Only 9cm To Go!

Eric: "This is like being on a long airplane flight. You read, you watch movies, you listen to music...people are always walking by to check on you. You eat just to have something to do. You walk back and forth just to stretch your legs."

Me: "Yes, but instead of arriving in Portugal, at the end, we have a baby."

(These photos are the result of me saying, "Better take a picture while I still look happy." Also, I'm super happy about this water bottle. Y'all KNOW I love free stuff, so being greeted in your delivery room by a new water bottle AND all these postpartum and baby products allowed for some brief excitement for me at 7:30 this morning....

No matter that most those free things are maxi pads, a squirt bottle to help make peeing easier when this is all over, and mesh underwear. I had been told to get as many hospital goods as possible to abscond with when I leave. One website even suggested bringing a tote bag for your goods. Lucky me, this hospital gives you that tote bag and says, "Here, take!")

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Anyhoo, as the title of this post suggests, at last check, I was 1 cm dilated, so...still a long way to go. 

Thus far, things have been fairly uneventful (as evidenced by Eric's comment that this was like being on a long haul flight). We arrived on time to the hospital, were greeted warmly and ushered into our room. (Note: I did almost just write 'hotel room,' because that's how you feel when you roll up to the hospital with a couple suitcases and backpacks.)

I answered a million health questions and was given my very first COVID test. NOT an experience I recommend. It really does feel like your brain is being tickled AND that you are about to have a really bad bloody nose all at once. Yuck. Guess it was preparing me for pain? (It was negative, in case you were wondering.)

Because my cervix was still completely closed, I was started on misoprostol to 'ripen'--because yes, I am a fruit. What kind? Difficult to say at this moment. A watermelon? I have been craving peaches, so maybe a peach.

Two rounds of this medicine over four hours and I was apparently having contractions 2-3 minutes apart but couldn't really feel them at all. (When in doubt, claim it's because of yoga. 😆) The most uncomfortable thing was the IV they had to put in. They put it in my right arm because the phlebotomist had apparently used the preferred vein on my left wrist. (I sensed some tension between the nurses and the lab...) At least they gave me a superhero cuff.

I was even feeling well enough to log in to the SOPHE conference for the opening plenary. 🤓

(Dr. Camara Jones is a personal hero, so I had to catch what I could, if I could.) #thisispublichealth

If you know me, you know that I never go anywhere without at least one snack. I brought enough. snacks for a whole 5th grade classroom to the hospital, knowing full well that at some point I would no longer be allowed to eat. That being said, I also have a strange fear of Baby G arriving in the middle of the night and being SUPER hungry with nothing to eat and nowhere to get food. So...I'm prepared. All this to say that it was not long after we arrived that I had my "diet restrictions" changed (at least temporarily) from "clear liquids" to "anything she wants." 

I'm eating while I can. (And actually want to. The Gatorade is for later.)

(Eric got a free guest meal. Apparently when you are a guest you also get Andes mints, perhaps to convince you to try to continue to buy food from the hospital cafeteria? I got not mints. I guess because I'm getting a meal either way.)

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Speaking of Eric, there has been a bit of a running joke about naming the baby Maverick. (Not happening.) I gave him this shirt and told him that while we were NOT naming Baby G 'Mav' he could still be Top Dad. 😉

So here we are, having a little Stephen Kellogg (and the Sixers) concert as I wait for the balloon they put inside me to do its thing. Then things will start to get REALLY exciting.