I humbly give you my 40 week picture.
I am closing in on my due date...Saturday. It seems unlikely that Chloe will make an appearance before then. I am starting to feel some discomforts, mostly just this feeling of her overtaking me. I will have a sonogram on Monday to see how much she possibly weighs (though there is a margin of error, it will give them a ball park). They mostly want to make sure she if we wait another week or two that she won't be over 10lbs-let's hope not! We are trying to avoid induction-for many reasons-but mostly right now because I am not a good
candidate for it (not dilated). So we wait. I have been at the pool a lot and that feels really nice. No swelling, which is amazing given the crazy hot temperatures of late. Tonight when B and I went to eat Chinese food for dinner, I could barely fit in the booth. We had to move to a table. This was the first time I have actually felt like a big pregnant lady. I guess that is okay since I am almost to term. I really never thought I would get this big. We are just praying that she will come on her own. We can't wait to welcome her into this world!!
I am so exhausted, but have all the energy of post-delivery. That's right. Chloe Lynne Watson was born June 21st at 7:03 pm via c-section. It was a long several days. I will give a short version right now-seeing as I REALLY need to get some rest. I started having contractions Saturday morning about 10 am. They got progressively strong and when longer than 1 minute and a little less than 5 minutes apart we came to the hospital at 12:15 am Sunday. Sadly, I found out I was only 1 cm. I labored for another couple hours progressing to 3 cm. I kept it up with help from the balance ball and hot tub for many more hours. I was checked again, I was 5 cm. By that time I had been laboring for 18 hours. I was tired and having back labor. B and I decided that it was time for the epidural. Got that, no problem. We were both able to rest for awhile. Things didn't progress quite as quickly and they gave me a bit of pitocin. Finally around 5:15 pm on Sunday I had finally gotten to complete. It was time to push. They turned my epidural way down, so I had most feeling back in my legs. I pushed and pushed and pushed. They determined after some time that her head was face up and stuck against my pubic bone. We tried all sorts of positions to try and move her. It was a lot of hard work. After over 2 hours and counsel from doctor that we could push for 6 more hours and would still probably have to have a c-section. So, after thinking long and hard we decided to move forward with the c-section. I have no doubt we did the right thing and I am so glad that we are both healthy! I will likely be in the hospital until Thursday and then we will head home. I will be needing loads of help and am not allowed to lift anything heavier than Chloe for many weeks. This will be hard for me. It will be great practice in asking for help (not my strength). Well, I need to tend to my little one. She is a great eater and it is feeding time.
