37w

So I'm full term... who would have thought I'd make it this far. Hopefully this means that I will have a perfectly healthy baby which would be a relief after all we've been worried about. Yesterday was an interesting day though. I woke up at 4:30 with strong, painful contractions. They were coming one right after the other and I remember thinking "So this is what they're talking about when they say you'll know when it's real labor." After a half hour I decided to get in the shower to see if that changed the pattern at all. The contractions were still frequent but not quite as strong and long. By about 6:30 they had spaced out to 5 minutes apart and werent really painful so I decided to get a little sleep and just talk to the doctor about it when I went in for my appt at 8:40. She was delivering a baby so I had to wait about an hour to be seen and all during that time I continued to have contractions which were uncomfortable and I felt like I needed to breathe through. She checked me and I was 4cm, 90% and 0 station - I found out that at my last appt I was on 50% effaced so I had made a little tiny bit of progress. She decided to send me to L&D to monitor my contractions and see if it was real labor. I called B and my mom and told them I was going up but didnt think I would be staying, it just didnt feel like the real thing anymore. My mom works close by so she came right over and I told B to wait at work until I was on the monitor for a little while and saw what was going on. By the time I got upstairs and registered he had decided that he was coming home (an hour drive). Literally, as soon as I was put on the monitor my contractions stopped. In the 2 hours I was there I had 2 contractions. We watched the parade for the Phillies and at 12:30 the in-house OB checked me and there was no change so they sent me home. I was so frustrated because I knew that I shouldnt have been there and I had just wasted everyones time. I dont want them to take time off for false alarms and have less time for when the baby gets here. So I've made 2 decisions - 1: I am not going back to L&D until my water breaks and 2: If I do go before then, I am not telling anyone (not even mom or B) until it is decided that I will be admitted. Plus, my mom and B called EVERYONE to tell them that I was going when I told them both that I didnt think I would be staying and then everyone called later to see what had happened. I felt bad enough that it was just the 2 of them, when I found out that everyone knew I felt like an idiot. So there was my third visit to L&D in 6 weeks... ugh!

I think I will go walking this morning to see if that helps at all. The bottom of my belly hurts when I walk but that isnt going to go away until I have this baby so better to push through it, right? The only problem now is that I need to have this baby today or early tomorrow or not until Tuesday after I vote. I told B that if I go into labor on Tuesday I will wait until the polls open and vote before going to the hospital. He says no but this election is really important to me and I would be really upset if I didnt get the chance to vote. I wish I had thought about getting an absentee ballot sooner. Oh well. Please make sure you vote on Tuesday!!