A judge from my building, running into Mr. W: “Hey, I just saw your wife this morning. She’s looking pretty big. What is this, she gets married and lets herself go?” I work with goofballs.

I had my 38-week checkup with the OB Tuesday afternoon. Ultrasound revealed that Allie is still in the proper position — head down, laying on her side. Size looks good, the doctor still expects her to be within 7 lbs at due date. Good amount of amniotic fluid around her. Heartrate at approximately 130 bpm. My blood pressure looks good (105/70), and I’ve been steadily gaining about a pound a week so now I’m still right about at a 30-lb gain. Allie’s been active, altho now that there’s less room, there’s less nudging and more squirming. Often a foot will slide from my left upper ab to my right upper ab, and I’d get a hip check right under that. “Would you like me to check if you’re dilated?” he asked. Sure! I’m curious.

That manual check wasn’t comfortable. I involuntarily sputtered, “Ow!” He told me to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, and I did. It didn’t take long. So I’m 65%-70% effaced, but not dilated (normal to have only effacement first with a later dilation in first time pregnancies, he said). I asked him how he could tell the effacement by feel, and he said he could push up against the cervix and feel Allie’s head, and that her head is at -1 station. He said I’ve lost most of my mucus plug already, and that most women don’t lose it like a one-time plug falling out; they’d merely get thick discharge mixing into their already more frequent discharge. I’d expected to see some traces of blood when I lost my plug (which word, btw, is totally misleading), so I was a little surprised. He said some minor spotting is normal after a cervical check, but if I get blood-blood like a menstrual period, to call labor & delivery.
“You’re ahead of other women on a first pregnancy, but I’d still say to expect a due-date delivery. You can always have her early and prove me wrong,” he said with a smile. He offered to “sweep [my] membranes” at my next checkup (Nov 17) to encourage labor starting if I’d like. I actually don’t even expect to make that appointment, given what Rebecca has always said.

Rebecca, as of the evening after the appointment, still saw Allie arriving “around or by the 13th.”

I fell asleep early quite accidentally, but awoke around 9:30 p.m. thanks to a smack on the cheek delivered by Mr. W in his sleep. I felt some discharge leakage, which has become rather commonplace in my 3rd trimester. I wobbled to the restroom, which has also become very commonplace lately, especially after Allie made her 2nd drop this weekend. It looks like the rest of the mucus plug came out in that leakage. Nothing too exciting or different from what I had been discharging, except for the color being like that of old blood. I called out to Mr. W that the mucus plug came out, and he said groggily, “So what does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that there’s some progress. And that Rebecca is more right than the doctor.” I soon heard snoring from the bedroom again. Meanwhile, I took a nice hot shower. I kept seeing the 10th in my head in my shower, so I thought I’d figure out what day that is. Thursday. My last day of work before scheduled maternity leave. I don’t expect any action anytime soon, so I hope to have an uneventful next few days at least until I’m off on maternity leave.