Dec. 8

Well, still no baby. Its been a strange couple of days. Sunday night, I didn't sleep well at all, was very restless and in a lot of hip/back pain. I woke up around 2:30 to pee and couldn't go back to sleep until sometime after 5. I had a lot of back pain the whole time, and a little stomach cramping. Got up with Paul right before 7 to feed the horses, and I felt okay, but by the time we were done and he left for work I was really hurting in my back and my stomach was cramping. Felt like I was on my period (which was strange cause I haven't felt that way since March, haha!). I decided to stay home from work. According to my books, what I was experiencing was prelabor. For a while, I tried laying down or sitting, but that wasn't helping the pain, so I started walking around and doing stuff. That didn't help either. So I figured I was in prelabor and this could really be it, Claire would be here soon. I called Paul and told him what was goin on, and made an appointment at the doctor's to be checked.

Of course, the doctor said nothing had changed, no dialation or anything. >:( He said I could keep having the back pain and cramping for a few hours, then it could turn into real labor. Or I could keep feelin like that for days or even weeks (yikes). Or it could just stop. Very frustrating.

I was able to finally take a cat nap that afternoon, though my back hurt the whole time. Everything progressively got better throughout the rest of the day, though. By yesterday morning, I was a little "sore" feeling in my back, but that was it. So I went to work and tried to move around as much as possible (supposedly walking helps bring on labor).

I slept pretty good last night, until at 5:45am I woke up with a severe leg cramp! But that's not unusual. I'm having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions (practice ones, they say) now and the baby feels like she's stretching a lot. My back is starting to hurt, too. I don't want to be in pain, but I welcome this all if it means labor is just around the corner!

Mama swears I'll have Claire this week. I hope she's right. She's usually good about predicting stuff; she always gets a "feeling" about things. I just don't want another day like Monday unless something actually happens!