I'm typing this between contractions while sitting on a giant rubber ball. Forgive any typos. I wanted to give a little background on how my OB appointment went yesterday. We knew it was going to be a bit of an ultimatum (I'm so impressed I just spelled that right just now) appointment but figured we would just see what everyone had to say.

When Dr. D checked me, my cervix had softened/thinned a bit more and moved anterior/forward but I still hadn't dilated past that one centimeter. She also was concerned that baby boy's head had not fully engaged in my pelvis in that she could touch him but could still push him away.

So I was given two options:

1) wait another week and if he didn't come on his own go in for a c-section. I pretty much knew this is not what I wanted since I would always wonder if I could have done it and the stress would have made me a giant ball of snot and tears walking into the hospital.

2) Schedule an induction date for this week and see if he would come out on his own either before then or with a little prodding.

We decided to go with option 2. They looked on the calendar and scheduled me for Wednesday morning at 7:30am. When the physician's assistant (more words I'm stunned I just spelled/typed correctly) told me that date, I asked if she had something a little later. "We normally do all our inductions first thing in the morning." "Well, I meant do you have something later in the week?" I smiled sheepishly.

Nope, Wednesday was the best day because of which doctors would be on call and who would be most agreeable to let me try to birth this baby on my own and not skip straight to surgery. In the end that seemed like the best idea. We all agreed on that and left the office.

And as Rich drove us home, I cried the whole way.

I just needed to mourn a scenario that I really wanted to happen that was having its door closed. I knew I could still stand a good chance of having this boy vaginally and without medication but it was not my ideal situation. I would literally have to pick my last meal that morning, drive in to the hospital and be given Cytotec to encourage dilation and hope that contractions started up on their own before folks got impatient. I really dislike hospitals so the idea of spending at least 24 hours there with no food and no baby and possibly no progress was not very appealing.

Over the course of the evening I started feeling kind of crappy. At one point I had convinced myself that I had contracted swine/bird/moose flu and would have to suffer through contractions in that condition. We called it a night around 11pm.

Around 5am I woke up to pee and felt a little rumbly-tummied (don't even ask me if that's spelled right). Once my body decided to reboot its digestive system, I felt worlds better and curled back up in bed. That's when I noticed those tell-tale signs we talked about in birth class. My back would tighten up, then that tightness would wrap around to the front. I could feel my whole uterus pull forward for about a minute and then it would slacken up. This kept up the entire time I was lying in bed and I must say I was napping with a huge smile on my face.

Throughout the day my contractions have been picking up speed and intensity. At the moment they're about 3-4 minutes apart. I'm obviously still able to type, but that may not last much longer. And as Rich says I'm not finishing my sentences in a timely manner anymore so it's a bit like charades in our house.

My family has always had some sort of crisis that kicks our collective asses into gear to do something. The yard will be a wreck until someone reports it to the city and then my father moves mountains to clean it up. The roof will be in disrepair until it leaks and risks ruining the rafters underneath and then suddenly we can empty the attic in a weekend and replace the roof in two days.

So when things started picking up this morning, I told Rich that this baby was just like all the other Powells and wasn't going to do anything until someone gave him a hard deadline. As Rich said, we called the city on him.