Let me begin by clarifying that this is called Part One because I know, without a doubt, that there will be a Part Two. At some point this baby in my belly will quit teasing all of us which will mean that I have to finish his/her birth story. But for now, I am stuck in labor limbo where all I can do is scratch my head and wonder how on earth my children can already be so different.
With Harrison, I did not even know I was in labor, in part because I was still 12 days out from my due date. I thought I had the stomach flu most of that morning, but by the afternoon we realized something BIG was happening. From there things went super fast; so fast that I had people tell me I was lucky I didn't deliver at home. And so fast that my doctor even made a comment in the delivery room that when I had my next one, I would have to get to the hospital right away because it would come even faster. There were no false starts whatsoever. Based on all of this, not only did I believe Baby No.2 would be earlier than HD, but I also thought labor and delivery would be nothing more than a few hours.
At this point, I feel like we're going on weeks of being in labor! I've now had one false alarm afternoon of contractions a couple weeks ago that caused me to call the doctor and one full day of contractions that resulted in us actually going to the hospital last night, only to be sent home 3.5 hours later because they weren't going anywhere. Seriously? How does that even happen?! They called my contractions "irritable" which, at 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant, I found oddly funny in a very twisted humor sort of way. Today has been pretty calm and while I'm having some regular pain as I type this, I am not even going to bother calling them contractions or waste my time thinking I might be in labor because clearly I do not know what is going on with my body right now.
The wonderful news (besides the RN who predicted that I would have another 7 lber!!), in all of this, is that the baby is doing really, really well. The monitor feed from last night showed a very active kiddo who also appears to be quite content in Mama's belly. The other good news is that my doctor is not rushing me to induce. She is letting me go as long as I want, so long as the baby continues to show no signs of stress. If need be, we'll do an ultrasound Monday and then go from there with the waiting game. Of course I hope labor kicks in again before then, but it is a huge blessing to have some of that "hurry up & have that baby!!" pressure removed.
Now I understand why parenting books say you shouldn't compare your children to one another. Every pregnancy, every birth, and every child are completely different. It seems that even from the womb, this baby has declared an independent approach than that of big brother Harrison. And while I'd very much like to be done with labor and delivery, I can appreciate the fact that this baby has its own timeline and agenda. All I can do is sit back and do my best to be patient as I wait to meet this unique little love.
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