Still Pregnant

Just to clear up any confusion: yes, I am still pregnant! Some of you may have heard through the grapevine that we spent last Friday in the Labor and Delivery unit at the hospital. This is true; I woke up Friday to more bleeding, clotting, and cramping, and seeing as I'm almost full-term (37 weeks today!) they wanted me to come in right away.

So yes, we spent the day at the hospital...but we came home with a still-big belly and an empty infant car seat! They kept me on monitors all day; Eric and I sat around watching Season 4 of 24, as well as Lost reruns, which was kind of fun, but got a little boring and uncomfortable. The good news is that the doctors said the baby looks very healthy, that I'm doing great, and they "just don't know" what caused the bleeding. They did order an ultrasound this time (I didn't ever have one last time I bled in September); they checked for abnormalities in the placenta or the uterine lining but thankfully didn't find any. They also confirmed that we are, in fact, having a girl!!

The only negative to the whole experience (besides spending a day in the hospital, which is never fun) was finding out that she's sunny-side up, just like Jack was. For those of you who don't know just what this highly technical term refers to, "sunny-side up" means that the baby is in the head-down position, but she is facing up (towards my belly) rather than in the preferred birthing position of face-down (towards my spine). What this means is that the head is harder to get through the canal, because the bones that move in the head during labor don't quite form the right angle/size/shape that makes it easiest to come out. SO...with Jack I pushed for almost four hours, and was close to having a C-section until they finally got his head into the canal. The doctor said I would not have that long of a labor this time, "unless she's sunny-side up." Boo-hoo! :(

The other frustration is that sunny-side up babies tend to create back labor, which is extremely painful. I have hardly any recollection from Jack's delivery of what contractions in my uterus felt like, because I felt them so strongly in my lower back. I also read recently that even if the baby turns at the last minute and ends up being delivered face down, you can still have excrutiating back pain due to the weeks that the baby spent lying on your spine! Ugh. This could also explain the lower back pain I've been having for weeks (months?) now, and the accompanying contractions. And when I think about it I'm glad to know this in advance; I'm not sure how I would handle finding this out during labor!

All in all, I'm thankful for this experience last Friday for two reasons: first, they declared again and again how healthy she is, and they even said that if things looked "iffy" they might just induce me since I'm so close to the end anyway--but that she's just SO healthy that there's no reason to rush her. That was really good to hear.

Second, being wheeled by the newborn nursery and seeing all the precious tiny babies was a wake-up call, and a reminder of all the things I still need to do in order to be more prepared for my daughter's arrival. (I love that I can call her "daughter" without hesitation!) I've been saying for weeks how ready I am, how I'm "so done" being pregnant, etc. But driving to the hospital with nothing more in my backpack than the 24 DVD's and my Bible made me realize I'm not as ready as I thought! So I'm thankful for the days ahead of us during these next three weeks--and I'm going to try to remember that I said that when the days get rough! :)

My sister has been here this past weekend (yes, she's very disappointed that her niece wasn't born while she was here!)--I'll post more pictures and comments about that later. It was so good to see her and Jonathan and Mikaila again!

Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers, and for the concerned phone calls and emails. We appreciate it so much. Keep us in your prayers in the coming weeks--for a smooth delivery and also for a good transition at home with Jack, who I'm pretty sure has absolutely NO idea what's about to enter his world. Thank you, and we'll keep you posted (literally! Ha!).