Labor

3.6.2010

This is the call to the doctor's answering service once my contractions were within the proscribed timing and consistency.  Getting to this point took all day with contractions on and off, getting closer together and then further apart, and then closer and closer and more intense (and I felt like I would die if I didn't make it to IKEA, but I can't remember what I wanted to buy).  Dad's nervous.  Bailey's stoked because everyone is in one room and not spread through the house AND she gets to be on the ottoman without her blanket.  I'm just thinking about all of the needles and prodding and poking and strangers that are going to be involved in the next hours of my life (thank goodness I had no idea what was actually coming).  

I did not handle this stage of labor gracefully.  Contractions HURT.  They are not simply "pressure" as books and pregnancy blogs suggest.  They are pain.  And the breathing trick that my mom (Miss Au Naturel with BOTH kids) taught me - more time breathing in/less time breathing out or vice versa - stopped working.  

If all goes as planned this time around (cough, cough), I will be checking myself into the hospital a week before my due date, and having a planned C-section.