7 Times. Seven.

That’s how many times the word urine appears in this post. You were warned…

Yeah, I’m a couple days behind. But! No baby yet, so you haven’t really missed anything. Not much, anyway. Lets start with Friday.

Friday at noon I was supposed to see my midwife so that we could re-check my blood pressure and urine-protein levels. I left the house at about 8:00 that morning to take care of a few new-house related errands and to meet a friend for breakfast. 30 minutes later on the highway, my car started to overheat. Awesome, right? I did everything I was supposed to, including checking the coolant level and waiting to see if the car would cool off on its own, but no. I still had the pleasure of calling to have my car towed to the dealership. By an angry blond man with a surly attitude and no sympathy for really, really pregnant women stranded 45 minutes from home. He was lovely. I was sure that the bumpy ride back to the dealership was going to send me into labor; best case scenario, I was just hoping my water would break all over his soft, plush tow truck interior.

From the dealership, I went straight to my appointment where we found out that my blood pressure and urine-protein levels were the same as they were on Tuesday. So, we traded a lot of my blood for two bio-hazard jugs that I had the privilege of using to collect 24 hours worth of urine, which would determine if I was pre-eclamptic or not, and therefore if we would need to be induced. They bid me farewell for the weekend, so that we could come home and spend 48 hours trying every natural labor-induction method I could find on the internets. To no avail. Which brings us to today. What a crap morning! And then a good morning! Oh, the emotional rollercoaster…

I made my appointment for 8:15 this morning, but noticed last night that the appointment card said 9:15. We just went over there at 8:15, where we found out that the girl who made the appointment card “has been screwing up everyone’s appointments lately.” Nice. I love it when co-workers throw each other under the bus Ashley Simpson-style.

So there we were, at the front window, with two jugs of double-bagged urine. 24 hours worth. That’s when they said, “Sarah, you didn’t drop off your urine yet?” “No, but I have it here with me now!” I said with a smile. Turns out I was supposed to drop it off at the hospital lab this weekend, so they could have the results to my midwife this morning. The nurse forgot to pass that information along to me. Which had me pissed off (heh) all the way to the hospital, where I had to go through admitting and registration before I could even get to the damn lab.

By the way, what about all that pre-registration paperwork I did at the hospital? “Oh, we just keep that on file, hon. Now, you’re not in our system… have you been here before?” Are you kidding me!? You’re really working my patience, Angela M. in admitting. Let’s not exchange pleasantries and make small talk so I can get out of here, m’kay?

Back at the office with my midwife 45 minutes later, we found out that my blood work came back great (yay!) and my in-office urine and blood pressure reading were the same as last Tuesday and Friday, which was high but not too high. So we passed, no induction today. The only thing we might be facing now is protein-high results from the bucket-o-urine sample, which we won’t have until tomorrow. If there’s still concern with that, we’ll induce tomorrow night. That is, if we don’t go into labor before that. C’mon, contractions. And now we wait for a phone call tomorrow morning, letting us know either way if we’re inducing. More good news is that if we induce, we’ll do it with some kind of magical cervix balloon, and not Pitocin, so I can still be drug free.

Other deets: my midwife has gone from saying this boy will be between 8 and 10 pounds when he’s born, to “10 pounds, easy”. I knew he was going to be big. Lucky for me, I have a great pelvis. Or so I’m told. Also, I’m 3 centimeters dilated now. Look at me go!

I feel great today, and have no anxiety at all, about being induced or birthing a 10-pounder. I’m ready! Bring it, unnamed baby boy. Then again, I guess that could be the euphoric high talking, the high that results from eating two egg mcmuffins, hash browns and a vanilla iced coffee in minutes. Don’t care. I’m going to the movies this afternoon, and plan on relaxing and enjoying the next hours or days that we have before he joins us.