Woohoo, Yippee, right!? I will come back to that.

I had my day before the 36th week appointment OB check-up today where doctor was out of town. Oh and not only is he out of town, but his wife who is also a doctor in the same practice is out of town. And it turns out every doctor in the entire practice save ONE is out of town for spring break, so let’s hope to heck I don’t go into labor. The dude who is around is probably so sick and tired of delivering babies for patients who are not his, he would likely join in the hypnobirthing and not snap out of it to catch Eloise.

And all of a sudden, the end is in view! For some reason, 34 weeks seems to me like I am quite suddenly almost done with this pregnancy thing. Not that this could have possibly happened suddenly…this incredibly gradual, LONG process of baby cooking. But for SO long it felt like I had SO long to go and then now, I am looking at less than six weeks. Since my 34thweek started Saturday, I am technically only 34.5 weeks which makes it even sooner.

Five and a half weeks to mentally prepare myself for child birth.

Five and a half weeks to wrap up everything at work.

Five and a half weeks to make sure every last thing Miss Eloise is going to need has been purchased.

Five and a half weeks to dust off and re-sterilize the bottles and breast pump shields.

Five and a half weeks to finish my nesting rampage.

Five and a half weeks to buy and populate a baby book.

Five and a half weeks to make a birthing playlist.

Five and a half weeks to do everything else I wanted to do before we have the baby (plant a garden, clean the fireplace, straighten the cupboards in the kitchen.)

Five and a half weeks to mentally prepare for having TWO kids one of which will be sucking and crying and sleeping constantly for awhile.

Five and a half weeks to get as caught up on sleep as we are going to be for a LONG damn time.

Five and a half weeks of water, milk or non-alcoholic beer as beverage choices.

Five and a half weeks to learn how to relax enough to give birth naturally, without drugs.

Five and a half weeks of pregnancy.

Period.

Forever.

I can’t believe it.

That’s another third trimester difference for me. Heart burn. Add to that, being more tired, yet waking up in the middle of the night to pee and not being able to get back to sleep (guess what time I am writing this blog post? Answer = 4am.)

It’s harder and harder for me to do household chores (thanks to Andy for stepping up and picking up the slack!), pick up and/or fight our precious toddler when she doesn’t want to do something, walk up flights of stairs without being winded and carry things at all. I generally defer to Andy or anyone in the general vicinity who is willing to change B’s diapers, give her a bath, brush her teeth or lift her into the highchair. I still cannot give up putting her to bed even though our nighttime routine involves me standing and swaying with her through two songs of her light-up seahorse and then lifting her into the crib. She slept in her big girl bed Thursday night for the first time, which I hope continues because I am pretty sure I let out a grunt each time I have to lift her into her crib.

I make that same grunt when I bend over to pick something up. I need to start working on my quad muscles and grand-plié it when I bending down is required. My body hasn’t fully reached to the point where it recognizes it’s limitations and is still trying to power through tasks in the fashion it was used to.

A last noteworthy change, Three Words: African Tribal Boobs. They are back. If I do not wear a bra and a sturdy one at that, the suckers prop themselves up on my belly…how attractive is that? I finally had to breakdown and buy a $45 Victoria’s Secret super supportive big girl bra last weekend and boy has it ever been nice. It is even a cup size larger than the last pregnancy which I don’t quite fill out yet but I suspect breastfeeding will fix that. And no that wasn’t in the budget. January is turning into a bust for our budget plan, but some things you just gotta give in for and African Tribal Boobs is one of them.