36 weeks and a false alarm.

So I have reached the 36 week threshold and the past couple of weeks have been very exciting.

We celebrated Wyatt's 3rd birthday the weekend before his birthday and it was a great time as both sets of his grandparents were able to make it as well as some close family friends.  It was a surprisingly smooth brunch (at our house) considering that there were 10 kids in the house.

The next day, Geofford somehow injured his back which was a little stressful for the family as I have been quite restricted in what I am supposed to do around the house.  We were able to balance things but he was completely out of commission for a couple of days dealing with the painful back spasms.  Just as Geofford started feeling better, we had to take Wyatt to the hospital Thursday night (the day after his actual birthday) as he could potentially have a hernia and he had a high fever and started vomiting.  The doctors felt that the fever and vomiting were not related to the hernia, but just as a precaution we had an ultrasound to check out the hernia.  We will be meeting with the pediatric surgeon to discuss the results Tuesday, February 28th, so hopefully everything turns out ok from that.

We also celebrated our niece's first birthday which was very special.  She is not going to the baby in the extended family for long, so it was nice to celebrate her special day.  Family Day was quite uneventful, but we were happy to be able to spend time together as our family of 4.  We were also able to get some cute photos with me and the boys.

Mom with her two boys

Now to the false alarm part - I started feeling contractions last night (Feb 23) at about 10pm.  They weren't super uncomfortable yet, but at the same time the doctor didn't want me to labour so I was trying to avoid going to the hospital for as long as possible.  Finally, I called the triage at the hospital and they recommended that I come in just to get checked out.  After we had made arrangements for my mom to come and take care of the boys, Geofford and I headed to the hospital at around midnight.  The nurse and doctors did determine that I was having contractions but not enough to trigger having the c-section especially since the baby is still technically pre-term.  Also, since I had two previous c-sections this next surgery will be a little more complicated as there will be more scar tissue so it would be better to have the surgery during the day when there are more doctors around in case of any complications (eek!).  We ended up leaving the hospital at around 5:30am with instructions to return if the contractions became more painful or if I started experiencing other symptoms of labour (water breaking, etc.).  So far, I am still having contractions about every 7-10 minutes, but they are not yet painful enough to return to the hospital.  I am hoping that things don't progress tonight as there is currently a snowfall warning in effect and things will be really messy outside....but we shall see, this baby seems to have a mind of his/her own.

From the Environment Canada website