To induce or not to induce?

Well, we went to see the gynae today. I'm dilated to about 2 1/2 cm. There's some discharge which the doc says is the mucus plug coming loose.

He also said that since this is my 39th week, he could break my water bag and get the whole process started. Another week in me could mean that the baby puts on another 100g ~200g? The concern is the size of the baby versus the size of my pelvis. As a doctor, I'm sure he's just playing it safe. I mean, to dilate to the point where I start active labour could take a few days or a week more. I've been telling people "akan datang" for 2 weeks already. On the one hand I'm getting really tired and bored. On the other hand, once the baby comes my life will change and part of me isn't ready yet.

Whatever it is, we've decided to wait for another week. Afterwhich, if there's still no baby, we'll break my water. I figure next week will by my 40th week anyway. Actually, I was fantasizing about how my water would suddenly break and I'd have to call Kelvin. He'd then have to come running out of school and we'd have to drive madly (but safely) all the way to the hospital. My gynae looked at me like I was high on something. He said why go through all the messiness if you can be calm and have control over the whole situation. Kelvin asked if I was determined to stress him out. I guess it takes the element of surprise out of the whole process you know? I had wanted the baby to choose her day of emergence into the world, not the other way around.

My gynae said one more thing which Kelvin found very amusing. Kelvin and I are always making jokes about how short I am..you know...him calling me 'strawberry shortcake' and stuff like that. Well turns out that by medical definition, 151cm is not short. I'm borderline. This means that going by my height, my pelvis is on the small side. If I were 149cm tall, I would be medically defined as short. So all through lunch afterward, Kelvin kept going, "you see, you're not short." Sigh...so by medical standards, I'm not short...just borderline medium height? Geez I feel so much better.

Actually, height doesn't really bother me. I once asked my father if he minded that he was shorter than my mother. He told me that it's not your height but how you use your brain that matters. Every day I face pupils who tower above me so you find strategies to assert authority even though you're at a height disadvantage.

Hmm...I wonder if Baby Lim will have her father's height or mine. Kelvin's actually 179cm tall. Yes, he's almost a foot taller than me.

End of 38th week

The whole professional photographer didn't work out in the end. He had a family emergency yesterday when we were supposed to shoot. I suppose I can always get him to come over to take a portrait of all 3 of us after the birth of the baby. I took this shot myself with an auto timer and a lot of cropping. You can see that the bump is now a lot lower now.

The panic starts

Last night I really thought that this could be it.

During American Idol I felt this continuous clenching sensation that lasted well over 2 hours. I was just praying that I'd be able to last through the night coz I was just so tired. Then I started to panic because the crib had not yet been made and the baby bottles had not been washed. We haven't gotten the new car so the baby car seat had yet to be installed. The car was supposed to come last week by the way. So while in pain, I started running about trying to get stuff ready. Couldn't ask Kelvin to help because he's got marking and 2 papers to set by morning.

In the end, I only slept 2 hours because I was just laying there monitoring the contractions which were about 15 to 20 minutes apart. I had no idea how painful they are supposed to be while in active labour but they were twice as bad as whatever I'd been experiencing so far. At that point I was thinking that they could either get worse or it could be that my body's practicing and by morning the whole situation would evaporate. At dawn I was still having the contractions but not to the point where I couldn't talk or walk (that's what the advice on the web says). I didn't want to run to the hospital and end up having a false alarm or have my water broken unless I was in active labour. It turned out to be the latter in the end; it's 10:30 now and no regular contractions.

It's not time to go to the hospital yet. Phew!

Bouncing Around

We went to see my gynae today and he found out that my cervix was already 1cm dilated. So I am in the early stage of labour. It's really not like in the movies where your water breaks suddenly and you get all these doubling over type of contractions. I still feel really normal except for increased pressure on my cervix (only when I stand though) and the contractions which, I must say are rather mild.

I've been literally bouncing around the house. This proves that walking for many hours on end is not the only thing that can get the baby to engage. What I did was just put in one of my regular exercise tapes and bounced around; modifying the movements to low-impact step-touch ones.

I actually dropped in weight by *drum-roll* 200g. Big deal right?! The nurses and my gynae were still pretty concerned. 200g is like the weight of a small packet drink. So they hooked me up to the CTG scan again to monitor the baby's movements. She was just fine. If her heart rate were low it could mean that she isn't getting enough oxygen. My gynae said if that's the case, he'd have break my water bag and get the whole process started. That's NOT an ideal situation. I want to enjoy the whole process and have this as baby as naturally as possible. Who knows, I might not even need the epidural.

Baby Lim's stayed about the same weight. At the moment, it's anything from 2.8kg to 3.1kg. My gynae had to do 2 readings. It seems that it's harder to tell for sure once the baby gets to a certain size.

At this point, I'm a bit worried because sometimes I'm not sure if I'm having a contraction or not. I know that they're there but sometimes they last 5 seconds and other times half a minute. Sometimes they're 10 mins apart and other days I just get them a couple of times a day. Whatever it is, my gynae told me that if the contractions come regularly for 3 hours at 30 mins apart, I need to call him. I think I need something a bit closer and more intense than that. Perhaps it's intuition but I don't feel like it's time yet. I think my body and mind will let me know when to go to the hospital so I'll just trust that. It could be a few more days yet. And I hope it is because I still have a couple of loose ends I need to tie up.

I'm getting a photographer to come to my house on Saturday to capture how I look while pregnant. I've been putting it off because I dare not spend the money but I've come to realize that it's something I really really want to do and I should get a pro to do it.

New nephew

My baby girl has a new cousin. Gary and Djin are the proud parents of little Brannon Mark born 24th March 2008.

It would have been so cool to have our babies born on the same day like Gary and I but well, within a couple of weeks is good enough.

Yeah!