Almost There

Yesterday we thought that we were going to have the baby! But alas, here I am, still quite pregnant, but happy to be letting my body do what it thinks best. Here's the whole story. Around 4 in the afternoon, I started noticing pretty regular contractions-- about every 7 minutes. Unlike my contractions with Zosia, which felt sort of like menstrual cramps, these felt really muscular. It felt like my whole uterus was flexing (which actually felt cool, not annoying). We tentatively started making some phone calls around dinner time, and the midwives encouraged us to just have as normal an evening as possible, which we did. We put the baby to bed, relaxed through the evening, and then went to bed nice and early. At some point in the evening, I realized that the contractions weren't quite as regular, and by the time I went to bed, I was still having contractions, but not strong enough to keep me from falling asleep. And during the night, they must have faded away, because here I am sans baby.

Apparently these sorts of warm up contractions are normal, and actually wonderful for preparing your body for labor. Today I've been taking it super easy, minimizing physical activity and hanging with the peeps around the house. Tomorrow morning I'm thinking about taking a nice energizing walk to see if maybe that invites some labor (which it would be nice to have during the day given the choice). We'll see what happens, but we're starting to get very excited around here. There's nothing quite like welcoming a new life to the world!