38 week appointment - seriously

Ok, so I walked into the doctor's office this morning knowing I've been having contractions....most likely Braxton-Hicks sort cause they're not strong enough to make me feel like death or anything, but noticeably uncomfortable from time to time...nothing huge. So they weighed me and first of all I lost the weight I had "gained" last week, so that was kind of happy. Keeps my total weight gain at this point 7.5 lbs....the doc is very, very pleased about that. Truthfully I am too cause I think that's what is keeping me as mobile as I am, otherwise I'd be bound to the couch for sure....not that I've got an entirely large amount of energy anyway, but what I do have would be sucked up indeed.

Anyway, she checked baby's heartrate and he's still in the 140's - 150's with accelerations, so that's perfect. He's still in the same spot so that's good. My BP was 120/70 which is more than excellent especially for me - good thing I waited to call HR at work till after the appointment - more on that momentarily. She checked my progress and I'm almost 3cm dilated and about 80% effaced. I know what you're thinking - hey, you were supposedly 90% effaced 3 weeks ago!!! I know, but doc explained it's harder to measure effacement when you're only 1cm dilated, which is where I was 3 weeks ago, so now that I'm a little further "opened" it's easier to measure and that's what she gave me. Now I know it sounds like not much, but any progression on my own is better than what some other folks (that poor dear) are going through right now. Let's just say hopefully Tina has that kid today....for her sake in the least cause she's having a rough road at this time.

So, although I'm making headway, they had me schedule an ultrasound for next week to check approximate weight of the baby and the fluid levels - which they have every reason to believe are fine cause of the size of this load I'm carrying around regardless of the fact I haven't put on a ton of weight - and also check the placenta function cause sometimes later in pregnancy it stops being so efficient. They also had me make my next 2 weeks of OB appointments which leads me to believe they're not convinced it's gonna happen anytime soon. So here I sit and do this thing, which is fine....having him a little late (beyond due date) wouldn't be a bad thing as long as he's not mammoth and still getting everything he needs in there.

About HR - for the THIRD pay period in a row, I did not get paid today. They tried to blame it on the short-term disability administrator the first time, but now it's just ridiculous!! Luckily I talked to the same guy I had 2 weeks ago and he's just going to overnight the check to me tomorrow. I told him this is kind of silly though, isn't it?? Now I know my company outsources our HR for these things but this company we use has given us far more headaches over the last few years.....why can't they just get it right??!!?? At this point, since my disability approval only goes till 9/15 and based on what docs think about me now, I'm probably going to have to extend it all again....what a headache. Luckily my health is good and I can get out to do some stuff during the day and in the evening so I'm not just sitting around stewing about it.

Chris is getting restless, I can tell. He's just nervous about being a Dad, but I know he'll be a super excellent dad and it's just gotta happen before he stops worrying so much. He's being very supportive of me though and everytime we go somewhere (just to walk around in someone else's air conditioning) if I stop with an "ouch" he's right on top of it...usually it's just a punch to the bladder by little one or I stepped on something that made my flip-flop cut into my foot weird or something silly, but he's always thinking it's gonna be the first big contraction :)