How to go into Labor in 15 Easy Steps

Yesterday was Ali's due date, and I know that number is a VERY rough guess by doctors (only 10% of women deliver on their due date). I also feel very content letting Aliyah decide when her due date will be. I am still pretty physically comfortable and am able to get a decent nights sleep, but when you’re sitting around with a fully cooked human being inside of you, the urge to move things along grows stronger by the day. And if you think my desires to have this child are bad, you should see my husband. He has had several heart to heart talks with my belly pleading for Aliyah to come out.
We learned that in our birthing classes, sitting on the couch eating pizza will do the same thing as walking the neighborhood over and over or drinking caster oil. So... I am not sure if these things help induce labor, but this is what we have been up to:

1. Walking - just because we enjoy the exercise

2. Eating a lot of pineapple

3. Sitting on my big green exercise ball and rolling my hips around while I watch TV

4. Hot sauce on everything, jalapenos on my pizza, extra spicy coconut chicken from our favorite Indian place

5. Tyler has been giving me lots of foot and shoulder massages (love him!!)

6. I have cleaned every spot in our house - high & low

I recently found some pretty funny natural labor inducing suggestions (15 Easy Steps) - I had to share. I’m not promising we’ll try any of these, but if something doesn’t happen within the next week or so we may give even the crazy ones a second glance:

* Drink a root beer float and drive down a bumpy road

* Drink a RC Cola and eat a moon pie
* Hack at roots in the yard with an axe
* Ride on a 4 wheeler
* Jump on a trampoline
* Rearrange furniture and eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger
* Do jumping jacks while watching Anchorman
* Eat a fried green tomato BLT
* Headstands
* Go on a brisk walk (nothing too long, like 10-15 minutes). Drink 1/2 a guiness beer while someone (Tyler) massages your feet. Then consume 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
* Eat hot dogs and ride down a dirt road
* Shine a flashlight up your hoo-ha
* Ride in an old truck over railroad tracks
* Get into a small boat and row out to the middle of a lake

* Unpack the hospital bag

So there you have it. I have laughed and laughed at these. If you’ve got one I haven’t listed above - leave it in the comments. I’d love to hear it!

Bump @ 40 Weeks

40 Weeks!!!

I talked Tyler into snapping this picture after our weekly OB appointment yesterday morning. Two nights ago I had a little breakdown after my 180th daily trip to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror - I had on big sweatpants and a stain on my shirt. There were cookie crumbs on my chin and my hair was dirty and flipping out in a stringy pony tail. I stared at myself and turned to the side and tried to remember how I looked before I got pregnant as there is no part of me that pregnancy has not affected.

While I have spent the better portion of this experience marveling at the capabilities of my body (and I still do marvel) - there are plenty of moments when I feel like a wildebeest... So I woke up determined to feel as babelicious as a 9 month pregnant woman can possibly look. I didn’t succeed entirely (How can any of us when women like Heidi Klum exist in the world?), but I did have a little more pep in my step when my reflection passed the row of mirrored windows on the way in for my appointment - and that’s enough for me!

Doctor Report: 2 cm dilated, baby is really low and 80% effaced -- our doctor is on-call this weekend and said that she didn't think we will make it to next week without this little one in our arms - we'll see!

Third Trimester Most Popular

I’d like to thank the following items for the important role they have played in the last 10 weeks of my pregnancy:

Grapefruit Juice

Peanut Butter M&Ms

A Cold Glass of Skim Milk

Fresh Fruit

Comfy Tights

Ice Water

A Bowl of Cereal

I don't think I could have made it this far without you guys!

We're Ready

It has been only this week that I’ve felt 100 percent ready for your arrival. Sometimes I sit in quiet in the rocking chair in your nursery and try to think of things we still need to prepare for you - and the answer has been... nothing. We have warm blankets. We have tiny clothes. We have safe places for you to sleep in almost every room.

The house is clean, our bags our packed, and with nothing else left to do, we are left alone to learn how to deal with an insuppressible urge just to have you in our arms. I’ve never experienced this feeling in my life - knowing that the best, most beautiful change to ever happen is so close without any clear definition of when exactly it will happen.

Every morning we wake up hopeful that today is the day we meet you. Every time I close my eyes I try to imagine your face. Your father and I have been promising you all sorts of bribes through my belly. (Don’t hold us to that pony thing, ok?) We make up silly activities to induce labor like speed vacuuming or marching in place to a Fleetwood Mac album.

Every day we wake up without you here is like falling asleep every night expecting it to snow and then waking up every morning and realizing it didn’t happen and you have to go to school.

You are our snow. our blizzard. and we can’t stop searching the sky for signs that you’ve arrived.

A Lunch Date

Feeling a bit like Snow White/Mary Poppins during lunch outside after my doctor's appointment last week...

Can you believe this crazy bird?!?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

What it Feels Like to be Married

I just love weddings and have been lucky enough to attend 2 in the past 2 weeks! CONGRATS MR & MRS. GRAHAM RUSSELL!!!!

With all the love in the air, a friend and I were discussing what it feels like to be married - this is what I could come up with...

It feels the same as when you first fell in love...

except you have more opportunities to catch him flexing in the bathroom mirror

and he tells you you’re beautiful when you have on his too big sweat pants.

And also, when you get into a stupid fight about how he keeps drinking out of the carton in the fridge when you’ve begged him not to a million times...

he’ll huff and puff and go sleep on the couch.

30 minutes will pass...

You’ll toss and turn and then you’ll go out there

and say, “I can’t sleep without you”

He’ll say “come here”

You’ll curl up on your little couch together

and forget why you were mad in the first place.

And in the morning he’ll finish your bowl of Cocoa Krispies.

So now you know.