The Baby Cometh!

Well, maybe... We're heading to the hospital later today to see if the miracles of modern medicine can jump start the labor process. It would seem that my body's on the fence today.

At 1 in the morning, I thought that I'd either 1) decided to channel my deceased cat and urinate outside the designated location (so one of his favorite things toward the end, but... I digress) or 2) experienced some sort of baby housing fluid leak. Since it was one in the morning, I did what any non-thinking very pregnant person would do. I got up, went to the bathroom, came back to bed, gave the sheets a smell test... nope, didn't smell like I'd had a loss of control... then I laid back down for a minute (because it wasn't so much a puddle as a spot and changing the sheets would mean needing to wake a sleeping husband, maybe for nothing).

I had to think it over. So, laying next to my spot, I spend some time contracting and listing a bit from one side to the other -- like a large ship -- decide it's the bed that's making me uncomfortable (this is the sleepy, non-thinking part), and that IF my spot IS evidence of bigger things to come, I'd better get some sleep (logic spills in). So, about 2:30 I give up on our bed, go take a couple Tylenol, and move with a towel to the baby room's twin bed so that Ajay can keep sleeping.

I get up a few times to check on the leaking, decide that I either have 1) a very uncooperative bladder all of a sudden or 2) there probably IS something going on, and sleep on and off until about 8. When I do wake up for good, though, I decide I'd better call the doctor to see what they want me to do since I don't like slow leaks of any type.

Our midwife, Nurse Linda, gets me in to be seen and... sure enough, I'm not like the deceased cat... just leaking all willy nilly outside my litter box. It really is a case of the baby's house starting to come apart at the seams. However, since we live in these modern times, apparently the medical community likes to give a girl 24 hours from this business starting to full blown labor, and if you're not doing it on your own they're willing to help you out. Hence, we're heading to the hospital later today for a little IV help. No sense ending up with infections or prolapsed umbilical cords, etc. because I'm wanting to wait things out and be all natural. Better healthy than according to my plan.

The true bummer of this all is that I won't get to use The Tub. Once you've gotten to this point, you're not allowed to sit in water, much less labor there for hours. So much for my fantasy of mixing spa time with labor. I have been assured that I do get a consolation prize instead: Hot Shower. Rather like The Price Is Right when they play PLINKO and you don't get the car, but get a blender with some lame attachments instead.

So, off to Labor & Delivery we'll go and... maybe... sometime in the next day or so... there will be pictures of the Chickpea to post.