nothin'

According to my June 12th due date (and I write that to remind myself that my original due date was a week later), I'm 39 weeks and 1 day today. But at my doctor's appointment this morning I was told I've made absolutely no progress in the dilation department. I'm trying to keep in mind that there are plenty of women who walk around for weeks at 1 or 2 cm and vice versa, I'm sure, women who are told their babies are making no signs of coming out any time soon and then begin having contractions that day. But, I have to admit, it's hard not to feel a little discouraged.

Physically, I'm still feeling pretty good. I've been a lot better about walking and doing yoga this week (I think a combination of boredom and wishful thinking that labor would start early led to a couple of weeks without doing yoga), which seems to be helping with the hip pain, allowing me to sleep better and longer at night. I still have a hard time falling back to sleep after I wake up the second time, usually around 5 a.m., but the two 3-hour shifts before that have been much better.

So I guess I shouldn't complain or feel too terribly impatient. It's just the strangest experience to be waiting for something that you know will happen, but not exactly when. It could happen today...or it might be another couple of weeks. And in the meantime, while I have a long list of things I should and would normally love to work on, I have just one thing on my mind. When will labor begin, what will it feel like, just how painful will it be, will my doctor be on call that day, what will I want to have with me at the hospital, what kind of music will I want to listen to, will I snap at my husband if he tries to give me a massage, what if I ate a burrito the day before, what will my baby look like, will we establish a good latch, etc. Okay, one multi-faceted thing, but you get the idea.

So I've scheduled a few things for next week and even have a meeting to go to on Friday after my next doctor's appointment, when I'll be officially (again, according to that June 12th due date) overdue. Fortunately, we'll probably have Thai food at the meeting, so if I haven't gone into labor by then, maybe the spicy food will do the trick, especially in combination with the raspberry tea I'm drinking, the stairs I've been walking, the ripe pineapple I plan to buy next time I get groceries, and maybe a few other things I'm not sure I want to blog about.