Well, one way or another we're having a baby tomorrow. It's been an up and down couple of days. We've basically spent the week trying all the different tips and tricks that anyone has had to offer to try and get labour going. We mixed up a couple of Castor Oil shakes for Erin yesterday morning. I felt a little like Joe Rogan from Fear Factor as I cheered Erin through each of the two "doses". Erin certainly put on a fear factor worthy performance but managed to eventually choke the Strawberry-Banana surprise back. What was described to us as something that would be a horrendous experience actually turned out to have almost no impact at all - good that Erin didn't have to go through any of what was described to us but not so good as it didn't seem to move the labour forward at all either.

Then, late in the evening Erin started getting contractions, nothing regular or overly strong that would indicate true labour had started, but certainly more frequent and a little stronger than they had been up to that point. The contractions pretty much continued right through the night and into this morning. Things picked up a bit after our midwife appointment this morning and since about 1pm Erin's been getting pretty regular contractions spaced a few minutes apart. To try and help things along a bit we managed to get Erin in to see an acupuncturist - at this stage we'll pretty much give anything a go.

So at this point Erin is sleeping soundly next to me thanks to a little Gravol and a warm bath. She still seems to be getting the odd contraction but nothing that's waking her up.

We're due at the hospital for 7:30 tomorrow morning, where we'll meet up with our midwife. They'll start out by breaking Erin's water to see if that gets thing going - if after a few hours nothing has happened we'll move on to the Oxitocin to encourage regular contractions. Based on today's exam and the contractions that Erin's been having today our midwife is hopeful that breaking the water will do the trick - but anything is possible. Either way, baby is coming tomorrow.

It was kind of a funny feeling tonight as we realised this was the last night of just the two of us - The concept of having an appointment to have a baby is equally as strange but we've both agreed to just take everything in stride an only worry about the step after the one we're on. We'll worry about the Oxitocin if breaking the water doesn't seem to be working.

Obviously I'm not going to get a chance to post another update before baby arrives. I'll try and get a pic up in the moblog as soon after as I can but with the no cell phone rule at the hospital that might be easier said than done. Also - it appears the captions are getting cut off so I probably won't be able to get many details in... just a name probably.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes and messages over the past few days - we really appreciate all the support - even if it's just sending us some positive vibes.

This entry was posted by Ryan, on Thursday, October 21, 2004.