The real update

So, here is the post with all of the meat. It has been an exhausting week, so forgive my lack of poetic grace over these next few paragraphs.

Sunday afternoon at around 5 pm, I started having contractions. They were regular and timeable every 5 minutes apart, but not intense - I could easily talk through them. So, I called the on call doctor at around 8:30, thinking "I'll get him while he's still awake". 2 hours passed and no call back, so I called again. 6 days later and I still haven't heard from the guy, but that is a moot point at this stage :) Since the contractions weren't intense enough to keep me from talking, we went ahead and went to bed. I was up and down all night and didn't get much sleep. The next morning I called my doctor's office when she opened at 8:30 and at that point I had been having contractions for 16 hours! The nurse consulted with the doctor and she decided to have me go straight to Labor and Delivery for observation since I had been having regular contractions for so long.

So, Monday morning I head to L&D for trip #1. I took my mom so that Drew could go ahead and go to school since we didn't know if anything would happen or not. They hooked me up to a fetal heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor and of course monitored my blood pressure and checked to see how dilated I was. At my previous week's appointment on Wednesday, I was dilated to 1 cm and not effaced. At L&D, I was dilated 2.5 cm and 50% effaced, so the contractions had been doing something, which meant that I was in "early labor". They just weren't active enough to keep me and deliver a baby. So, disappointed and frustrated, I headed home. Mom, Emily and I went to the mall and walked until I was so tired hoping to induce the labor - no such luck.

Tuesday morning, I was still having contractions, but went ahead and went to work. I was so exhausted, and had a bit of a tear fest in the office before going to class. After lunch, I had a headache and started having some spots in my vision, so I asked the school nurse to come take my blood pressure. It was highly elevated, so I called the doctor and let her know and she said I should come in for my appointment early. My BP was still high at her office, and she checked for more dilation (nothing), but did find a lot of fluid, so she did a very fast sonogram to make sure my amniotic fluid looked good (which it did). Because of the BP, she wanted me to go back to L&D for more observation. I was there for nearly 3 hours this time - and my blood pressure did eventually go back to normal. I think one of the reasons they kept me so long was because Isabel's heart rate dipped a few times during contractions, but apparently that is normal as well. So again, frustrated, exhausted and a little disappointed, I headed home.

That was 2 days ago and I have been trying every natural induction method I know (with the exception of castor oil, gross), and still nothing. So, I went back to the doctor today for another check up. I am still dilated only "between a 2 and 3" and not fully effaced, so she asked if I could wait it out until Monday. I go back in Monday morning, but the doc assured me that I would "have a baby in my arms and be home well in time for Thanksgiving". Hopefully she is right! I can't wait to meet Isabel and snuggle with her!