Contractions started back up Monday morning at 10am at about 20 minutes apart and lasting 25-30 seconds. They progressively got closer so I called the midwife at 3pm as they were 8 minutes apart but still the 25-30 seconds. They were not too uncomfortable yet, but I did pass my mucus plug and my back was aching something fierce. Of course, I was at work and could not go lay down. She said if I wanted to come to the clinic she would check me and see if anything was going on. Hubby was actually home on time from work, so we headed an hour and fifteen minutes to the clinic at 4:15pm. We knew we would get there after the clinic closed, but my midwife was on call so she said that she would be around and just to call when we got there. I did so and the after hours answering service told me I had to go to the hospital. I tried to explain that she was expecting me, but they kept insisting. Told the hubby we were not going to the hospital yet. So we went and had supper and contractions were then 5 minutes apart still at the 25-30 seconds and not super uncomfortable yet. We went to store walked around a little bit and then finally decided we would go to the hospital since they were not letting up and it was 7pm. So this was the best part that started getting me pissy. Both me and the hubby forgot how to get to the labor and delivery unit at the hospital, so it was a good thing we had this practice run. I call the clinic again as it is the only number I have and get the answering service, but new lady. Explain that we are at the hospital but unsure where to go and asked if she could transfer us to the OB unit. She says she will transfer us to my midwife's cell phone. 30 seconds later, I am talking to my midwife. She questioned why I never came after 5 and I told her what had happened. She was mad and said that they are never to give advice but to always put the call through to whoever is the midwife on call. So she was there waiting for me and all the rest of this stupid nonsense could have been skipped!!! Got admitted in, hooked up to the monitor, and once I was laying down relaxing they died out at 8pm. They had me walk the hallways for an hour and they never started back up.
Plus side is I am dilated 1.5 cm and cervix was starting to soften. Negative side I am super pissed with myself. Seriously - this is my third child. You would think I would know when I am in labor. I kept telling my hubby and the doctor when they asked how bad the contractions were that they were not that bad. If I was at home this would be the point where I would get in the tub and soak for an hour or so to see what happens. But they have been stressing with my fast labors that I need to be proactive and make sure we get on the road. So I was trying to be proactive, especially with how close together they had gotten.
Told the husband on the way home last night though that it is a good thing that he has his delivery kit packed because next time we are not leaving until I am 100% positive and to the point I can't take the pain like we did the last two pregnancies. He'll just have to hope that they extra 45 minutes we have to drive this pregnancy won't be too far and we make it. His to do list today included watching how to give infant CPR. He just stopped by my work and said that he researched both that and also watched some home delivery births to prepare himself.
Contractions have been going on all day again at work starting late morning. I have not even bother timing them to see how far apart they are as they still are nothing seriously uncomfortable. This little lady is making me a tad irritated with the 'crying wolf' she is doing.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

@spunkychelsea - First labor was long at just under 24 hours. We were in the hospital for 10 hours of it. The second labor I was at home for about 2 hours and then hospital for another 2. The part that goes fast is that when my water breaks it does not matter where I have been dilated. It goes complete and I have the urge to push within 10-15 minutes after it breaking. Luckily both times I was at the hospital when it broke. Doctor broke it with the first baby to try to speed up dilation, and the nurse accidently broke it with the second baby when she was checking to see where I was at. So the fear is waiting too long and having the water break before reaching the hospital.

On Wednesday (4-16) I went for my regular weekly appointment. Midwife said she wanted to check me since I had been having contractions on Tuesday and so far that day as well. See if there had been any changes. Baby flipped herself from vertex Monday night to Transverse on Wednesday afternoon. Midwife confirmed that with a quick ultrasound. So yesterday I went to see a chiropractor who specializes in the Webster Technique to hopefully encourage baby back to vertex. Monday I see the chiro again and the midwife to check if baby flipped. If not, then they will try to turn the baby on Tuesday.

Currently I know that the baby is no longer transverse and something is in my pelvis. I am hoping that she went head down and not butt down. And am about 99% she is back to head down. There are just too many tiny pokes at the top of my uterus for it to be hands or elbows. I am thinking they must be her feet.

Glad she's head down again! I was hoping your update was you'd had her! Wow, awesome you move so fast once your water breaks - and a little scary. Mine broke on it's own with I think a certain strength of contraction with my first I was only 1 cm, but was on Pitocin and the contractions were horrible, with my second water broke at around 7cm with the same kind of intensity of contractions.

Jealous of 38 weeks. I'm sitting here at 36 now. Had my apt yesterday, did GBS test and am 1 cm dilated and only 30% effaced. She said plan on going overdue since I have a history of it and hopefully be surprised. HOWEVER, she's going away for the weekend when I will be 5-9 days overdue (my last baby came 6 days overdue). So now I'm terrified baby will choose to come while she's gone. C'mon baby! Don't be another late one!

WOW! I'm sorry to hear you're in the hospital already! I hope if/when you are induced it goes fairly quickly and easily. I can say with my induction I definitely needed an epidural and am very happy I got one with it. Good on you for rolling with it. All that really matters in the end is healthy mommy and healthy baby. Best of luck.

Congrats! So exciting! 9lbs! What a big boy! I had to lose 46 lbs with my daughter, and I did it! It can be done, but definitely give yourself time.

Had our little girl Monday (4-28) morning at 1:51am. Lena weighed 7.2 lbs and is doing well. She is a strong nurser and breastfeeding is going good so far. I am feeling okay. I forgot about the cramping when she nurses and need to get better and taking ibuprophen or Tylenol on a schedule before I need it. Rather then at the point where I am uncomfortable.

Congrats stephsyd! So exciting! Thanks for the reminder about taking meds on a schedule. I remember NOW if I forgot or delayed things were not fun later. What a cute pic you have!

So jealous! I'm ready now baby!

Hey mommas! Congrats to everyone having their babies!

Long story short, my doctors were trying to keep Emma in as long as possible and didn't want me to have her until tomorrow (36 weeks). However, last Thursday I had cramping and bleeding (not labor pains or period cramps, more like stabbing pains for 20 minutes or so) that happened twice and the blood was bright red. I have never bled or spotted with any of my pregnancies and the next morning Emma's anemia had gotten worse. As soon as my perinatologist found out I was bleeding they scheduled a C Section. Emma was born at 4:17 PM on Friday 4/25. She was 5 weeks early and only weighed 5 pounds. She is still in the hospital due to feeding issues as she is considered a "late preterm infant". It turned out my placenta had started to abrupt AND she had a knot in her cord, in addition to the other issues. They couldn't induce me because she was breech.

The C Section is not something I'd ever want to repeat again, but I went ahead and got my tubes tied like I wanted to since we were done having kids anyways, especially if this is what my babies will have to go through with my lupus and stuff like that! Recovery for the first few days was a real challenge but it's getting better.

Hey, all. update on me. It's been a very stressful week. I hit 40 weeks on Thursday (dr. says April 29th, I calculated May 2nd from my ICSI procedure as my due date so we settled on Thursday as an estimate). Blood pressure has been 110/70 consistently, our little girl, Cece, had a good heart rate of 144bpm. I'm 1cm, 75% effaced, and she is at station -1. I can't feel my contractions, but have been having them since I can tell when my belly gets hard, but they aren't consistent.

Anyway...I've been going for natural birth this entire time and Dr. knew it and was supportive. Next thing I know he is telling me that my hospital is booked up all week except for Sunday, May 4th, and wants to induce via tablet. I told him I want to try breast pumping first and he tells me it doesn't work. I tell him I at least want to try and to see if we can get in another day of the week. They call me later to tell me that Sunday is the only day and that he will break waters and then do pumping. If after 6 hours that doesn't work, we'll do pitocin. I'm just scramble brained at that point.

I didn't know her station so my husband calls back friday and finds out it's only -1; if they break waters before I'm 0 or greater, it causes a HUGE timeline issue and I would be either forced into pitocin or c-section. Again, I'm trying to do natural, no issues with baby or my health....so, i called after hours Friday and decided I'm NOT being induced. They can figure out another day and I'm now upset with our Dr. but at 40 weeks, too far to swap someone last minute.

Needless to say, she isn't here yet and I'm trying not to stress out! But, it's been a very long week...Hope all you mama's out there are having better luck.

I'm still here. My due date according to dr.s is this coming Sunday, according to my ovulation I have it as Friday. I am really hoping for a not overdue baby this time. I've been having contractions for a week. THey come for hours and then go away. Didn't have that with the first two. I was hoping it'd at least be dilating me, but nope, still 1-2cm, 50%. Asked my doctor to strip my membranes today since I'm 39 weeks. She did. BUT it didn't work for the last two kids, so I don't know why I bothered asking. We talked possible induction next week (because I brought it up). I wouldn't consider it after having such a crappy time the first time, but my doctor is going to be gone a lot. She will be out of town this weekend Thursday - Sunday (when I'm 39+4 - 40 weeks) and then again Saturday - Monday (40+6-41+1) and I'd really like her to be there, plus the contractions daily is starting to make me lose my sanity. But I'm still debating. I know babies come when they're happy and ready and I don't want to force them out but I really would prefer my dr deliver this one since she did the other two. I guess I'll just get through this weekend and see what next week brings. I'm thinking of inducing next Thursday (40+4) but not sold on it yet. Ugh. I can be thankful that except for the contractions/cramps/backaches, I'm feeling well!

Congratulations! I'm still 2 weeks away. So,so ready. I am working less now and trying to get my house ready for another little boy. I think my 3yo is starting to wonder if this is really going to happen. Seems like we have been talking to him about it forever

Thinking of you moms who are still waiting for their bundle of joy to arrive. Hope all goes well with labor and can't wait to see the update you had them.

I had my baby 8 days ago! My first not late baby! She was 39+5/May 16th. Labor started like my last one, at 4am. Had my family come watch the kids a little before 10 am when contractions were 5 mins apart. We drove 40 mins to the hospital and walked up and down stairwells and around the building to get the contractions from 7-8 mins apart closer again. They told me I was too chipper to be in labor, but when they checked I was 5-6 cm about 11 am. I was THRILLED last time when I checked in the hospital with my daughter I was only 2 cm. So woo! Progress! (My doctor was gone at her conference, but my favorite midwife was on call and I'm so thankful that I had my baby with her as she was very encouraging about doing it without drugs and the one time I talked about wanting some she told me I didn't want them, she was amazing). About 1:50 they checked me and said I was only 6-7 cm with bulging water. Let me get in the tub even though they were hesitant because they didn't want to slow down my labor. I started having some sucky contractions around this time. Before I could just stop and breath through them. Now I was groaning a bit. 2:25 got in the tub while it was filling, had a bad contraction, said I would want drugs if they continued this way. Next contraction my water broke and my body started pushing (COULDN'T help it! OMG! I had an epidural with my last two births, this one was TOTALLY out of control without drugs). My husband ran and got a nurse as soon as my water broke, she wanted me to get out of the tub, the midwife came in, the hospital doens't allow water or tub births, their plumbing is not set up for that. They said when my contraction ended to try and get out of the tub, I was groaning and pushing and said the contraction WASN'T ending!! The midwife checked and said her head was coming so no getting out of the tub, so they drained it while I was in it and pushing. I'd say my water broke about 2:30 and the official time of birth was 2:38pm. The midwife and nurse and my husband and I were shocked it happened so fast! I was a little hysterical and in shock. I was like "IS THAT HER HEAD??" "WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" THey handed her to me and I couldn't believe it. Then my husband cut the cord and he got her for the next hour while they worked on me. I delivered the placenta easily, but then started hemorrhaging. I had no IV, so they gave me a shot of pitocin in the thigh. That didn't work. I got 8 pills of cytoteck rectally, that wasn't enough. Still with no drugs the midwife stuck her hand up me and pulled out some blood clots by hand. That helped, but I still wasn't clamping down quick enough so they gave me an IV and 3 bags of pitocin. The theory was third baby my uterus just didn't want to work with us this time (I had no problems with previous deliveries).

I am proud of myself for doing it without drugs, but really it was probably only because it happened so fast. I wish I would have drugs for the hour they were working on me. The uterus massage was terrible (before I'd had epidurals and didn't notice as much?) and everything they were doing for me to stop bleeding was worse than the birth was. The labor I really only had about 10 bad contractions, then it was just pushing. I really didn't hold my daughter for the first hour, I could have, but I didn't want to because I was in so much pain and a little worried as the next step was taking me to the OR to do a D&C. LUCKILY my blood work came back great and I wasn't anemic, didn't need any blood or iron. We were able to leave after 24 hours.

Kate is doing great, she's been awesome. She was my smallest baby - 7lbs 2 oz vs my others 7lbs 12 and 7lbs 15, but the other two were late and had more time to pack on fat. I'm still so thrilled she wasn't late like the last two! I had a second degree tear AGAIN. That is still tender. If I walk too much (I ran to target for a few items) I get really sore and the bleeding picks up. I'm annoyed that I've only lost 13 lbs when I only gained 22 lbs. But really I'm just relieved everything turned out well and could have been a lot worse. I've hardly had any bleeding since like 2 days postpartum, probably from them getting as much out of me as possible and making my uterus contract so much. I could probably get away with a panty liner instead of the huge pads, but I'm not sure my bladder is 100% yet. Now I've had 3 very different births (1 induced with epidural, 1 started on it's own with epidural, and 1 all natural). Afterwards I just kept saying I should have gotten drugs at least so the after part didn't hurt as much (the stitches I had to keep getting more numbing shots as I could feel her sewing me up). Breastfeeding is great. Kate only lost 2 oz, so the doctor is happy. She nurses constantly, and it doesn't hurt as much as it did with the first two, so I'm allowing her to nurse whenever she wants.

Hope all of you still waiting for your babies have a non exciting, easy birth with everyone healthy and happy after it!