Dress Rehearsal

So last night I thought I was in labor.

Actually, scratch that. I didn't. I was pretty sure that it wasn't really happening, but my friends and my uterus and my fear of giving birth alone convinced me it might be. But it wasn't. So we had a home birth dress rehearsal of sorts.

I started having contractions around 5 pm. Real ones. Not hard ones, but they were there none-the-less. My best friend of course is out of town shooting a wedding and so it was the worst possible day for me to go into labor. So I park my butt on the couch to rest and hopefully will them to stop. But they don't stop.

I'm hemming and hawing, but updating my friends who are convinced things are really happening even though I'm refusing to even try to time them because I am in denial about the whole thing. Apparently my pain tolerance is not to be trusted because I had an easy labor with Tycho and I get tattooed for four hours while barely even flinching. Okay, I guess. I tell Kyle eventually that he might want to come home from work.

When I finally start timing them they are six, no, four and a half, no, three minutes apart. But still easy. Really really easy. But enough that I would prefer you leave me alone while I deal with them, and close enough together for long enough that... well maybe we should call the midwife?

Long story short, everyone converges on our house. Midwives get there and I say I'm sure when you check it's going to be nothing.... and yeah. Nothing. 1 cm dilated, whoop-de-doo. She says it doesn't seem like a labor cervix. No surprise there. And then everyone packs up and leaves and I feel like an idiot. Drink a bunch of water to calm things down and try to sleep.



So. That happened. It was the worst. I feel like an ass. And I feel even more done being pregnant that I did before, because even though I didn't think it was happening, some tiny little part of me was so excited to meet my baby and I'm sad I still have to wait.



But there is some good here. I feel better now about trusting my gut. I KNEW when I was finally really in labor with Tycho and I KNEW when it was time to head into the birth center even though no one thought I was far enough along. And last night I knew it wasn't time. So my intuition is good. We are going to trust it. No more second guessing myself.

And I feel even better now about my home birth. I've been feeling pretty confident about it for some time (after initially being terribly nervous when we first made an official decision), but envisioning having my baby here felt so right. And my support team that came to help me out felt good. And Tycho was so great and I really think it is the right thing to include him. So we know what we are doing and we are confident and ready and things are going to be a piece of cake when the time really comes, right?

Hopefully it will come soon.