Pregnancy update - 38 weeks (and 5 days)

Well, still no baby.  I'm now 38 weeks and 5 days.  I gave birth to Mira at 38 weeks and 6 days, so maybe tomorrow will be the day.  I'm in a better place now emotionally and am feeling ready to have a baby again.  At my last pre-natal appointment (yesterday) everything was looking good.  My weight is good (gaining about a pound a week for the last couple weeks, total weight gain for the pregnancy is now up to 9 pounds).  My blood pressure is back down.  We actually opted not to do a pelvic exam, since we didn't feel that one was merited.  The state of your cervix has very little to do with when you'll go into labor, so we didn't feel like it was important to know at this point.

On Monday I had another bout of serious pre-labor.  I was having intense, painful contractions every 3-4 minutes for over 7 hours.  There were a couple hours in there where I really thought, "Ok, this is going to be it."  But then it stopped again.  I'm finding the starting and stopping to be very tiresome, especially since it usually interferes with sleep.  I wish my body would just decide to go or not go.

Also, now that my labor is imminent, I'm finding that I'm getting nervous about it.  In my first labor, I ended up requesting an epidural right about the time that I entered transition (the hardest part of labor, just before pushing).  So I didn't really fully experience much of transition or any of the pushing phase.  And since I've chosen a birth center for my delivery, an epidural will not be an option this time.  I've also been utterly exhausted lately, which I don't remember feeling at the end of my last pregnancy.  So what if it's harder than I expect?  What if I'm too tired?  What if I'm not strong enough?  What if it's too painful?

I expressed these concerns to Brian and, wonderful supportive labor coach that he is, he reassured me.  He reminded me that, while I may not be able to bench press impressive amounts of weight, I have tons of endurance and super high tolerance of pain, both of which are more important in labor.  He told me that my body was built for this and that he had complete confidence in my ability.  And we're much better prepared for labor this time than last.

I'm so lucky to have Brian to tell me these things and to help me through the rough patches.  He's going to be great in labor too, I know it.  I'm sure that, after the baby has come, I'll be saying that the one person who I couldn't have done it without will be not a doctor or a nurse or a midwife, but my loving, protective, supportive husband.  What a wonderful way to welcome our new baby!