Hanging in There

The baby has not arrived yet, but I am not close to my due date yet. I had a midwife appointment today and that went pretty well. My blood pressure is nice and low, but not too low. I asked for an internal exam, partly because I wanted to know where I was, but also because my midwife lives 45 minutes away and I tend to have fast labors (Benedict excluded), so if I’m hanging out at 4 cm, that could me a labor sans the midwife.

I am not 4 cm but I am at 2 cm, nothing big, but 75% effaced, so making progress. She could feel the baby’s head but is pretty sure the baby is sitting like this:

So I’ve spent a lot of time today hanging out on my hands and knees as well as my birthing ball. I will tell you the excruciating hip pain I’ve had for a few weeks now is pretty much gone now. I think that means I’ve shifted the baby just enough to set her/him the right way. I’ve decided to avoid the couch for the rest of my pregnancy and will be relaxing in my rocker or on the birthing ball. Sleeping might be another issue, but I’m thinking now that I know how to make my hip not hurt as much, sleeping won’t be a big issue.

Oh, and did I mention I’ve been having leg cramps at night? This is the first time in a long time that I’ve woken up with charlie-horses, or the beginning of one. I actually woke Joshua up screaming the other night. (Hey, in my defense, it hurt and woke me up out of almost sound sleep.) We were out of bananas and I guess my cal-mag wasn’t doing it’s job, so I had Joshua buy two bunches of bananas at the grocery yesterday. I feel a lot better now too. (Bananas are high in potassium helps with leg cramps, in case you didn’t know.)

So here we are, I am 38 +3 weeks pregnant and ready to go. The biggest question around the house is “New baby or new Pope first?”