I give up!

I am not enjoying being pregnant...that will not be a shock to anyone that knows me. So this past weekend I decided to "put myself" in labor and make this kid come out. I am already dilated and it is my fourth kid and all so I thought this can't be that hard.

I tried cleaning the house....I now have a really clean shower and laundry done but not much in the way of contractions. I decided that I needed to kick it up a notch and start walking.

On Saturday, Nikki and her kiddos came over to use my washing machine and hang out (plus if I actually went into labor our babysitter would be here). I mentioned my desire for a good walk and she said she would join me. We decided to head over to Arctic Circle for a milkshake. My hubby who kept all the kids but JD decided to meet us there and we could have dinner. Yummy!

So 3 miles, a chicken sandwich, fries and Raspberry Cheesecake Milkshake later my contractions were coming. Not super hard or steady, but there none the less. By the time Brian came to pick up the family, the contractions were hardly there so I chalked it up to some good exercise and yummy food.

When Steven and I were going to bed, my belly was hurting so I asked my hubby to rub it. He noticed that I was having contractions semi-regularly and decided to time them. They were coming every 3-5 minutes and lasting about 1 minute. After consulting a pregnancy book, we thought maybe I was actually going into labor. We called Brian to give them a heads up and decided to try and go to sleep. After 1/2 hour of continual contractions and no sleep we decided to head over to the hospital. We called Brian and started loading up the car. Shortly we were headed over to St. Als.

We got there around 11:45pm and requested room 6 (which I now hate and will refuse to enter again) and got on with all the fun-ness. I peed in the cup, answered a million questions and got hooked up to the monitoring machines. My contractions were still steady, about 4 minutes apart. About 12:30am I finally got "the exam" and to my surprise and dismay, after all those contractions, I hadn't dilated one bit from my appointment on Tuesday. My cervix was thinning some and Evan had moved down some, but no dilation. After consulting with my doc (who I'm sure was happy to get a phone call of this nature in the middle of the night) they decided things weren't going anywhere and I was free to go. Or I could walk around the ward for an hour to see if anything happened. I being my idiot self, decided to try the latter option.

In hindsight, I would have just left. But I figured, I'm here....Brian drove all the way over and I want this kid out. So Steven and I walked in laps around the maternity and postpartum wards for an hour. We timed it and discovered the full circuit took about 6 minutes. The nurses, my husband, the on-call doc were all convinced we were wasting our time. About 3 laps into it, I was convinced, but still determined to finish what I started.

After the hour, she came to check me and said that I hadn't dilated and could go home. The one glimmer of hope that I currently cling to, is that she said after the walking she could clearly feel Evan's head (which she hadn't been able to before) so he dropped some more. I put my PJ's back on and at 2:30am headed back home.

While walking those laps around the hospital, I decided this kid just doesn't want to come out. I will lay on my couch and wait to be induced. This will give me a chance to get some reading done, watch junk TV and work on my cross-stitch. Tomorrow I have an OB appointment and expect my doc to laugh at me some. I don't expect to be dilated at all since my contractions stopped a couple hours after coming home and I have had only a few since them. But at least tomorrow I will find out my induction date and can plan on that.

All that effort for nothing....well, maybe not nothing. I did get a milkshake, a knee that really hurts now, a clean shower and I can expect a nice bill from the hospital for our fun little jaunt. Yea!