Practice Makes Perfect?

It certainly doesn't make for a baby.

Well, I think the very fact that I'm writing this is a strong sign that we didn't have a baby. My contractions stayed consistent until about 11:30 a.m. My massage therapist worked on my feet and I had 8 really strong contractions in the 30 minutes she was doing those pressure points. We had a friend come and get Lexi and we got to the hospital around noon.

We had to wait a while for our own testing room and of course, they hooked me up to the monitors. I had lots of contractions. Allen rubbed the pressure points in my feet and I had lots more. But, they weren't enough. So, after 2 hours of being on the monitor, they said to go back home.

We had a wonderful, compassionate nurse. I explained to her that every day I have 2 or 3 hours of consistent contractions and I have no way of knowing what is really going on. She said that is the hard part about late pregnancy. Lots of contractions and really the only way to know is to come in and get checked. She made sure I had lunch and was ever so kind to us when the contractions didn't pan out. She even went and got my Dr. for me so I could discuss the issue with him. I thanked him for coming all the way over to see me and he said he'd just gotten out of a c-section. I jokingly asked him if he wanted to do another one. He said all looked great with the baby, but we were just in the early stages of labor. He said if I want to schedule a c-section, we can do one on Tuesday. I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that, but if you think about it, at this point, I would have already had the baby and would be through the worst of the recovery. But, I really want to try and avoid surgery so we're going to remain patient. Of course, my biggest concern is going to 42 weeks, being induced again, and having to have a c-section anyways. Oh, that would be terrible.

I also told the Dr. I have this gut feeling that I won't go into real labor on my own. He got this very stern look and said, "Don't think that way! Be positive! You're doing it already. This is how it goes. You can do it!" I'm frustrated about the false alarm, but grateful for the good care we received. I still have my massage tomorrow and maybe that will help things keep rolling. Until then: baths and Tylenol for the fake contractions. Oh, a whole lot of keeping a good attitude...