The beginning of labor...

So I went to the doctor today for one of my many weekly prenatal visits, and she examined me, and I was only still 1 cm dilated. I've been 1 cm for about 3-4 weeks now. I've been trying to do all the natural ways to induce labor, but no luck so far! :)

She ended up "stripping my membranes," and I'm not going to go into what exactly that entails, if you're really curious, you can google it. Anyways, it hurt like heck, that's for sure!! And ever since then I have had very irregular (and painful!) contractions. I keep hoping that they will "regular up" but so far, no luck. I have to work this weekend on Sunday and through Tuesday night (go figure, working on my due date!). Charlotte is kicking around as usual, so that's good! My doc mentioned being induced soon (and I'm not even at my due date yet, what the...?) which will NOT be an option, I don't care if I go over 2 weeks past the due date. It's not like she's going to stay in there!! lol. I have been reading on the 'Net about stripping membranes and it seems to have a 50/50 success rate and is supposed to induce labor within 48 hours. We'll see how that goes!!

Here is a recent picture of me. 9 months prego, and getting ready to go to work! I can't believe we have made it this far. For some reason I don't feel very "big" though, even though I have gained... umm.. quite a bit of weight, of which I am worried about losing after the baby comes. I'll worry about that later, though!