MCI and Institutional Juice Present: Non-Stress Test

No baby yet. Sigh. We went to the hospital today for a "non-stress test" (I swear, this term sounds so funny to me...they're testing for non-stress? Why not just come right out with it and call it a "stress test"?). Basically that involved lying around in the triage room for a couple hours with a tight stretchy tube top holding two different monitors on my belly. It should have "only" taken a half hour or so but the triage nurse wanted the baby to move around some more so she could get "perfect" readings--so she gave me juice (mmm the delightful taste of institutional juice) and then some fruit to eat, to perk the baby up (they move around more after you eat, apparently). Lying there listening to the galloping noise of the heartbeat monitor, Josh and I joked about how "Institutional Juice" would make a great name for a band, and how the scratchy-scratch sound of the baby moving, which interrupted the galloping, could be some sort of artsy free-form rapping from MC Isaac (MCI), from his newest album, "Non-Stress Test". The nurse also did an ultrasound to check to see if the amniotic fluid was still in good supply ("Great fluid!" she said, and immediately we thought: "that would be the first track off the album.") Anyway, eventually we got the "perfect" seal of approval and got to go on our merry way (which for us was actually a super delicious fancy schmancy lunch with my parents at the Lark Creek Inn, yum). If nothing happens over the weekend, we're supposed to go back on Monday and do the whole thing over again.

Ok, I've been trying to be all zen, I know I've said that, but I really am getting sick of this waiting around (and yes, I know it hasn't even been a week yet, but still...time is different now, I tell you, and this last 4 days has felt like 4 weeks). So tomorrow, we have a radical new plan, courtesy of our doula Zoe: castor oil. That's right, castor oil.

Ewwww, gross, I know. But it's supposed to work to get labor started. And at this point, it sounds like a great, relatively natural (albeit, ah, "extra-cleansing") way to speed things up. So tomorrow morning, after a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, I'm supposed to drink a couple of Tbs of castor oil mixed with orange juice every two hours for 3 times in a row, and then, after spending much of the day on the toilet, I'll be "rewarded" with some nice strong contractions.

Wait a minute--did someone just whack me across the back of the head hard enough to make me lose my mind, temporarily? Nope, I'm going into this voluntarily. Sheesh. As if labor wasn't bad enough.

Well, stay tuned, as I keep saying. It's all got to end soon one way or another.