39 weeks

I’m a Braxton Hicks machine. In fact, on Tuesday night, I had 6 hours of false labor. That’s right: 6 HOURS. My contractions started around 2pm at 13 minutes apart and gradually got longer and closer together. When I left work around 4pm, they were almost 5 minutes apart, so I had texted Tom to forewarn him that something might be happening. By the time I got home, the father-to-be had our hospital bags waiting at the door, our camera and video camera charged, the car seat and base ready to go, and was wearing the biggest smile I have ever seen.

Tom timed my contractions while I was in the shower, made me a light dinner, and took me for a walk in the garage (because, lets face it, it was essentially Antarctica outside). He even called the nurse for me when my contractions were under 5 minutes apart and over a minute long for several hours in a row. After getting the basic information from Tom, the nurse asked me to rate my pain on a scale from 1-10. I gave it a 2 to 3. She said what I had been fearing the whole night: it should hurt more! So while I technically fit the criteria for a trip to labor & delivery, she told me to stay home until/unless the contractions increased in severity, to the point where I was “huffing and puffing.” Sure enough, around 7pm the contractions started dissipating; by 8pm they were gone. No Big Bad Wolf. No trip to the hospital. No Baby.

While we went to bed seriously disappointed that night, it turned out to be good preparation for the Real Thing. Tom figured out what to grab for the hospital, I got my fears and anxiety about going into labor out of the way, and we practiced going through the motions of the latent stage. Now when it’s really “that time,” we’ll know exactly what to do. The trouble is that for a good 6 hours, we convinced ourselves we were about to finally meet our son or daughter…and that has made the waiting even harder.

But hopefully we just have 1 week left to go! After so many months of feeling like I’d never make it this far, it’s hard to believe we’re really only about 7 days away from being parents. At my prenatal checkup this week, my doctor announced that I was slightly more effaced, a little over 1 cm dilated, and that Baby is almost 8lbs already. She thinks, according to my progress and description of symptoms, that “labor is close.” Boy, do I hope she’s right!

We can’t wait to meet you, Little Leschke!!!