Saturday February 17th

The last day has seen the normal worries but no major problems. Melissa felt some significant contractions this morning (she's finally confident she knows what some of them feel like) but when we hooked her up at the monitor at 6:30 they were starting to dissipate and we didn't see anything major - except for one large one at the end of the half hour monitoring period but we pulled the plug on the monitor because we still had to do our morning monitoring...which started at 8:00 and because she was still feeling small contractions, they left her on the monitor for a full hour.

The doctor's usually come around at 9:00 but apparently on the weekend they scale back on staff and we didn't see a doctor until around 1:00 or so. The doctor shrugged off the small contractions and indicated we should let the nurses know if they come back and/or if they get worse. It was the reaction we were expecting. We're just going to have to get use to anxiety for a while (hopefully for a long while).

Melissa said she really had to write the blog yesterday because it was such a happy day with 24 hours of absolutely nothing including the best night of sleep we had since Saturday. Last night wasn't quite as restful, we weren't quite as tired. Thursday morning after her contractions died down (until this morning) we realized we both were fully expecting to deliver Bea that day when Melissa was having contractions at 4 am and she had leaked fluid for a good 24 hours in a row. I almost jumped in the shower at 4 am to get ready for delivery. I would have bet good money on a delivery, which is probably why I don't go to the casino.

Her leakage has essentially stopped (except for real small amounts) since Thursday morning. Either the tank is empty or Bea has plugged the whole (which is a literal explanation the doctors used). If Bea's successful in helping replentish the fluid, she'll be getting an all expense paid trip to County Cork in Ireland. Bea actually has some Irish in her through Melissa. A four leaf clover would be nice right now along with a frothy Guiness for Dad (and Mom would probably want a pint too).

Thus another day passes. We let out a moan of disgust when I had the honor of pulling the date off the daily calendar and found out that Saturday and Sunday are on the same sheet of paper, so we'll either need to rip it in half or wait until Monday to rip it off. I prefer to wait until Monday.

Oh yes, Dick brought a picture of some Badger Football players holding Paul Bunyans Axe yesterday. I think it was a gift from some jokers at the Mall in Appleton he works with. Melissa was moving stuff around and the picture fell right in the garbage. I thought it was a sign from another power but apparently she wants to look at the axe while she can and she picked it up. The evening shift nurse asked if we've ever gotten the axe. Ouch.