Pre...something

I decided not to announce my due date or any other pregnancy progression on Facebook this go-round.  Five years ago, when I was pregnant with Bryony, I announced my due date, my prelabor pains and just about every other sign that baby was forthcoming...and after four days in labor, I had an inbox full of e-mails, a flurry of text messages and voicemails and missed phone calls.  I realized that a) when people see a "due date" they think that means an expiration date, so if you're coming even close to it, they start to ask ridiculous questions like, "Isn't that baby out of you yet?", and b) the last thing (this) woman in labor needs is a bunch of anxious, curious, and sometimes-demanding inquiries into why the baby hasn't arrived yet.  So, this time, I've just decided to stay mum.  I just told people the baby is due in January, but I didn't say when.

Well, here, dear blog, I'll confess that I am currently in prelabor (yay!).  I've been having contractions since yesterday evening.  They were coming every 3-4 minutes, so I figured they were Braxton-Hicks, especially since they weren't painful, just very strong.  After drinking a very large glass of water, the contractions begged off after about 45 minutes.  I slept fitfully last night, but woke up this morning to a hard-as-rock belly and painful contractions every 10-11 minutes.  Those lasted a good hour, even after drinking water, so I started to think I was in for the real thing.  But after getting up to walk around a bit, eating a bit of food and drinking more water, the contractions subsided to every 30 minutes or so, but still painful. 

And that's where I am now.  I spent the first half of the day in bed, just letting myself rest.  Around 1pm, I started looking around the house, growing nervous that I could bring our new baby home to all the floating dog fur, cat hair and dust bunnies that have run amok in the last week.  So I got up and started doing a deep clean of the bathroom, bedroom and floors.  Good idea in terms of housecleaning...bad idea in terms of my physical state.  The contractions are still irregular, but they hurt a bit more when they come.  I'll probably start timing them in the next half hour or so to make sure I'm not going into active labor.

So that's it, dear blog.  I confess this only to you, and my faithful readers :-)  More news when it arrives.