Short Active Labour? 36 wks 5 days

I finally questioned my mother in-depth about her births. I knew the basics (I was induced via AROM, my brother came when she was sick with the flu), but I didn't know how each labour progressed. Turns out she had a 2 hour active phase with me and about 15 minutes of active labour with my brother.

With me, the doctor ruptured her membranes around 10 am. She finally had regular contractions at 12ish. Things got serious at 6 and I was born at 8pm (33 years ago today!!).

With my brother, she went to the hospital late at night and he was born the next morning. When the doctor finally showed up, he checked her and she was less than 5 cm so he said he was going to get some breakfast. Before he hit the elevator she was in transition and my brother was born 5 contractions later.

Not sure if I have inherited these birthing genes, but I'm hopeful.

I decided to take the GBS test just for my own info. We discussed what would happen if we had to transfer and they found out I had refused antibiotics. My midwife assured me that they would only want to monitor baby and perhaps run blood test after 12 hours or so. I'm taking echinacea, burdock root, and astragulus tinctures to help build my immune system.

All is well on the blood sugar front. I haven't been as vigilant about testing the past 4 days because I haven't eaten anything that sets me off. I need to go buy more strips tomorrow, though. My fasting numbers have dropped back down considerably. Not sure if this is in response to stress reduction or having been off wheat for long enough that it's out of my system. I wasn't really any more stressed out before than I am now. My bp at the last visit was 120/84. The 84 has me a touch worried that I'm on an upward trend, but my midwife wasn't at all alarmed. I see the acupuncturist Wed and will ask her specifically to focus on bp. I also had a cup of coffee before the reading at the midwife so I suspect that could have done it (caffeine has been known to raise my blood pressure before).

I have no swelling to speak of so far. At this point last time I was swollen up like a balloon. I can still get my rings on and off. On the warmer days I do get a touch swollen, but this would happen even if I weren't pregnant.

I pulled out the birth pool today and read the instructions. We went shopping for a hose-faucet attachment and a tarp for the floor, but we got frustrated at not being able to find anything at Canadian Tire so we left. A local store offers a basket full of the homebirth supplies required by our midwife, so I'll buy that instead of dragging the Hippo in and out of a bunch of stores. It's a little more expensive, but the extra $20 is likely worth the aggravation and fuel.