False Alarm

Well, last night I was absolutely sure I would have had the baby by now. I started having contractions 6 minutes apart about 9:00 at night, and they kept going all night. I had lower back pain and menstrual-like cramping, like real contractions even…but they never increased in intensity or lasted longer. But by morning they were 7 to 8 minutes apart, and by noon they had stopped altogether! I guess I don’t know how to feel about it…on one hand, I am not feeling really great and would like to get the delivery over with and enjoy my new child. (I am 39 weeks tomorrow, so it would have been a week early.) On the other hand, the timing is awful if I came early now. I am so sick right now, I came down with a terrible cold that started with a grating sore throat and now constant sinus drainage and pressure. It will turn into a cough, as Danny and the kids have already had it. I really don’t want to breathe sickness all over my newborn, so I am hoping to kick it before he comes. Also, Danny has been taking two summer courses and his finals are on Monday and Wednesday. So if I have the baby this weekend, I will be the cause of him doing poorly, and I have been really worried about that all day. He stayed around and tried to study at home to see if we would need to go to the hospital. I kept waking up all night with the contractions and got up at 2:00 am to look up what I needed to do and at what point I should go to the hospital. This morning I puttered around as if I was in labor, trying to rest, etc. And then when I laid down for an hour and a half, I only had three contractions! I have had a few more throughout the day, but maybe they aren’t for real, because nothing is happening. I didn’t have anything like this happen with my first two labors, things just started up and progressed until delivery. Hmm, I guess it’s just a waiting game.
I have felt the nesting instinct kicking me along these past couple of weeks. I have actually accomplished several major projects! I finished painting the walls in Lexie’s room pale yellow, rolled all the upstairs ceilings with paint, dug out weeds and planted my front planter beds, and this week varnished the desk I began refinishing last year. (Danny has really wanted me to do it to get it out of the basement, but I couldn’t do it while pregnant. He even got a special detail sander and did a lot of the detail sanding himself. I finally just donned my ventilator mask and rubber gloves and varnished it anyway.) I also have spent the last few days getting everything set up for baby…I washed all the baby boy clothes and cleaned the changing table, washed and cleaned the infant carrier car seat and got it ready to go, and set up the baby’s bassinet and diaper station next to our bed. While doing all these things to get ready, Danny asked yesterday, “So have you packed your hospital bag?” He noticed I was doing things for everybody and everything else, but not taking care of the things for me! That’s no shock...
If I don’t go into labor for real in the next couple of days, I need to scrub the house! Then I might feel all ready for the baby. Mostly everything else is ready…besides my projects, I spent the week doing laundry to make sure everyone has clean clothes if I am gone at the hospital! I just have go to get the germs out of those bathrooms!!