The contractions continued throughout the day. They did get worse � from lots of Braxton Hicks fakey contractions to real contractions where I was having some delightful lower back pain.

They never increased in frequency, though. I�d have one or two and hour and then � nothing.

I got a little frantic and panicky, so I made sure I had everything ready to go to the hospital (�just in case�).

We decided to go out to dinner with my parents and go walking to look at Christmas lights � the rationale being, if we went away from the house walking around, I�d go into labor. If we didn�t go, I wouldn�t go into labor.

Ha ha ha! You can try to steer fate, and you can try to guess what�s going to happen � and you can be WRONG!

No real labor.

So last night Blue heated our hot tub to a safe 99 degrees and we got in it for a while. It was awesome on my back, and Blue gave me some terrific backrub time. Funny enough, I normally crave backrubs, and last night I was really not so interested. He offered and I let him do it, but I wasn�t really that into it. I was a little � I don�t know. Detached? Cranky? I don�t know. I think it was the not knowing whether it was actually labor or not that made me kind of nutso.

Here�s the funny part of the story �

When I got back into the house, I noticed that one of our two dogs had had some fabulous diarrhea, both on the carpet and on the wood floor. It literally looked like someone had poured gloops of Hershey�s syrup on the carpet � and then they (I accuse all animals in this household equally) stepped in the runny poop and ran around creating little Hershey's syrup poop footy prints all over the living room and kitchen.

UGH!

So I grabbed the cleaning solution, dropped my towel, dropped to my hands and knees and started cleaning up dog poop. I was starkers.

Blue walked in the house a minute later and started wolf-whistling and catcalling. �Woooooo! I like that view!� He joked.

�Shut up and give me your towel if you�re dry � I�m using our towels for dog poop.�

And it took about 20 minutes for me to clean up the dog poop � all the while totally naked on my hands and knees.

(Oh, wait, here�s the really funny part.)

This morning as we were leaving for my OB�s office, I asked Blue: �Why are all of the blinds down in the front of the house?�

�Oh, well � um. The neighbors were having a party last night and �. Well, I�m pretty sure they were all watching you clean up the dog poop.�

�Oh.� Not even that upset about it � really, if they wanted to watch a bulging pregnant lady crawl around on the floor naked, scrubbing up poop, more power to them. They have to PAY for that kind of entertainment on the internet.

So there ya go. That could�ve been a great �on the day you were born� story � and now it�s just a story.

All of that contracting got things moving yesterday, though. I am 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. So there is some decent progress there.

Due date is officially tomorrow.

Induction date is officially the 20th (go to the hospital on the night of the 19th). So sometime between now and December 20th, I�ll be having a baby. I�m hoping it occurs naturally.

Either way, I don�t have to go back to the OB�s office as a pregnant lady (unless something weird happens).

I�m ready! I�m officially ready! Let�s get this show on the road!

Oh, by the way ... I neglected to mention that I graduated. Fabulously. With my 4.0 intact.

Then ... I pretty much got felt out by my most recent clinical site with a job offer. Which I had to gracefully and graciously turn down.