oh what a day!

If there were an emotion spectrum, full of bright colors and an arrow to mark what you were feeling, and I posted it on here yesterday, there would have been an arrow in every color under the sun. The day started with worry, flopped to sheer terror, pure panic, sweet relief, confusion, disbelief, wonder, excitement, disappointment...and ended with exhaustion, plain and simple.
I noticed on Tuesday night while laying in bed that my baby girl was not near as active as she usually is. I made a quick mental note, and during my long night of tossing and turning, continued to observe her lack of movement. Morning rolled around and I was really becoming afraid. She typically moves a ton. A lot a lot. I was poking and prodding, pushing, pulling, and was getting nothing. A little resistance on two occassions, but I hadn't felt her move on her own in hours. The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. And after a few minutes of good attempts at getting a response from my belly (to no avail), I became panicked, and honestly- more scared than I've ever been in my life. I called the doctor and they told me to come in immediately for monitoring. I dropped Corban off at my friend Erin's house, picked up Jordan at work, and off we went. It's safe to say that I was a wreck at this point. The tears were a-flowin'. We were about a mile from the hospital when all of a sudden my belly morphed into a new shape, and then quickly returned to it's orignial, beach-ball-like form. And then, it happened again. Oh... sweet relief. She was alright. My baby girl was back to moving, and moving good. Still concerned, we continued on to the doctor to just to be sure.
She passed the BPP relatively quickly, although it took about twice as long as normal- and the only thing we had to wait for was her movement, which is not at all how things usually are. I asked to be hooked up for the NST to make sure that her heart was doing alright with the contractions that I was having, and they agreed. But first- they checked my cervix. Remember how I was no change on Monday? 1 cm, 50% effaced, posterior? Well, Wednesday morning I was 3 cm, 50% effaced, and more anterior! Whoa! Contractions that work! They hooked me up to the monitor, and I was having contractions every 3-4 minutes, so they wanted to send me to L&D for more monitoring, especially with our 40 minute drive and the icy roads. So, we hopped to B-W3's for a quick lunch, and went to the hospital, to sit in a dumb bed for 2 hours. They wanted to continue to watch the baby, so I wasn't allowed to walk or anything- boo to that. Anyway, 2 hours slowly passed, and there was no change in my cervix. Because I was 3 cm, though, they said they could admit me, but if things hadn't changed any more, they'd want to break my water, and if it didn't progress from there, use pitocin, etc. I kindly declined and said I'd just go home. Talk about will power! I could have a baby girl in my arms right now! But, I really just want my body to do this on it's own, and it is, it's working on it... so patience I must have.
I had 6 minute apart contractions most of the evening at church, and then when I got home, I did some cleaning and was having some serious back pain- almost like a spasm, but it was at the top of rear, bottom of my back? I've never experienced anything like that... don't know if it's back labor or what?! But I eventually fell asleep, and here I sit, after 2.5 hours of walking, still pregnant, and contracting sporadically. Boo. I feel relieved and yet anxious, knowing that it's so close, but could still be days away. I despise this waiting game. lol.
I did have a nice little date with my son this morning. We went to my favorite local coffee establishment, Mama Bears, and I ordered him his very own, first-ever hot chocolate to accompany his high fiber cheerios and dried cranberries. He was pretty unsure about it, really, and only drank about 1/3 of it, which was fine with me, but it was fun for us to do. We took some silly pictures, and he kept posing and saying 'cheeeee' with a big silly grin. Have I mentioned that I love my son!?!? :-D
But alas, he's napping, and I'm exhausted, so I think I'll plop myself on the couch and curl up with a blanket. Or maybe I'll mop the kitchen floor, we'll see. Hopefully someday soon I'll be announcing the birth of my daughter! Off to... do something!