Insomnia, 39 Weeks, & Potty Training

Insomnia

I. can't. sleep.

I don't know what my problem is, but for the past 3 nights I have been up ALL night till about 7 a.m. when I finally doze off and then I am woken up a few minutes later by a, "Wake Up Mommy!" This terrible sleep thing has caught up with me and is making me feel horrendous today. I feel like I have the flu or something. Muscle aches, back ache, stomache ache, indigestion, woozy head feeling, etc. This morning I resorted to doing something I hardly ever do - going downstairs with a blanket and pillow, turning the tv on and letting Ellie watch shows all morning while I tried to get a few short naps in. I pretty much never watch tv during the day when I'm home. We don't have a tv upstairs anymore, so I have to make an actual "effort" to go downstairs to watch something, which just doesn't happen. Anyway, the plan is to skip my afternoon nap today in hopes of being really, truly, exhausted and fall into bed for a decent night's sleep tonight. I hope that plan doesn't backfire on me. At night my mind is going a million miles a minute thinking about the baby, and then the terrible back aches keep me just uncomfortable enough to not sleep. Please, please, baby come quickly!

Midwife & VBAC update - 39 weeks
I had my midwife appointment yesterday, and the baby's head is now engaged. I am hoping this means the baby will arrive sooner rather than later. I am starting to feel anxiety about going over my due date because that will likely mean another c-section. I was under the impression that I *could* still be induced should I go too far over my due date and still try for a VBAC. However, I just found out this is not the case in our city. Once I am 41 weeks + 2 days over I will have to switch from the midwife to a doctor who will then be scheduling a C-section (and according to the midwife, most of them will push to have it done that day!) I could possibly do shared care with the midwife and doctor at that point, but the doctor would then be the boss, and most doctors here are not very VBAC friendly. They will not induce me here due to the increased risk of uterine rupture, so if I want a chance at a VBAC I *MUST* go into labour on my own ideally before 41 weeks 2 days to stick with the midwife and definitely before 42 weeks. A city a few hours away has some new technology that allows for safer induction of VBACs, but it is unlikely any doctor there would be willing to take me should I get to that point. With Ellie going 11 days overdue (41 weeks 4 days), I am feeling a little stressed even though I still have 2 weeks or so from today to go into labour on my own. We are praying, praying, praying this baby will not go that much overdue. Ultimately, though, this baby's birthday is already written in His book, so we do what we can do and leave the rest up to Him.

So far this baby is in an anterior position, which is optimal for birth. Ellie was posterior, and the labour was HORRIBLE from the beginning. There was really no easing into it. Then again, I have no idea what labour will be like this time, so maybe all labours are that horrible?? :-) I also had tons of strong braxton hicks with Ellie for weeks prior to going into labour but have had none that I know of with this one. It is so different this time around, so I'm hoping the labour will be *better* and faster this time, too, since this one is anterior so far.

Potty Training
I am happy to report that Ellie is now day-time trained! She hardly has any accidents anymore (maybe one every few days or so), and we only put a diaper on her at naptime and bedtime. We started a potty prize box to motivate her to stay dry, and this seems to have done the trick. I didn't really expect her to be trained before the baby arrives, but she was definitely ready and into it, so we gave it another go.

That's all to report for now....