Lucy's Birth Story: Part 1

Monday May 10th I had my 37 week OB appointment and I was 1.5-2cm dilated and 50% effaced. My blood pressure had crept up a little bit, but not so much that I had to be on bedrest or that the doctor wanted to induce labor. They monitored me to make sure Lucy was doing ok, and I was having painless Braxton Hicks contractions every 5 minutes. That happened for a few hours then they died out. She had me come back Wednesday the 12th for a follow-up on my blood pressure and monitoring, and I wasn't contracting at all. However, later that night I started having "real" contractions that were painful and required focus and breathing to get through. They got as close as 3 minutes apart for almost 45 minutes, then spaced back out to 5, 10 and 15 minutes apart before finally going away after a few hours. I started losing my mucus plug Wednesday and continued to lose it over the next few days. Oh, and why must it be called a mucus plug? That term is so gross it makes me cringe...why not something like "cervical stopper" or "baby cork??" Thursday came and went with no major bouts of contractions so I thought Wednesday had been a fluke...but then the same thing happened Friday night only they were a little stronger and more painful, but still went away after a few hours and I was able to sleep well the rest that night. Little did I know that it would be my last night of sleep for a long, long time.