Wow, 40 weeks today. Where's the baby?

Here's the super-tiny belly pic collage from when I started to have anything much to see. 24 weeks at the top left, 40 weeks at the bottom. I think I exploded around 33-34 weeks:

Here's what had better be the final belly shot at 40 weeks:

I had my 39+5 doc appointment on Wed. BP good, weight up to 74.2kg (baseline was 62.5kg, so I've gained 11.7kg or 26lb). They checked on her with the doppler (FHR 137/min), and then the doc wanted to check and see what was going on down there. As he was about to head in, he told me that a stretch and sweep at nearly 40 weeks would do a great deal to reduce our chances of needing an induction next week, and that this was going to hurt. It was definitely a little bit of an ouch, but not "the worst pain of my life" like the other pg girl at work told me it was for her. She said it was worse than labour, and one of the guys at work said his wife told him the same thing. And then she went into labour both times at about 12 hours after it had been done. Maybe they didn't do mine that effectively?

I went to work, had a few contractions, but nothing to write home about. Went home, and went out to a drug dinner/continuing education event that night at an Italian restaurant. I was having a few more contractions on the subway on the way there, and again in the restaurant. Since I knew I'd picked a fantastic list for the next day (would be earning about twice what I usually make in a day), I really wanted to make it through my final scheduled day at work. I decided to treat myself to a quarter of a glass of red wine in the hopes that it would calm things down. It was delicious! The first wine or alcohol of any sort I'd had during the pregnancy. I'd even seen an email that was sent out by the medical association a couple days before that when reported that a study had been done in England on light drinking in pregnancy. Apparently they said that 1-2 drinks a week during appeared to have some kind of beneficial effect on the babies that they had followed to age 3. Not sure if I believe that, but I decided that a couple sips of wine would not kill me or my baby, and might just get me through my last day at work. Had some great antipasto, pasta, fish and tiramisu. It was a fantastic meal, and it was super nice to see a bunch of former classmates again.

So yesterday was my final day at work until June. I was definitely sad to go. Did the C/S for a woman who'd struggled for a long time with infertility and was finally at term with her first baby after two miscarriages. I said that I knew how excited she was, since I was due the next day with my post-infertility baby after 2 miscarriages and a couple rounds of IVF. A few minutes later one of the circulating nurses in the room came up and asked if I'd said I'd done IVF. She had also done IVF after infertility, and had ended up with 3 transferred on day 3 and pregnant with triplets, which naturally reduced to boy-girl twins in the first trimester. She'd spent her entire pregnancy on bedrest, and had bled for 4 months straight. Wow. She wished she hadn't had to carry two at once, but was excited to hear that I'd had success with IVF too.

Then I did a day of dental cases, including a really cute little boy with the most gorgeous eyelashes I've ever seen. He was sort of dirty blonde, but his eyelashes were thick and long, with roots that were the same colour as his hair, but that got darker and more rusty-blonde for the final 8-9mm. They were amazing. Looked like he was wearing mascara, but who'd put mascara on their 4 year old son?

I got to finish off the day doing an epidural for a really nice patient and her husband, who insisted on buying me and the nurse something to drink afterwards (they were Chinese, I think, and had told the nurse it would be bad luck for her to refuse to accept a small token from them). I'd wandered off to have a last ultrasound look at my baby before checking to be sure she was comfortable when I went home, and the husband came looking for me to ask if I'd take anything, and found me hiding around the corner from the front desk with the goop and ultrasound probe on my belly. Oops. I did figure out that I can't see her head on the ultrasound any more (so low), back and bum are along the left side, and she had her little feet crossed at the ankles. I tried to take a picture, but couldn't get anything but a pretty crummy shot. Believe me when I tell you that there's the profile of one foot and the cross-section of the other in this shot which I labeled for you:

I got chatting with that L&D nurse too, and it turns out she struggled for 11 years to have a baby after marrying at 21. Went to England to study, eventually did IVF there and the first round worked to bring her her son. I said that I have four on ice for future kids, and she said that's her biggest regret - when they asked her if she wanted them to freeze the extra embryos, she said no. She was moving to Canada shortly after the cycle, and didn't know how that would all work. And now her 8 year old son asks her daily for a little brother or sister, and she can't give him one. So sad. But it was pretty amazing how being so bloody open about the infertility and treatments brings so many people out of the woodwork who've gone through it themselves. Then I finished up some billing stuff, took the subway home one last time and we went out for dinner.
Earlier this week, I ended up having a written Sk.ype chat with my Mum about her upcoming visit. I had said if the weather looks good, maybe she could come Fri-Sat and then go back to her place 2 hours away to wait for the call, so that DH and I could have a quiet couples Sunday again. DH is really keen on having final times as just the two of us. I think it might be because he's uncomforable with a lot of family time, having struggled since his early 20s to try to break away from his family (very religious and different from him). They were lucky if he stopped by for an evening at Christmas, or went home for dinner once every couple of months. He wouldn't tell them anything about his personal life. I was the first girl he ever introduced them to, and he took me home to meet them when he was 34 years old, all of 5 days before I moved back to Canada for med school.

Mum asked if we didn't want her there at all for the delivery or anything, when she'd thought I'd always said I'd want her there. She also said that she was offering to come up because she thought I'd like to have her around and because her family had been useless at supporting her when she had kids, and she wanted to be there for me, whether in the corner of the room staying out of the way, or off in the waiting room. She didn't want to make me feel like it wasn't as exciting for her for grandchild #4, and said that it is very different when it's her own daughter expecting the baby vs her son - more visceral. Now I feel bad that I haven't seen her more during the pregnancy, and that I'm not letting her just hang out with us at the very end. But I have to put DH and his feelings first, since he should be the most important person in my life now. So I told her I'd like her around for the delivery, but with DH being the prime support person. And that we do want the first week at home alone with the baby, though I'd be calling her in desperation if we end up not coping on our own. After that, she's welcome to come and visit again.

The next day I got an email asking if we'd prefer to have the weekend on our own and have her come up on Monday morning. Since the weather forecast looks pretty clear and all I want to do is relax, that sounded good to us. DH wanted to rent a car and go run errands, but if we do that and go into labour over the weekend while we have it rented, we'll have no place for Mum to park her car when she rushes up. I think now we're just going to chill and do stuff around the house. And make use of Mum's car when she comes up on Monday. DH is now happy, and Mum didn't seem too annoyed.

Our designer came over to check out the basement today. When I was down there with him, I suddenly noticed that the entire corridor from the back hallway outside the bedroom to DH's office narrows by quite a bit over its 4-5m length. The angle is made more noticeab by the carpeting with lengthwise stripes and by the tiled dropped ceiling, where the 3-4cm difference in width shows up in a huge way as well. I was about ready to cry. And then DH came down after his conference call was finished and says "well yeah, I noticed that it got narrow when we first looked at the house" (back when it was just a half-wall open office adjoining another open office). He never mentioned it to me, nor did he mention it to the contractor who could have made it a whole lot less of an angle if he'd gotten rid of the existing half-wall of the open office before framing in the new bathroom walls and new storage room. Instead they decided to incorporate the exisiting half wall into the storage room framing, leaving everything on an angle. That sort of thing drives me absolutely nuts. When DH saw me obsessing about every other little detail down there, why the hell didnt he mention this "minor" thing?

Miraculously, just as the designer was arriving and just before I discovered this major flaw in the new $30000 basement, a package arrived from a wonderful woman I met on one of the threads at BabyCenter long ago. She'd already sent us a miracle blanket for the baby, which I thought was totally sweet. Asked if there was anything else we needed, but that was generous enough for us. Especially when she's never met us in person even. Well, I opened this box to distract me from my house-based irritation, only to find it jam-packed full of awesome things. Was I whining about not having friends and having no baby shower a while back? Chris is a one-woman, one-box baby shower all on her own! She sent the cutest little pink elephant teether pal, a Soothe and Glow Seahorse that lights up and plays music when its tummy is squeezed, some cool leak-proof storage containers for breast milk, a neat little infant toothbrush and gum stimulator (I'd thought I should probably get one at some point, but hadn't found one yet), and a whole bunch of gorgeous little clothes. Footed onesies with a zip and anti-slip spots on the feet, little baby cords and matching shirts, little velvet pants and matching glittery striped shirts, a totally cute sweater-dress. Wow, I'm just overwhelmed by her generosity. And since that one absolutely unexpected box totally made my day today, I'm going to have to do the same for someone else one day too. Or maybe Chris will herself someday have a little girl that I can spoil? I can only hope so!

It's too weird that the package arrived on the little one's due date, no less. Thanks again Chris!

Can I ask for some happy thoughts and prayers for a friend? She's an older mom-to-be, has had 2 early losses and a late 2nd trimester loss (due to severe IUGR, cause never determined), and is now 23 weeks pregnant after her second donor embryo FET worked. The baby is healthy and not suffering from IUGR and is growing well. It could not be more wanted by anyone. Now she's following in my footsteps with lots of tightenings, but her cervix isn't long and made of steel as mine apparently was. Last week it had shortened to 2.5cm closed beyond a significant funnel. Half a week later (after nifedipine and couch arrest), it was apparently a little bit shorter still. I'll be praying that she makes it to 32 weeks, and that the possible preterm labour just gets the hell out of town. And of course that her cervix decides to lengthen rather than shorten. I just desperately want her to have a healthy baby at the end of this.

TMI time. I had some dark red bleeding and a little EWCM mixed in with it over the 24 hours after my stretch and sweep, after which I was supposedly 2cm dilated. I had a feel of my cervix myself last night (with a sterile glove on, of course), and it didn't feel much more dilated or effaced than it had a week ago, but a nice little glob of gory mucus plug came out on the glove. And this morning in the shower another bigger glob just fell out as I was washing everything off down there. Hopefully that means things are progressing and will move along quickly at this point! I'm so ready to meet our daughter and she what she's like, both personality and looks-wise. Red-haired and freckled like me, or blond like DH was when he was a kid?

Wow, sorry for the long and rambling post. I've been busy at work and out to dinner lots after work (thinking each time that this could be our last), so I haven't been keeping up the way I should have. Now if this baby would just hurry up and get here, she could distract me from the house woes and make my life complete!