Update of the day --- TMI WARNING! (I warned you!)

The midwife came today and she checked the baby. His heartbeat was great, size is good,etc. Then she said she wanted to do an internal and that she wanted to swipe my membranes, which entails sticking her fingers IN my cervix and separating the water bag from the small membranes that attach it to the cervix (sorry, I know this is disturbing!). Apparently this makes your body produce prostoglandin (I think), which makes you go into labor if everything else is ready.

So she did the internal - I was 2 cm, 50% effaced, and my cervix was very low, all of which she said was good.

Then she did the swiping, which was quite uncomfortable and I squeezed Jim's hand so hard he is convinced he is going to bruise.

I started bleeding and had some clots later on (small ones) and now I'm pretty much done spotting more or less.

So then she did my blood pressure (after all that!) and it was high. I'm not surprised. Then she had me lie down and relax to get me to lower the blood pressure, took it again and it was high still. So she told me A) No more work starting today and B) I have to get my urine protein checked, but then we realized since I was bleeding from the swiping, it would affect the protein level in the urine. UGH! So she told me about preeclampsia and since I had this higher BP and I had a headache this weekend, they had to rule it out because it's really dangerous and I would have to go to the hospital and have the baby ASAP. UGH!

So I went to work to wrap things up (for 3 hours) and she called and wanted me to go to the lab and get some blood drawn and get a giant orange jug to pee in all day tomorrow so they can check my proteins etc. I asked the tech if it made a difference if I was bleeding and she said it shouldn't, but I suspect it will make a difference and possibly give them an incorrect reading. Jim says if it does, we should ask to do it again. But I'm thinking the blood tests should also rule things out.

So I'm just hanging here. I'm supposed to lie down as much as I can. I'm hoping the swiping will just help and I can just go ahead with my homebirth plan in the next couple of days and never have to deal with the hospital, etc. If I need to go, of course I will though. I have had some pains in my cervix since and it's tender there now, so maybe something will happen tonight.

Everyone send Seamus HURRY UP vibes! MORE MORE MORE!!!!