I’ve been having semi-regular contractions at about 10 minutes apart since early yesterday evening.  They’re not painful – I was able to sleep well last night – but most are strong enough to classify as what I’d call crampy.  Experienced moms know that this doesn’t necessarily mean anything will happen very soon, but I do feel like I’m in the early stages of labor.  The question is, when will things kick into gear?  Today?  Tomorrow?  Next weekend?

We’re heading to church this morning.  I know better than to sit around twiddling my thumbs all day, waiting for something to happen.  Anyway, there’s a/c at church, and we have a date with the pastor’s swimming pool this afternoon.  I don’t plan on missing that unless I really have to.

Last night, hubby and I walked 3.3 miles.  This morning we set out again and joked a bit about going 5 miles.  At least, I thought we were joking.  We walked a new route with lots of hills and when we got back to the van, we had only gone 2.6 so decided to go a bit farther.

And farther.

And farther.

And then I realized we weren’t joking.  When we made it back to the van a second time, my pedometer showed 4.75 miles.  We could have stopped there, but it was just too tempting to go on.   2 miles earlier, I was whiny and hubby was encouraging me to go on.  Now, I wasn’t quite ready to stop.

I don’t know if I’ve ever walked 5 miles in my life, and I know I’ve never done it while 8 days overdue.  In fact, I’ve done very little while 8 days overdue – mainly just stuff like giving birth.

All told, we did 5.15 miles this morning, 3.3 miles last night, and just might do enough this evening to make a total of 10 miles in less than 24 hours.  I may still be pregnant, but I’m also going to be in shape.  Hey, round is a shape!

No particular news.  I missed my walk the last 2 mornings, so hubby and I walked 3.4 miles this evening.  Usually I get very few contractions while walking – far less than just puttering about the house – but this evening was different.  For some reason, I had 5 in the space of the last 20 minutes.

But they slowed to normal once we got home, and now I’m back to where I’ve been for most of the week: noticeable but not particularly strong contractions every 10-20 minutes, just enough to draw my attention from what I’m doing and make my legs feel weak and tingly.

It’s the weekend, so I have high hopes.  That’s when nearly all of our babies seem to make their grand appearance.  But I also have a sneaking suspicion that this baby could very possibly wait for another week.  It’s just not hard for me to imagine.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll try to keep walking.  I love the energy and the absence of “normal” aches and pains!  I just hope I’d don’t suddenly go into TV-style labor and drop a kid on a gravel road a mile from home.  Then again, that could be the best birth story ever…

But no baby.  Obviously, this little one is waiting for Mom to reach the proper level of desperation.

I had very noticeable contractions again for all of the afternoon and evening, beginning very soon after my chiropractic adjustment.  I had high hopes that he had set something in motion, but I knew the contractions weren’t strong enough to be accomplishing anything yet.

I picked up hubby at work, and we tried to go see a movie but couldn’t find anything we wanted to see.  Instead we had dinner at Pei Wei (delicious and very reasonable – my new obsession!), picked up The Blind Side from Redbox and brought it home to treat the family to a late night showing, starting at 10:30.  I was still hoping (but not really believing) that I might be in early labor.

By the time the movie was over, I was pretty sure hubby wouldn’t be getting today off work, and he didn’t.  I slept soundly through the night and much later this morning than I care to admit.

And I woke up still pregnant, much to the children’s disappointment.

But I jokingly told hubby and children that the birth was scheduled for tomorrow, exactly one week past the duedate.  I think I’ve begun labor on a Thursday over 80% of the time so far, and I’ve never yet gone more than 8 days past my duedate so it seems very likely that things will begin to happen very soon, quite possibly tonight.

And just because it seemed to help once before, I even scheduled a last-minute chiropractic adjustment with the practitioner recommended by my midwife.  That’s today at 3:30, then I’ll drive into The Big City to pick up hubby at work and we’ll probably hang around town for the evening, enjoying one last date.

Last night didn’t count as a real date since we had 2 teens in tow.  It was more like a mini-family night.  It was fun and I’m sure people thought we were a cute family with our 2 children and one more on the way.  We’re obviously giving it one last try for a boy, right?  If only they knew…[evil over-populator laugh]

But in all fairness, I have to add that I’m still not desperate or even terribly impatient.  Realistically, I feel like this baby could stay put for another week.  Which leaves you plenty of time to enter our Big Baby Giveaway, if you haven’t already.  Or maybe you just don’t want to win free stuff from Thanks Mama, Maccessorized , Marie Madeline Studio, New Creation Apparel, and Vision Forum?

Nothing is happening.  Absolutely nothing.  Now that the weekend is over, I’m back to having far less false labor than usual and am totally convinced that this baby will arrive fashionably late.

Since I was in a hurry to exercise as much as possible before the baby arrived and I since I seem to have been granted a little extra time, I walked 3.3 miles today including that nasty 1/4 mile hill that leads up to our driveway.  I didn’t mean to go quite so far.  I blame my nifty new iPod and the sweet husband and daughters who gave it to me.  I was busy listening to an audiobook and found myself in no hurry to get home.  Tomorrow, I’ll probably listen to The Chicken Whisperer talk about Muscovy Ducks (ht to my friend Mother Hen).

My walking seems to be paying off.  After just over 4 weeks, I have actually lost inches on my bust, hips and waist.  Yes, waist.  Laugh with me.  Laugh at me.  My belly still measures bigger from top to bottom at every prenatal appointment, but apparently I’ve lost some padding on the back and sides.  Don’t hate me.  It’s recently acquired padding and didn’t belong there in the first place.  I was congratulating myself on losing inches until I remembered how horrified I was at my recent measurements, and that my hips, etc. still measure far bigger than I realized.  I like to boast that my non-pregnant weight is still very close to what I weighed when I was married at 19, but it’s amazing what a difference in size there is between muscle and fat!

But my biggest hope is that the activity will make for a better labor, which is why I’m so determined to keep walking daily.  I still have hopes of repeating labor & delivery #6, which happened during the summer of the bicycle obsession.  The week before she was born, the very week she was due, I rode 12 miles to a nearby town.  We biked several miles nearly every day with 5 little ones in tow, riding luxuriously behind us in their double bike trailers and bicycle baby seats.

I also had my first-ever chiropractic adjustment during week that she was overdue.  Did I mention that I put in a call to my midwife today, asking for her recommendation of a chiropractor?

What do you think contributed to your best-ever natural labor? And by best-ever, I mean least painful. Let’s just get that clear right from the start.  :)  No fair bragging up your epidural since my midwife doesn’t carry those in her little black bag.