A Big Experiment

Well, I am still here, and not in labor. I had a great time at my shower on Saturday. Elizabeth is a wonderful hostess, even though she wasn't feeling well AND had been up until after 1:00 the previous night with Amanda in the hospital, ruling out appendicitis for her!

My new problem is constipation. (Stop reading now if that little fact is too much information, LOL!) Even though I have been daily eating prunes, bran muffins, and other high fiber foods, as well as exercising, and drinking lots of water, nothing has helped these past 2 weeks. It was an unpleasant surprise to me when I starting having babies that whatever is stuck in the ol' bowel gets pushed out when you push out the baby, and I had a lot of problems with that when I went in to have Jonathan, so I definitely want to avoid that unpleasantness with this baby. It's quite inhibiting to this modest girl, LOL! My friend Christine had mentioned that she had some castor oil, so I did some research and decided to take it, not really to induce, but to relieve constipation. I took 2 Tbsp. last night, mixed with 2 Tbsp. orange juice and 1/2 tsp. baking soda (a trick I read about--the baking soda emulsifies the oil so it mixes in with the orange juice--it's still incredibly gross-tasting however). I took that little concoction last night at 6:00, fully expecting to be in the bathroom all night. Instead, I got . . . nothing. I would like to take this opportunity to award myself the "Iron Bowel" award, and thank all the people, such as my dad, whose genes made this feat possible! LOL! Seriously, I did not go to the bathroom once, so obviously I am a hard-core case. I did have some contractions last night, starting at about 9:00. They were fairly regular, but they were about 10 minutes apart, and they never really got closer together or much stronger. I went off to bed, and I had contractions through the night because I woke up a few times because of them, but by 5:00 in the morning, they had gone away. Oh well. This morning I decided to get serious with this constipation issue, so I took 4 Tbsp. of castor oil. I am awaiting further developments there. Who knew my bowel could be so stubborn?!

I went ahead and made an appointment with the doctor I've been seeing for the past several months for tomorrow (Tuesday) at 9:30. She had told me that she doesn't like to break amniotic sacs in the office (the other doctor prefers to), so she would try stripping my membranes again before considering anything else. I would rather try that, so I'm glad I could get in tomorrow. Further bulletins as events warrant . . .