Baby Boy- Coming Soon To A Hospital Near Us!

That's what we're anticipating, anyways. I was almost three centimeters dilated today, and had a few pretty strong contractions on the monitor, so the doctor thinks I'm having productive contractions (i.e., causing cervical changes) and not even really feeling them. He said my body just doesn't want to keep babies in all the way to forty weeks, and also threw around the term "incompetent cervix," which I sort of bristled at for some reason. Could they not have thought of a less accusing term than "incompetent"? Like I don't feel guilty enough about it- when I found out I was dilated more, I immediately started the mental chastisement for the times I've cheated a little bit here and there, helping to tuck Addy in for bed, or getting up myself to change DVD's.
So anyways, suffice it to say I'm still on bedrest, and was also commanded to take the Brethine if I felt even one contraction, rather than waiting until I'd had two or three in a row, as I was doing before. So now I get to feel shaky and irritable and like I'm having mini heart attacks all the time! I also got an extra week tacked onto my bedrest sentence, since he noted that with Addy, I went into labor about forty eight hours after I was on my feet again, at thirty six weeks, and he'd like me to make it to thirty seven weeks this time if possible.
This has pros and cons. Pro: I am kind of relieved to hear that the baby will almost certainly be a few weeks early. It may sound horrible, but after all this, I was going to be really depressed if I ended up getting off of bedrest and then went full term, walking around dilated and effaced and anticipating labor every single day for the last four weeks. And I feel pretty confident that the baby will be fine any time he wants to come now. He weighs about five and a half pounds, and I had the shots for his lung maturation. Plus, Addy came at thirty six weeks and had no problems. So chances are he'd be okay, right? I mean, I'd like to get a few more weeks under my belt, but maybe not five more weeks.
Con: I really was counting on being allowed to get up next Thursday. I was so excited- one more week!- and now it seems as though I'm pretty much going to be stuck on this couch until I go into labor. Plus, there were so many little nesting projects floating around in my brain, and I'm probably not going to have time to get to any of them myself. They will either not get done, or be done by someone else. I wanted to put away the tiny clothes and buy the tiny diapers and sterilize the nipples and the breast pump equipment MYSELF, and I wanted to bustle around the house and clean to MY satisfaction for a few days. I haven't done it in so long it would feel fun, I think, like playing house. And then there's the actually fun stuff: I wanted to go out with friends for dinner at least once, and go walk around the mall and pick out a coming home outfit for the baby. I haven't gotten to shop for so much as toilet paper in three weeks! And I'm not really an internet shopping type person- for me it's just not shopping unless you're walking around actually touching and looking at the stuff.
Oh, and in case anyone's still reading this whiny monologue, I've also been having this really deep, bruise like pain in my right knee, but there was no bruise, nothing. I mentioned it to the doctor today, and he made me go to the hospital this evening to have an ultrasound of my leg to rule out a blood clot. Good times. No clot, which I figured, but it was still reassuring, I guess. Just a sucky way to spend an evening.
We also went over our birth plan with the doctor today, which I thought would be a quick thing, but instead he felt compelled to mention after every single point that this would be fine "so long as nothing is going on with you or the baby." I kept saying, "Yes, we know, this is just our ideal. Obviously if something out of the ordinary is going on with the baby, we're flexible," but he seemed to feel the need to keep drilling in the point that the birth plan was only a wish list, not a blueprint. So that was a bit tedious. I understand; I'm sure he has a few patients who are kind of die hards and are married to their birth plans, but I'm totally not like that- I'm still open to an epidural, for instance, if this turns out to be a longer labor than last time.
So... Kind of a bad day, all things considered. Only real highlight: Heath bar cheesecake from Jim's family's coffee house. My favorite dessert in the world, at the moment. Oh and also, my weight was only up a pound this week, as opposed to the ten pound gain of last week. That was kind of a relief. As for all the other crappy news, well, we'll make the best of it. And again, let me just say, I don't know what we'd do if we didn't have such helpful family around. At least I know my mom and mother-in-law would never dream of letting a new baby come home to a less than spotless house, so one way or another things should be clean enough around here to satisfy most of my nesting needs by the time this little guy starts knocking on my cervix door.