38 Weeks, 2 Days

We were up late together last night.
I was having contractions for hours again and I stayed up until almost 2:00, just to make sure they weren't the real thing.

One of my biggest fears is ignoring those and going to sleep, figuring, as I've done in the past TWICE, that they're just those Braxton Hicks contractions and not the start of labor.
I do not like my eyes snapping open at 4:30 in the morning and realizing that what I'd been feeling earlier, when I curled up in bed and went to sleep, was actually the very beginning of someone's birth.

I don't think we have the precious time to waste, honestly.
I think if I miss it like that with you, I just might be having you on my own and it won't matter a bit even if I planned to go to a hospital because there'd be no way I'd have made it anyway.

Let's not do that.

My hope for us is that my water breaks, which it's only done once in all four of my pregnancies.
That will be an absolutely positive sign of your immediately impending birth so there will be no question in the matter, "to call or not to call", and it will also give me just a bit of time to gather my wits about me.

If I wake in the middle of the night with your coming, I won't be able to do much of anything so it's sort of important that everything is ready, even the state of the house, before we turn in at night.

If your births go as the others have and I do just wake up in the middle of my labor, I will be incredibly sick and will barely be able to shower and dress.
Interestingly, fear in not present in my memories of these times because I am so consumed with what I'm feeling because it's not good and it takes everything I have to just focus on the small tasks at hand.
This is strangely comforting to me now, to know that I probably won't care WHO or WHERE I'm delivering you because when it starts, I will probably be lost in my own private hell already.

Everything that everybody planning to be at your birth needs to know, they need to know now.
And there's a section in my medical file called "special notes" where I am to put down anything I want the midwives to do or not do during your birth because I probably won't be talking to anyone.
(I haven't filled this out yet.)

I've been sort of preparing Daddy here and there with these small things and I'm confident that Emily, who will be here for your siblings, can completely handle the day without my hovering, taking good care of everyone so that my thoughts will not stray from doing my job upstairs with you.

Because I do know this:  I am confident that I can do this.
But I am also confident that it will go to hell in a handbasket ASAP if I break my concentration.

I remember with Greer, when I arrived at the hospital at 8cm done, in complete agony (being transferred during that hard, hard labor is AWFUL) and I held it together until we arrived there.
As soon as I knew there was "help", I made a conscious decision to abandon the intense internal focus that I had and to rely on them to get me through.

I could have done it on my own, without medication, and had I waited just a bit longer, 45 minutes!, I would have.

So I know I can do this.
But I really need to let everything go in order to hang tough and that's hard for me.
Maybe it won't be as hard as I think because I simply know not to break my stride once I have it.

Anyway, there's all that to say that I would like our labor to begin by my water breaking and I would like this to happen in the early afternoon.
Like I can pick, right? :)

It's just that the night seems scarier to me--and here now, it's dark and stormy.
And my contractions just keep coming and I know we're getting closer.
Plus, I had a small, private, hormonal meltdown in the shower last night.
Well, you know, because you were there.

That's pre-labor for me, too.

The only thing missing yet, the step not yet presented, should be one giant round of false labor.

Usually, I have one up-all-night, sick as can be, hours and hours of laboring alone in the dark downstairs while my family slumbers, waiting for the contractions to move closer so that I can confirm the true beginning of something.
And usually, they hit about five minutes apart, strong as can be, for EONS and then...they'll stop.

I will be exhausted and defeated at the end, vowing never, EVER to get pregnant again and put myself through such misery.
I will sleep all day and Daddy will stay home from work in order to let me.
But on the heels of this normally is my real labor.
I just have never known it beforehand like I do now.
(I took notes last time :))
(But also, I should add here that the rounds of false labor always coincide with an internal exam, of which I have had none and am not sure if I plan to on Wednesday.)

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out for the two of us.

Loving you already,
Mama