Finally Progress!

I'm 1cm dilated! And 50% thinned out! I know it's not much but its better than nothing.

My doc says she thinks it will be two weeks still which puts us right on the due date. The baby still has his/her butt stuck up in my ribs and isn't budging. At this rate the child will be walking when it finally comes out! The doc says its very common to have to fight the contrax with meds for a long time and then when you come off of them to have the contrax stop or slow down. Mine have definitely slowed down but have not stopped. She did another ultrasound and the baby has flipped over from my right side to my left... still don't know the sex sorry everyone.

My co-workers can't believe I'm still working, everyday I come in and they can't believe it. Plus for the most part I feel pretty good, I mean the contrax hurt but as long as I get enough sleep I'm in good spirits.

Also Dave and I want to say Congrats to Michael and Erin, Dave's oldest brother tied the knot Saturday and now we have a niece, Lily, she was a beautiful flower girl. We are very excited to have them part of the Pleimann family. Here's a few pics from the grand event.

The newest Pleimann Family!


The beautiful wedding party


Dave was pretending his napkin was the baby, he's ready can you tell.


The soon to be parents!

No Progress

I had my 37 week doctor appointment Monday, and sad to say no progress. The baby looks good, but he/she's head is still high and I haven't dialated at all. She did an impromptu ultrasound to see the baby's position, and the baby is head down but still too high. She did stop the anti-contraction medication, which for the first day had me contracting like crazy, but they have slowed down. I'm still having about 15-20 a day but they are not regular. Dave and I have been walking around the neighborhood everynight to see if that helps and it usually does for about an hour or so but they just die off. So it looks like I'm gonna make it another week, yeah! Poor Dave thought for sure he would be a daddy by now and is losing hope that the little one will show up this week. I keep reminding him its good for the baby to keep cooking but he is just too excited. We'll keep everyone posted!

Still Pregnant

We made it to 36 weeks! Monday I was back at the doctors office for my weekly appointment. My doctor has decided to keep me on the procardia(anti-contraction) medication another week. The main reason is just to let the baby's lungs develop a little more. Plus she's pretty positive once I come off the medication I'll start contracting regularly.. and the baby will soon follow. She did say the baby weighs between 6.5 - 7lbs. I make big babies!

Over the weekend I had a lot of problems with my hands and feet swelling but that seems to have subsided. It's common with the medication, thankfully my blood pressure has barely risen since my first prenatal visit so the doctor isn't worried about pre-e or hypertension. I'm still betting this kid will show up next Wed 10/22 but we'll just have to wait and see.

It was my birthday this past weekend so my Mom and Marty came down for two nights. She did a lot of cooking and cleaning for us. She kept telling the baby he/she could make an appearance, but no luck. But it was great to have someone else clean and cook!

Three Labor and Delivery visits, and still no baby

All day yesterday, Peggy was having very strong contractions. Last night, just after we went to sleep, Peggy woke me up, saying that they were getting much more frequent. So, we started timing them. She had 4 in 10 minutes, but not consistent. Some were 45 seconds apart, others were 5 minutes apart.

We called the hospital, and they told her to take her anti-contraction medication early. That seemed to do the trick for the night.

But at work this morning, she continued having the contractions. She called her doctor when she got off of work, and they told her to go to the hospital.

So, today at work, I got "the call." The call that I've been dreaming of for a while. It was finally happening. We're all ready, or as ready as we'll ever be. Luckily one of my fellow science teachers has a student teacher. So, she was able to watch my students for me until my substitute arrived (thank you Kirsten!).

So I went home, and finished getting the things together for the hospital (the bags were almost totally packed already from previous visits). It just felt like the time. We even took some video before we left.

On the way to the hospital, I was very upbeat, but "fidgety" as Peggy said. I was just taking over the daddy role, and making sure my wife and baby were ok. But that required me going a "million miles an hour."

We checked in, per the normal routine. Almost as soon as we got there, they told us "we don't want this baby coming out yet." I just groaned (probably out loud). They hooked Peggy up to the monitors and checked everything out. She was not dilated AT ALL!

So they sent us home. They did increase the dosage on Peggy's prescription, but that's all they did for us.

Getting the medication was another whole story which I won't bore you with the details about. But, in summary, her vitamin price doubled, and we went to two pharmacies, both of which did not have her new anti-contraction medication....ugh.

Oh, did I mention that it's our anniversary?! Happy anniversary to us! It was such a crazy day that we didn't even get to eat dinner together on our anniversary (Peggy was sleeping).

So here we sit, waiting until next week when Peggy hopefully comes off of the anti-contraction medication.

Peggy, looking like she owns the place (we've been there so much, we just might by the time this is all said and done)


And me trying to get comfy on one of those impossible to get comfy couches (that's actually the name of the manufacterer, I checked)

The one time a dropping baby is ok....

Yes, thats right, ladies and gentlemen, it appears as though Peggy is "dropping". Well, actually, the baby is dropping, but I digress.

On thursday, Peggy was home all day (it's sunday to her), and she noticed that her belly was strangely soft all day. So I felt it when I got home, and sure enough, almost everywhere was much much softer than normal. For the past month or so, her belly has been hard as a rock as the baby grows to fill what little space there is.

So we didn't think much of it, and were laying in bed watching TV later that night, when I had a realization. What if the baby's head made its way downward finally? Pretty much the entire pregnancy, the baby has been laying transverse across her mommies belly.

So I pushed and prodded a little bit, and sure enough, it seems as though the head is finally down. There is a large hard object just below Peggys belly button, and the rest is all soft.

Later that night, Peggy was feeling kicking on the bottom middle of her ribcage, where she never has before.

So, we're no doctors, but we're thinking that the head is finally down and thinking about making an appearance soon.

Peggys contractions have been really strong today, so maybe the head pushing on her cervix is going to increase the contractions? Again, we have no idea, but it makes sense to us!

I do know that as the contractions increase, the baby's head pushes on the cervix more. Pressure receptors in the cervix tell the brain to produce a hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin then triggers more contractions. It's one of very few positive feedback mechanisms in biology. Sorry, couldn't help but give you a biology lesson (I don't get to teach it!!! :-)

Since we now believe the head is pushing directly on the cervix, the extra contractions today seem to make sense.

We're pretty much ready now (or as ready as we'll ever be I should say)....we bought some wipes from sams club the other day and got the car seat bases installed in both of our cars.

Now we just wait!

I (David) am launching my official prediction of October 15th. So there you have it folks (it just so happens to be a day after we think they're taking Peggy off of the anti-contraction medication, but that's not cheating, that's just being smart :-)

Peggy's official guess is October 22nd.