What a day!

Yesterday was a very long day and I am officially wiped out.

We started out the day at my NST appointment. Kenton, of course, was not cooperating. He started with his heart rate around 150, when his normal baseline is around 135 to 140. After 40 mnutes on being monitored, the doctor decided that they had seen enough escalations and he finally settled down enough to get his baseline. Unfortunately because it took so long at the NST, we were late to my OB appointment.

I called to see if they could still get us in because they're usually running late. Luckily, they said to come over since I was right across the street. Once we walked in, we were able to see Dr. Branaman right away. At 37 weeks and 5 days, I was still 75% effaced and dilated to 2 - no new progress. Since I was on the progesterone, it will take a few more days to get completely out of the system. Dr. Branaman is not on call this weekend and has next week off because it is her kids' Spring Break. Since this pregnancy has been so weird and intriguing to everyone, she went ahead and wrote in my chart to call her when I'm delivering. If she's able to, she will come to the hospital and deliver Kenton. Have I mentioned how much I love my doctor?! Of course, I'm not counting on her actually delivering Kenton because she hasn't delivered any of my boys thus far.

I also received an interesting phone call from Dr. Ponkey, the original doctor who had us begin all of the testing. She was doing more research on how reliable the AFP blood work is in relation to Finnish Nephrosis. AFP levels can be anywhere from 5 to 20 something. Kenton's AFP level through the blood work was at a 9. The new studies out of Finland have found that the lower the elevated AFP level, the more likely the patient is just a carrier of Finnish Nephrosis rather than actually have the disease. Since we were only able to find one gene for Finnish Nephrosis and Kenton's AFP levels were towards the bottom range of elevated, this gives us more hope that he is simply a carrier and won't actually have Finnish Nephrosis. We still will have to wait and do urine testing when he is born to see if he has the disease, but every bit of hope helps!

After my appointment, we went back to my Mom's house because she was watching the boys for us. While Hunter napped and Talan rested, Aaron went down to Ottawa University to turn in some paperwork. God has answered some prayers and has provided us with another source of income. Aaron is currently developing an online course for Ottawa. Beyond that, he now has the opportunity to teach online courses for them as well. If he teaches 2 courses during a trimester, it will completely make up for my salary. However, even just teaching one course will help significantly. Have I mentioned that God is good!

After my appointment, I started having contractions. I figured this was going to happen because it happens every time I get checked. The contractions weren't super strong and I was able to talk and walk through most of them. I tried to walk around and see if they were the real thing or not. In fact, I went to Target twice yesterday to walk around. Unfortunately, it was just false labor, yet again. Around 8:30, I gave up on actually going into labor, despite the fact that I was having contractions every 6 minutes. We loaded up the boys and came home. Once I was finally able to relax enough, I fell asleep and contractions stopped. This morning, I am completely exhausted and my body aches from 12 hours of contractions that were 6 minutes a part. This Momma isn't doing much today!

I know that God has a plan for us and Kenton will arrive when he is ready. All of the boys in my house are suffering very badly with allergies right now. They all have a runny nose and coughs. If Kenton does come, maybe I'll get a hotel room and we can quarantine ourselves with some room service! ;)

Tomorrow I will be 38 weeks! Who would have thought?!?!