an exciting friday night...time for a new decision

i have been realizing that i need to rest more at this point of the pregnancy. it has been a struggle to drive to and from work, and to be at work because of my extreme tiredness and pain i have in walking. i made a few uncharacteristic mistakes and it got me scared that i could not perform my duties as well as i had been. so on monday i decided that i would change my leaving date from Feb 11 to Feb 4. doing that gave me extra energy b/c instead of saying "i've got 3 more weeks!" i could say, "i'm leaving next Friday!" which was much more hopeful for me.

i have been having mandatory naps every day upon arriving home. i also arranged to ride in with a carpool so i wouldn't have to drive to and from work as well as pick derek up (which can add up to 40 or 50 extra minutes of travel time per day). i also requested that i work from home one day per week until i'm done. this week, it will be friday, but i don't know for sure if i'll need to next week.

at my last doctor's appointment he asked me when i was leaving work. when he found out it would not be until i was 38 weeks, he was pretty surprised. he offered to write me a note but i just hemmed and hawed and said i'd think about it.

then on Friday (jan 21) i was having Braxton Hicks all day long, but they rarely softened. i didn't think i was going into labour, i just thought it was strange. so i called the maternity ward and they asked me to come in for an assessment. it was 4 hours on with the fetal heart monitor. they said we have a very healthy 35 week old. their diagnosis was that i was dehydrated (which brought on the constant contractions), so they gave me an IV and full bag of fluid and sent me on my way telling me to rest up.

we were supposed to go to Courtney to visit Poppa & Diane, but they advised that we stay close to home and close to the hospital just in case. so it wasn't so much that i was in prelabour, but more that they were trying to prevent me from starting labour. it wasn't really that frightening of an experience, except for the IV--ouch! did that hurt.

i realized that on Friday i walked around too much, going photocopying and filing and bathroom breaks...and that every time i'd walk, my belly would be pretty hard. so this week i have been strictly sticking to a once-per-hour walk about. where i can lump together the tasks of bathroom break, check my mail, do photocopying, deliver stuff to finance, etc. it has been better this week for sure.

anyway, thats whats been going on here. we managed to get the house cleaned up and we just need to finish the final sanding on the baby change table before the baby room will really be done. its been a long process. derek estimates that we've spent 30 hours sanding that change table...pretty crazy, and thats with power palm sanders!