Friday started with a call from my OB's nurse and the instructions to bring my hospital bags just in case, there was a possibility they wouldn't let me go home. This mostly due to the swelling....I've reached the point of having several times a day where my hands are so swollen I simply can't bend my fingers. A bit Barbie-ish, but at least she could wear those funky rings that were actually pegs that fit into a hole in her finger.

Anyway.

Turns out my blood pressure is fine, so the swelling is considered another minor issue but not one of worry. We'll be keeping an eye on it and my blood pressure, but for now not a huge issue. It makes typing a bit difficult and doing certain other tasks difficult -basically those that require holding anything. Ah well.

I'm still 4cm, still 80% effaced, growing bigger by the minute it seems. Before I left my appointment, my doctor said "you might just make it to term after all." We both just looked at each other for a minute, then laughed. There have been so many trips to the hospital, so many times they stopped contractions, and then the big scary trip and those following where they couldn't and ultimately decided we wouldn't try to stop labor any more. And yet, here we are. I might actually be winning the battle of the stubborns.

At times I feel I've done everything short of hang upside down to keep this baby in. It's been a roller coaster of weird things that all ultimately turned out ok, and my husband and I find ourselves a bit shell shocked sometimes. When we talk about it there's a lot of head shaking, the use of the word "crazy" and a lot of emotion.

I'd joked at one point that when the point of safety came, when I reached the milestone where the thought of the little being born was no longer scary I'd do something to celebrate. Hubby has joked that celebration will likely come in the form of giving birth. I'm ok with that. I'd originally meant something more like a pedicure, a walk through the mall (with no restrictions on how much I could walk), perhaps even sex that night. Maybe we'll do all of the above, I don't know.

What I do know is that when they say every pregnancy is different, this is not exactly what I had in mind. I remember thinking maybe I'd have more energy, or be the pregnant woman with the high sex drive (come to think of it I WAS, but couldn't do anything about it).

Today, though, all I can think about is how much I'm looking forward to that new baby smell. Thoughts of newborn cries and strangely I'm really looking forward to giving birth again, for the last time.