37 Week Appointment

Well, I had my 37 week appointment this morning. And there's nothing all that terribly exciting to report. I'm only 1 cm dilated and 25% effaced. Since the baby has settled down in my pelvis, his heart rate has dropped into the 150's. And he's still all lined up, ready to come out. Apparently my body isn't in too much of a rush, though. Which I suppose is fine. I know my body and the baby will know when it's time to make everything happen, but I can't help comparing everything to when I was at this point with Clark. At 37 weeks, I was a good 2 1/2 cm dilated and 50% effaced, and I could feel that my body was out of room.

I feel okay with not going early, but I am still hoping that when the time comes, I'll be more dilated. Ah, but who knows what will actually happen? I should just give up trying to figure it out, but when you're here at the end and you're basically all ready to go, it's hard not to obsess, at least a little bit.

My nurse practitioner offered to strip my membranes next week if I wanted. I'm not sure at the moment. I guess if I haven't made much more progress and I'm really uncomfortable, I might give it a go. As far as interventions go, that one's pretty minor I think. But generally speaking, I much prefer just letting things happen on their own. Now, if it looks like I would go overdue and the possibility of having to be induced comes up, I think I'd definitely go the stripping membranes route to attempt to avoid that. Pitocin doesn't sound like much fun. Last time I had an induction scheduled at 39 weeks, but there was no pitocin in that plan. Since I was already 4cm, my doctor was just going to break my water and have me walk laps around the hospital. She felt pretty confident that would work. Of course, that's not how things turned out. lol

Anyway, my next appointment is in a week. If there's anything of significance to report between now and then, I certainly will.