No, Not Yet

I don't think I've ever posted Ellie's birth story; I'll do that later this week. It was a fantastic labor and delivery experience, all things considered. As Paul and I were studying recently, in preparation for our second experience with childbirth, we read about the emotional signposts of labor. The first one is supposed to be "elation." We joke that, for me, the first signpost was "denial," and it was pretty strong. In retrospect, it's pretty humorous that 4 hours after my water broke, when I was laboring hard enough that I was really uncomfortable and wanted to be home in bed, I called my parents from the car on the way home from Borders and told them that I was in "false labor" and would definitely be having the baby the following weekend - a full week away.

It was a Friday, and I'd spent the entire day at work. I'd had a meeting way down the hall from my office that morning, and I remember running back and forth (literally running!) with huge stacks of textbooks that I was using as samples. When my water broke - still at work, later that evening after my colleagues had gone home - I just convinced myself that I'd wet myself. I cleaned up and finished what I was working on before packing up my computer and some projects to work on over the weekend and heading home.

This time I hope denial doesn't last quite as long; I hear that labors often go more quickly the second time around.

So, I'm not in labor yet (I hope!) but I think I'm doing everything I can to try to start early. I'm 36 weeks along, so it's not a disaster if I do go into labor, though I'd rather not do so yet.

Sunday we hosted an open house. There was a lot of prep work: cleaning, decorating, baking, and then we had a house full of people all afternoon. I loved it. I was also exhausted afterward. And then I worked more than 13 hours yesterday, barely pausing for meals. This morning I've already taken Ellie to school and had a visit from the door installer (they gouged the floor in the master bathroom when they installed my beautiful new doors last week). I'm headed off to a prenatal appointment in a few minutes, then to pick up Ellie from school, and, after lunch, I'm going into work to give a presentation to our new - and notoriously critical - vice president. My boss suggested that I wear my protective armor. So that should be fun.

Anyway, here's hoping that the pace slows down a bit later this week. I think I'm supposed to be "taking it easy" at this point, right?