So March It Is

February with its full moon this weekend passed with nada in the baby department. I'm still here at home, still in exponentially worse pain, and now gestating at over 36 weeks. Obviously they just aren't ready to come out yet. My body is definitely saying it has had enough, but my uterus isn't listening!

I had my weekly OB appointment and NST last Thursday, and things were same as usual. The babes did great on the NST (this time I drank OJ before the appointment so I wouldn't have to drink juice after a while there, and boy did that work!) My OB won't check my cervix yet, because even if I was dilated it wouldn't be any sort of true indicator of when I'd go into labor anyway. I could be at 1-2 cm for weeks, or go from 2-10 cm in the same day. So whatever. I also had my GBS test. My next appointment is on Friday. Maybe I'll get a cervix check then. He did say two weeks ago that he'd be okay with inducing/scheduling a c-section for 37 weeks-38 weeks, so I'm hoping that if I make it to Friday's appointment, I can say, "let's schedule that c-section for Tuesday March 9th!" (At 37 weeks, 2 days) I'm really trying to hold that date in my head so I know I only have 8 more days left, at the most. Believing that I could have more than that is almost too much for me to bear at this point. I'm in major pain here. This body was not made to carry 11-13 lbs of baby or gain 60+ lbs in a few short months and it reminds me of that every second of the day and night.

This weekend was a hard weekend for us in other ways, not pregnancy-related. We discovered my black lab Benelli has what appears to be a tumor in his mouth, on the top jaw, way in the back. He is 7 1/2 years old and had a cancerous tumor removed from his leg 3 years ago. We've always said he's a cancer survivor. It doesn't appear to be bothering him, so the earliest the vet can/will get him in is on Tuesday afternoon. If it is a tumor, we are thinking it isn't removable anyway because of the location. He's my first dog, he'll always be my first baby, and I'm not ready to lose him yet. As he's gotten older, I knew the day I'd have to say goodbye was getting closer and closer, but it just doesn't seem fair to have this happen at a time when my head and heart must be focused on other things. One of our baby daydreams while TTC was imagining our children trying to say his name and coming out with "Nelli." I could always picture toddlers trying to climb on top of him and pulling his tail, and Benelli taking it all like a champ. He has to stick around for a lot longer for those to happen. He'll always be my favorite dog and I love him so much. Please send good thoughts our way that we are wrong- that it is not a tumor and is something that is easily treatable.

I'll leave you with some pictures of my lovable, huggable dog that has been through so much with us in the past 7 years:

See how good he'd be with kids?

My Benelli