"Early Labor"... day 3

Well everyone, things have been pretty hit or miss (but mostly miss) since they sent us home from the hospital. Since nothing progressed on Sunday, and the contractions started becoming less painful (but still there), we decided to just walk a lot Monday and see if that would help.

I should note that Monday morning started out a little scary... I hadn't felt Peanut move in awhile, so I laid on my left side and had Casey try to feel as well. Nothing happened. Then we put the headphones on my tummy again, which normally made the kid kick, but nothing. The time seemed like it was going on forever and nothing was happening. We even got a flashlight and shined it on my stomach b/c that was supposed to wake it up. Nope. So Casey went to the other room, and I stayed in bed, panicking. Suddenly, like a light had been switched on, the kid woke up with a jump and has barely stopped moving since! (My ribcage could tell stories!!)

So after that frightening moment, we decided to get up and around, and went to the hotel to get the girls. We went to the mall and walked around for a bit. We got curtains for our bedroom (since the baby will sleep in there for a few weeks at least, and the sun comes up right in our windows... we needed something!) We also found some for the nursery. Woo hoo! After that adventure, we decided to take the drive up to Schaumburg to the larger IKEA store there, so we could get a mattress and slipcover for the love seat we bought last weekend. Our IKEA wouldn't cooperate so we had no choice but to drive up there. We walked around a lot (again) and got those items purchased. THEN, mom was itching to cook, so we went to the Plainfield Walmart and pretty much bought the entire store.

Walmart was pretty hilarious. At one point I was spacing out, and tried to put our gallon of milk in another lady's cart. The look on her face was priceless. I just looked at her and said, "Just kidding... um... I'm blond and pregnant, so I don't have a lot going for me right now.." (which is by far my favorite line/excuse during this pregnancy!!) A bit later, we were in the frozen food section and mom was apparently pretty excited to see some potatoes, because she bent over really fast right in front of me to look at something on the shelf and almost stuck her butt right into Peanut- so I had to jump back quickly so Peanut didn't get smashed! LOL... Les was cracking up at us pretty much the whole time. Walmart was definitely an adventure. :) Oh, and how could I forget... after all that walking, I had to go to the bathroom, so while the girls checked out I waddled over to the bathroom, only to find that the janitor was cleaning it and there was no way to get in. I am so glad that I was able to hold it... but I waddled back to the checkout line and said, "Okay, being 8 months pregnant and being blocked out of a bathroom is a very BAD thing." The little young guy working the cash register started asking me questions about the baby, etc. I think I have scared every dude in a 5 foot radius of me when they find out I'm in 'early labor'. All of them get wide-eyed and think the kid is going to fall out or something. LOL... yeah...

Anyway, I walked a TON that day... I had to have gotten at least a few miles under my belt when it was all said and done, which was even more impressive to me because my right foot was still killing me!

We came home that night after Walmart, watched the KU game, and then the girls went back to their hotel at half time and Casey and I stayed up feeling Peanut kick the crap out of my insides. Casey distinctly felt two little feet right under my left ribcage!!! Pretty amazing stuff! And thank GOD for it all, too... esp. after that scary start in the morning.

Tuesday, since things weren't progressing, Case decided to go in to work part of the day and took me to the hotel so I could hang out with the girls and we could run a few errands. I ate breakfast with mom at the hotel, then we went up to her room. Shortly afterward, De got up and we went back down to breakfast. We ended up chatting with a guy that worked at the hotel for at least an hour... poor kid just walked up and asked me when the baby was due (or if it was a boy or girl, I can't remember) and then we ended up talking his ear off! He was really nice, though, and asked a lot of questions about us, Casey's family's aircraft business, etc. The staff at the hotel was so nice- we ended up sitting and talking to a few of them. Then the girls got around, we checked out of the hotel, and went to get a video game and some things we forgot at Walmart the night before (which I didn't think was possible after all the food we bought!!). At home, the girls decided to help clean my entire house. Not kidding, the place looks better than it has in probably 6 months. Maybe more. I feel like I had Merry Maids come in, only they also did the laundry and cooked a ton of food. It was AWESOME.

Case got off work around 12:30, then had an appointment with our local police station to check the installation of our car seat. He decided to pick me up beforehand, which was nice because I got to see how awesome he did on his 'homework' assignment about the car seat... the inspector was very impressed and said he was more informed that anyone she'd met before! That's my hubby!! :)

Contractions have still happened every 10 minutes or so, but not many of them were very strong. I always hope for the strong ones so I can get this over with!! I am writing you now (and hopefully not jinxing myself) because I woke up at 3:30 with some pretty good ones, and I wanted to get up and move around so they wouldn't stop. Man, I hope this works. I know I should be patient right now, but it's tough when really the only thing I'm waiting on is my water to break. Facebook has provided me with a lot of 'suggestions' about how to induce labor... some are hilarious, some are definitely made up, and a few sound legit enough that they may be worth a shot. C'mon water, just break!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhh....

Sorry for the long and rambling entry... I am probably going to forget a lot of the details after this is all over, so it'll be good to come back and try to remember what life was like before Peanut. I hope the wait is almost over!!

Love,

Ash