Pumpkin update- Monday, March 31, 2008

This afternoon I called Baptist Hospital to cancel my induction for tomorrow morning. It wasn’t a big deal, and the girl on the phone was really nice. About 2 minutes later the phone rang and the woman said, “Elizabeth, it’s Pam. So what’s the deal with tomorrow?” It took me a minute to realize that it was my doctor, Dr. Pam Wills! She basically told me that she was very concerned because I am progressing and not feeling any contractions and that the baby could come so quickly that I won’t have time to get to the hospital. She did say that neither I nor the baby are in any danger. I told her that I just didn’t have peace about being induced, but would rather the baby come on its own. Her clinic is closed on Mondays, but she was out and about and told me that she wanted me to meet her at her office so that she could at least check me.

Trying to make the story short: I am dilated to a good 4 cm, and after being on the fetal monitor for about 30 minutes we discovered that I’m having contractions every 6 minutes, even though I’m not feeling anything.

So here’s the plan: I’m supposed to be at her office between 8 and 8:30 in the morning. They will put me on the fetal monitor and after Dr. Wills visits another patient in labor she will come back to her office and check me. She said that if my contractions are closer together OR if I am more dilated that she strongly suggests we go on to the hospital. Though, she of course can’t make us do anything we don’t want to do. She told me that she is going to call Baptist back and tell them not to cancel my induction, but rather that I would be late. Ha! I should say so!

So it looks like we’ll have our Pumpkin tomorrow! We didn’t discuss the scenario of what we’ll do if the contractions aren’t any closer together and I’m not any more dilated. I think the stubborn side of me will say let’s wait one more day then. But I’m almost to the point where I’m ready to give up the fight and just give birth to this little munchkin. The stress of figuring out what to do with Caroline and how to transfer car seats and take her to school, etc. is about to get to me! I don’t know what we would do without friends and family.

So, hopefully you’ll hear from us soon and learn whether Pumpkin is a beautiful baby boy or girl! Love you all!