and then...

... I am now 1, or maybe 2, centimeters dilated, and 50% effaced. Neither of these is any great progress, but it's better than last Monday's appointment, when the midwife said, "Boy, that baby sure is happy in there..." So while I'm not exactly putting stamps on the birth announcements yet, at least the presence of a baby head in the vicinity of my cervix has been confirmed. ("Houston, we have a cranium...")

We also passed the first (and hopefully only, since I'm now LATE) "non-stress" test, which is just the sort of combination of positives and negatives that I haven't been able to parse since going to Japan. I'm pretty sure that "passing" was "good". I do know for sure that my blood pressure is 115 over 56, which is pretty close to dead for a woman with a past-due fetus in her abdomen, but still considered "good". "Good" and "less good" are the words that medical professionals use when they want to make you feel informed but not so knowledgeable that you will attempt to self-diagnose. Incidentally, "late" is a word that medical professionals use when they want to make you feel gigantic.

About 10 minutes into the test, an alarm sounded because the baby's heart rate had been below 120 for a few seconds, and the alarm continued to sound for the next 15 minutes or so while my mother and I stared at each other with wide eyes, wondering if I'd a) failed, or b) busted the equipment. Needless to say, after a few seconds of NEEEE-NERRRRR-NEEEE-NERRRRR, the baby's heart rate had pretty well recovered, to the point where the child may never sleep again. Luckily, they did not take my blood pressure again after this part of the test.

In other news, I just shook the 96 oz. juice bottle with the cap only partially in place. Hallelujah, it's raining OJ.