One More Day? Ha!

Seeing as Erin has yet to give birth, we were back at the doctor this morning for her 40 week appointment (she is 39.6 weeks today). She's due tomorrow, but apparently no one told the baby that. The doctor said that based on today's exam, it's unlikely the baby is coming tomorrow...or even in the next couple of days.

Assuming the baby hasn't arrived by Friday, Erin will go to the hospital for a non-stress test that will determine whether the placenta is continuing to adequately support the baby. The test is routine for anyone who goes past their due date. Erin will be hooked up to a fetal monitor for 20 - 30 minutes to watch the baby's heartbeat and then will have an ultrasound to check her amniotic fluid levels. If everything looks good, she'll get to go home and continue waiting for the baby to arrive! If not, she'll likely be admitted for an induction. If Erin is still pregnant by Sept 8th, she'll go back to the hospital for another non-stress test and will also see the doctor to discuss next steps, including when to induce. Generally, doctors prefer to induce at 41 weeks (Sept 9th) or 41.1 weeks at the latest (Sept 10th). We think that if Erin is still pregnant on Friday and everything looks good in the non-stress test but the baby still isn't showing signs that he's ready to leave his aquatic home, she'll see an acupuncturist. We've heard that acupuncture can be a great way to prod labor to start without resorting to drugs, which we would really like to avoid.

Despite Erin's eagerness to GET THIS BABY OUT, a delay of a few days may be a good thing. Anthony came down with the flu on Sunday and is still feeling pretty under the weather. Perhaps Baby Gill is just waiting a day or two to give his dad a chance to recover? What a nice baby!

Someone else who is in no hurry for our new addition to arrive is sweet Birkin. With Erin on maternity leave for the past three weeks, little Bear has become even more co-dependent than usual and gets quite anxious whenever Erin and Anthony leave the apartment for more than an hour...or even leave her alone in a room for more than a few minutes. She's curled up next to the computer as we write this - rubbing agains the computer and wondering why it's taking all of our attention. Poor little kitty is in for a big surprise! She's also still lonely and missing her best friend, Piper, who passed away from lymphoma in May at the age of four. We promised Birkin we'd get her a new friend, but not until November. New baby + new cat may be too much for Bear to, well, bear.

In other news... You may have noticed that we set up a Twitter account. We've never used Twitter before and may not really get hooked on it, but it seemed like fun and "the41stweek" was available as a name, so we figured we'd give it a shot. No Tweets yet - perhaps when Baby G finally arrives! You can follow us by clicking on the link on the top, right side of the blog or by visiting www.twitter.com/the41stweek.

Tomorrow is D Day. We'll post at the end of the day and let you know if anything happened!