That's It?!?!

I'm 38 weeks today and even more ready for Mallory to arrive. With my sciatic flaring up last week I have been pretty uncomfortable lately and very ready to not be pregnant anymore. I've come to the realization that it wasn't necessarily running that caused my sciatic to go crazy, it's the fact that Mallory is now making her way down and is putting pressure on the nerve. I'm not blaming her though because it means she's on her way and I'm excited about that. I just wish I had been more smart in high school track so I wouldn't have to deal with this injury in the first place. For that, I blame my coach who was too busy staring at the pretty girls instead of teaching us how to stretch properly.

My doctor's appointment this morning was more satisfying than last week as he did in fact check to see if there has been any progress. I mentioned to him that I've been having a lot more contractions and pressure lately. Not ones that are five to seven minutes apart, but powerful enough to make me pause while I focus on my breathing. A couple of nights ago I had contractions that were strong enough to wake me up and lasted long enough that a part of me thought I was going to have to wake Jody up. When they subsided and I was able to fall back asleep, I had a dream that it was time to go to the hospital and Jody was so frantic to get out of the house that he accidentally took off without me. Dreams are funny! So because I've been consistently having contractions I was excited to hear from the doctor today on the progress that I've been making. After checking me he tells me that I'm 1.5 cm dilated. 1.5 cm? That's it?!?! I guess I was wishfully thinking that after the contractions that I've been having I would go in today and the doctor would say, "You're already at 3 cm."

Silver lining: at least my body is contracting and they are becoming stronger and stronger. Considering that when he checked me two weeks ago and I wasn't dilated at all, I am making progress. I just was hoping it would be more than 1.5 cm by now. I'm not much of a complainer, but its not like these contractions are painless. And I know they're only going to get more unpleasant as my progress continues. Definitely makes me thankful for epidurals. In the meantime I'll be starting to act on some of the tricks to get labor progressing faster because I'd rather not wait another two weeks for Mallory to get here. I've already resorted to bribery by telling her that I'll give her a surprise if she comes early - the things we will do to get what we want!