acupuncture: round two

excuse me while i clear the tumbleweed from my blog space...

there. now, here we go.

i have not written, as i told my girlfriends the other night, because their hasn't been jack poozy to say. i've been twittering false alarm after false alarm because i want you to know what it feels like for me, how it started, how it will end. so far it has not started. yes, like my sister says, all of these back pains, cramps, weepy episodes, random contractions, they are the beginning of what will be labor, but they all fizzle out after a while. i am walking at least one hour a day, working in the garden a couple days a week, trying to keep the house clean. i still take naps, i'm not trying to kill myself, and i am still eating well most of the time.

but dammit if it isn't getting really frustrating. i know i haven't reached my due date. and if i wasn't trying for a VBAC then i might be less concerned. but the fact is i am, and time is not on my side. hence the acupuncture attempt, recommended by the midwives, of course. so this past monday i had some acupuncture done to help start my labor. i was with master lee for two hours. the first hour was spent explaining chinese medicine, how to enlist the help of my husband and childen from here on out, how to swish water before i swallow it, how to do leg and arm exercises to open channels of energy, and how to do a kick-ass-bring-the-baby-down-squat. then the needles. oh, and did i mention electricity? yes, once he placed the needles into my right and left ankles and my lower back, he hooked them up to an electrical current. this was something i was not aware was going to happen and not terribly excited to experience. as it turns out, it was not the least bit painful. in fact, i hardly felt a thing. and there i lay for one hour, master lee chaecking on me about every fifteen minutes to see if i was feeling anything.

-how we doing? feel anything?

-nope, just the baby, who seems to be hosting his or her own solo performance of michigan j. frog's "hello my ragtime gal" in my uterus. other than that, i got nothin'.

anyway this continued until my time was up. at which point he taped a BB (as in ammunition for a bb gun) to each ear and each ankle for me to massage over the next several days.

-please remember to send me a testimony when you go into labor!

-sure thing!

i was excited, nervous, contracting. and time started ticking. i was technically supposed to go into labor within 72 hours. as i drove from his office home i was a little hopeful, but in more ways than one, i was just not feelin' it.

and a couple days ago i e-mailed master lee to let him know that i had not in fact gone into labor as of friday. he offered to have me come back for an additional free treatment on monday, one week after my first session. of course i agreed. he e-mailed this message to me about half an hour ago:

What's time will be good for you on Mon?
PLs have your husband or family to drive you here.
See you??
Continue the stretching exercises every few hours while you are awake.
Massage the acu-pressure points every half hours while you are awake too.

Master Lee


what the hell? is he planning to send me into labor immediately this time or what?
what you mean mean have someone drive me here? what about the electricity?
now i'm just downright nervous. which probably means it will backfire on me because instead of breathing deeply through my nose while keeping my tongue curled on the roof of my mouth i'll be like oh no, oh no, oh no, it this really about to happen?!

so there you have it. wish me luck. barring any labor action between now and then (yeah, right) i'll be back on the table monday morning at 10:00...

wish me luck.