Not much to report...

Sorry I'm a little late on this. We had dinner at our friend's house after our appt so we just got home.

I was nervous about his appointment. Part of me wanted to be more dilated, but part of me wanted to still be at 5cm so I didn't have to worry about her wanting to break my water. Hence, my BP was 140/102. (At 11am at home, it was 120/62.) So the news is, I'm still 5cm dilated, still -2 position and I'm now about 80% effaced. So not much different from last week at all.

I asked her about breaking my water and how some of you had said that that would make my labor a lot more intense than if it just broke on it's own and she basically that that wasn't really true. She said that when you break your water, usually it causes your body to release oxytocin, which it does naturally anyway during labor, so it would be speeding it up, but not necessarily make it more intense than if it broke naturally. She said the only reason my labor would be more intense than it would naturally is if I didn't go into labor on my own after they broke my water causing them to have to induce me with pitocin. She asked me what I wanted to do - wait another week or come in later this week and have them break my water. I chose to schedule an appointment for next Monday (instead of our usual Tuesday's) with our doctor and see what I'm at then and go from there. I told her I'd prefer to go into my labor on my own instead of trying to rush things and she understood that and was completely open to it. My only concern now is that next Friday (the 22nd) she's going out of town for 2 weeks and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want her to deliver our baby. So in other words, I really want to have this baby by next Friday.

Every time we see Dr. Branaman, we like her more. She seems so open and receptive to the type of birth we're hoping for and always answers all of our questions and explains things well and makes sure we have a good understanding of everything. Today she didn't even make them take my blood pressure over after my exam because I'd given her my BP records for the week and I didn't have any protein in my urine and I'm not swollen anywhere.

Our bags are packed and in the back of the SUV. The only thing I need to put back there is our pillows and a blanket. All of that stuff will probably stay there until we come home from the hospital with our blueberry. Oh, and she was measuring at 39 weeks this week... YIKES! I'm praying that she's just super long and not extra large.