The rest of the story

Make sure to read the post before so you are all caught up first.

**WARNING** Contains plenty of pregnancy talk so if you are a guy or single person who might find this gross - read at your own risk!

I knew we were in the final leg of this race about 10 days ago. I started having contractions late Friday night and really thought I was headed to the hospital. But things stopped and all I ended up with a night of no sleep. Noah had a basketball game at 9 am the next morning and it was so hard to drag myself there. I was tired. I was hurting. My only seating options were to sit on the bottom row with no back rest (ouch!) or climb to the top so I could lean against wall, but making my way up the bleachers is equally painful right now. But we went to the top. Noah's team got crushed :(, and my little stinker Aly kept deciding she hade to go potty. I reached a point where I literally felt like I could not make it up and down the bleachers one more time and next thing I know I am bawling. Complete waterworks. Jon is looking at me like I have two heads and of course I am surrounded by people I know from Noah's school. Just a little embarrassing. I am usually not a cryer. This was purely a hormonal issue, and my first clue that things are a changing...

Then I spent the rest of last week nesting!! The girls room is done except for some wall decorations. I love the way it turned out and will post pictures soon. So that brings us up to this week. I had my doctors appointment on Monday (yesterday). I am currently 3 1/2 cm dilated! Yay! That is good news. The bad news is that he told me he will be on vacation all next week. This really sucks for me. I have been very spoiled. He is a great doctor and throughout this entire pregnancy, not to mention my entire last pregnancy, I never once had to see another doctor. He was there for every appointment and for the delivery. it will really be a huge letdown if he not able to be there. My doctor knows how ready I am to have this baby and really trying hard to work with me to get her before he goes on vacation. However, we did have a discussion about recent recommendations from the medical community. Turns out the consensus is that doctors have become to cavalier with non-medically necessary inductions and recent studies are suggesting inducing before 39 weeks is not a good idea. I completely agree and don't really want to be induced, but it is a bummer because I won't be 39 weeks until the day AFTER he leaves for vacation. But we did come up with a plan. Yesterday, I had my membranes stripped. I'll leave out the details. Just know that physically I am showing every other sign of being ready for labor and he was confident that with that procedure I would be in labor within 24-48hours. Well that was about 31 hours ago and I am still not in labor. I am so surprised because I had this done with Aly and she was born the next day. The only positive sign is that as of this morning I have also lost my mucous plus. Again, I will spare you the details. ;)
So here I sit! Playing the waiting game. The next step, is another appointment tomorrow where he will strip the membranes again. He also said that he *might* break my water. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I am really anxious to have the baby, but to me that pretty much seems like an induction so I'm not sure if that's what I want to do. I'm hoping I will go into labor tonight and not have to make the decision. We of course will be updating with pictures as soon as she makes her arrival. Oh and we now have the name "Avery Elise" back on the table. For a long time we have been settled on "Peyton Elise" but now feel like we need to see her before we can decide between the two. So who knows!