38 week appointment..stripping membranes????

drewbon13

So DH and I went in for my 38 week appointment Friday. I wasn't expecting it to be much more than a Q and A session, since we did the GBS test last week. Well we go into the room and the nurse was asking me "Ok, so we're checking to see if you're dilated right? Did you ask for that last time?"  I was confused because I didn't ask anything about it and the doc hadn't said anything, so the nurse had me wait to get undressed until the doc came in.

When she came in she said that at this appointment they check for dilation and they strip the membranes, which had me a little bit anxious because I didn't remember her bringing this up at all. I thought that stripping membranes was a way to induce labor, and I'm only 38 weeks! My ob said that them stripping the membranes on average makes pregnancy last three days less than women who don't have them stripped. 

I declined having the membranes stripped but DH wanted to see if I was dilated, so we went ahead and had her check. Boy, I guess I wasn't expecting her to have to shove so far up in there to check! It was definitely uncomfortable and I wasn't prepared for it. But it looks like I'm 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced so far.

After the appointment I had some minor bleeding for the rest of the day (turned more brown later on) and all of today I've been losing my mucus plug. Part of me was all paranoid and thinking "Oh no, my OB must have accidentally stripped something while she was in there and now I'm losing my mucus plug!"  haha.

Has anyone else had their membranes stripped? I guess I'm confused as to why they wanted to do it at 38 weeks, because I thought this generally starts labor.