Okay, one more post

Oooh.

Big day. We go to the hospital at 5:30 today and let the doctor on duty do her thing (yes it is a woman, I've been told) which I am sooooo looking forward to, let me tell you. No sarcasm.

really.

I've also apparently lost the ability to type accurately so if there are any glaring typos... deal with it.

I'm really quite scattered today. I hope the day will go by relatively quickly and not like Christmas Eve generally does. You know the feeling. The way time seems to truly sloooooowwww dooowwwwwnnn when you're really excited about something. Kind of like when you're sitting in class - elementary, high school, college, university, detention, drivers' ed... whatever - and you swear the hands on the clock are actually moving backwards... That's what today is going to be like. We live about 20 minutes from the hospital so we'll be leaving around 5:00. Really it's just the time of one regular work day - shorter for most people. But time is already crawling. It's 9:30 right now. Only 7 1/2 hours left.

SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS?!

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO FOR SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS?

The day's fairly anxiety-ridden. I'm still not worried or nervous about the birth itself. I'm not thinking that far ahead. I'm more worried about the results of the initial check at the hospital. Will we be allowed to stay or will we be sent home? The doctor didn't tell me to call first which I find interesting. Generally when you're going for an induction you're supposed to call ahead to make sure they've got room for you. If they're really busy with walk-ins they send you home. Will I have started to dilate on my own and be sent home for that reason? I don't feel any different. No increase in the braxton hicks contractions. Jelly on the other hand is frog-kicking me to death. Seriously... anyone familiar with the breast stroke's leg movements will get a good idea of this. Imagine it happening in your rib cage. This is what Jelly is doing right now. Like while I'm typing. It's worse when I try to do something so innocent as go to sleep.

well that went a little off topic eh?

Right... will I be kept there? Will I get the gel? Will it work? Will I need to have my waters broken? Will I be on pitocin - dear God not pitocin. Don't get me wrong, I want this baby out as badly as my OB does (not that she'll be there, she's on vacation) and I'm not going to argue with them if they want to use pitocin but if they do I want the epidural IMMEDIATELY.

Will labour start tonight when I'm trying to get in the ever important sleep or will I be delivering sometime on Tuesday or - yipe - Wednesday? How long will we let this go?

If they do keep me will Dad be allowed to stay or will he be sent home? We'd prefer he stayed but can live with it if they want him to leave. I'll be asleep anyway. Will the idiot nurses let me take my insulin the way I say I'm supposed to take it?

But enough about me, specifically.

We have plans to chunk up the day a bit. For example, I'm not even ready for my day yet. I'm still in pyjamas and in need of a shower - gotta' be beautiful before the big event.

We're only mostly packed. I plan on re-packing once or twice and Dad still needs a change of clothes in the bag. Bag. Heh. Suitcase. We have no less than three bags packed and no pillows currently ready to go. So, re-packing sounds like a good way to kill 20 or 30 seconds.

The house is clean. There is nothing I could do to make it better except maybe reaarange the basement and I get the feeling the more rest I have now, the better.

I just want to make sure the kitchen is clean and the garbages are emptied before we leave.

Everything is taken care of.

So we're going out to brunch. Well the restaurant calls it brunch. The Gestational Diabetic Diet does not allow me to have "brunch." So what I'm really having is breakfast food for lunch. And they've got a really good looking menu too. I plan on taking an extra cartridge of insulin with me.

So that should get us through to about 1:30. Then we can come back here and ... rest? What are we supposed to do for three and half hours? Watch a Lord of the Rings movie? We don't have the first one and I don't think my attention span would last that long anyway. It's Sunday. There's nothing on television today. I could try a foot spa. And we could read I guess. Maybe a few last trial runs so we don't look like complete idiots with the car seat? I wonder if the cat would like to help...

Doubt it.

So anyway, that's the plan for today. Hurry up and wait. Patience is a virtue I possess only when teaching. I do not possess it for big events like this.

Of course, it's almost 10:00 now and I still haven't felt the munchies come on yet. Maybe this afternoon.

Maybe it's time to sign off and try that reading thing. Maybe I could clean the kitchen again. It's easy to clean when it's already clean. Maybe I could start the packing again.

Maybe I could write a book all about fretting. The nervous type - not the kind you do when playing a stringed instrument. That's different.

Maybe if I sign off now I'll stop babbling.

Oh... for those who are interested... here's how labour works with Gestational Diabetes. Labour is spent with the usual infusion fluids (nothing by mouth except clear fluids at my hospital) and no insulin. Labour sucks enough energy - 700 calories per hour. Afterwards I get to eat normal food for 24 hours an monitor my sugars. Presuming they look okay, I get to to another glucose tolerance test in 6 weeks. Yippee. Lookin' forward to that. So here's hopin' that the diabetes goes away with the placenta. Keep your fingers crossed!

Ciao!


-HLC