Yesterday, I had my 39-week appointment at my OB-GYN’s office. Based on today’s visit, I am still 1 cm dilated, but incredibly, I am 60 percent effaced, so my doctor predicted that I would go into labor between now and the end of this weekend. We scheduled a 40-week appointment on Monday, just one day shy of exactly 40 weeks, but “I don’t think you will get there,” my doctor said yesterday. “I’m pretty sure you will go into labor in the next few days based on how things look now.” She suggested going for long walks and doing squats to get things moving.

I ended up walking all the way home from 87th St and 5th Avenue back to our apartment since the buses were being insanely slow, and along the way, I took a look at the Christmas lights along Fifth Avenue, the fountain decorations by the Plaza Hotel, and also stopped by the Japanese market on the way home to buy some seaweed to make Korean seaweed soup (it’s supposed to be a popular soup women drink after giving birth to help increase milk supply for breast feeding). I had also been doing far more squats in the last week or so to get things moving along in my pelvic area, too, to get the baby’s head to further descend downward.

Welp, it apparently all worked.. because I went into labor at 2am today. Who would have ever thought that the first signs of labor for me would not only be contractions, but also the most massive pelvic pressure and constipation I’d ever known before.