Plan A Update

Well, yesterday I think we tried almost every trick in the book in an effort to make Plan A work. We started with castor oil mid day after the midwife appointment. It definitely cleaned my system out, but did not start labor like we had hoped. And I have to say that it was not quite as abrasive as I had anticipated, thank goodness. It definitely helped to cut it with Gatorade. We took a couple walks around the neighborhood. I ate spicy Thai food. Had a glass of rosé at dinner. And even hooked up the breast pump and pumped some colostrum. And then I was also rubbing clary sage essential oil on my belly every 3 hours, per my acupuncturist's recommendation to help get things moving. 

But still nothing... 

The only major change was that I threw my hip out trying to chase Henry on our evening walk. It hurt so bad that I couldn't even walk unassisted after that. I guess running at 40 weeks 2 days was a bad idea (without prior training). And by the way, I couldn't even catch him and had to holler to Jon to chase after him. Good thing he has been training for the Portland marathon. Fortunately my hip felt better this morning and I was able to make it to acupuncture. She even left a needle in my head to help with the hip pain.  

Then after that I had Mayan abdominal massage. I declined electro-stim from my acupuncturist and declined more needles from my naturopath who does the massage. After yesterday I just felt like I had given it all I had and needed a more restorative day. Jon stayed home with Henry. After the hip incident I didn't feel like I could physically manage watching Henry alone. He even took Henry grocery shopping while I took a bath. He is a saint. And while this may mean a little less time together with the baby, I'm not sure how I could have managed without his support, because I haven't been up to going to work or able to watch Henry completely. We finished off the day by walking around Last Thursday.

So, Plan B may go into action tomorrow night if there is room at the hospital. And at least I can say I feel like I have tried everything possible to get labor going. Every night has felt a little like Christmas Eve and wondering if I'll wake up to find myself in labor...there has been so much anticipation this last week. I think there is a part of me that feels sad that I may never experience going into labor naturally and this could be my last 24 hours of pregnancy, ever. And of course there is the other part of me that also feels relieved to know this phase is over and we can finally meet this bambino in the real world. And there is another part of me that also feels nervous and anxious about the unknown of labor and delivery. Basically, I'm a mess of mixed emotions, like any good pregnant lady should be, right?