Ready...Set...FALSE START!

These days I spend all of my time thinking about two things, "What am I going to do with Zach today? and What day am I going to meet Matt?" To say my life is consumed right now(not to mention my body) with my sons would be more than fair.

So on Sunday night, when I couldn't eat because I felt ill, and then started getting contractions every 10 minutes apart I thought, "Could this be it?" As the hours went on and the contractions got to 6-7 minutes apart, I thought, "This might be it?" and by 9 o'clock that night I had called the Dr, and was heading in to the hospital to deliver my baby...Or was I?

After a little over an hour of being monitored and feeling anxious, I was checked out by the midwife, only to find that I wasn't progressing. I was still only 2 cm dilated, and 50% effaced, which was exactly where I was five days earlier at the Dr's office. I was disappointed, angry even as the midwife explained to me what "true" labor would feel like. I guess more than anything I was embarrassed, I mean this isn't my first time at the party, so how could I not "know" when so many other women do?

I could blame it on the fact that I was induced last time. That the only experience I had of going into labor came from a medicine they sent coursing through my veins, bringing on contractions that felt like they lasted for 20 minutes at a time. So excuse me Mrs. Midwife for not knowing that the tightening in my uterus that came at regular intervals, and felt uncomfortable was not going to be enough to get the ball rolling! OK...maybe I am a little bitter too!

Bitter? Yeah I am blessed, I know that! I get to do something amazing very soon, I get to bring a little person into this world, into my family, and I couldn't be more excited about it. And yet I was upset that night, because I felt like a failure, felt like my body was deceiving me, and felt frightened that I wouldn't know when the time had really come and end up on some new show like, "I Didn't Know I was In Labor!", but as the days have passed I am returning to myself. Remembering that I have a very important job ahead, that I need to walk that road with a clear mind so I can stay in that moment, and ride the wave as my mother coached me to do last time. Am I scared? Heck yeah! Am I worried I will miss my window for an epidural out of stubbornness to return to the hospital until I am really "feeling it"? A little. Do I know that I will have a baby in the next few days or week, and then none of this pre-show will really matter? You bet. And I for one am greatly looking forward, not to when labor begins, but instead to the moment that my son's life truly begins.