Birth #1 with Jackie, February 1998

Dear Baby,

I didn’t think you would ever be born! Your due date was today (February 6), but the midwives thought for sure you would be born before January 30^th. On Monday, January 26^th, I started to lose a little bit of mucus, and I thought "Yes, this is the week!", and I told everyone "It is going to be Wednesday." Well, Wednesday came and went, and no baby. I was disappointed but thought "Oh well…" Then the weekend came and went, and I ended up going to work on Monday. Everyone was so surprised to see me at work and kept saying "What are you doing here?" What else would I be doing at work but working??? I felt so discouraged and thought "I will probably go past my due date." Tuesday I decided to stay home and work from the house because I didn’t want to be stuck at work and in labor. I was so discouraged Tuesday morning that I started crying. I felt so hopeless and depressed.

Wednesday morning about 1:30 a.m., I tossed and turned and couldn’t go back to sleep so I went out to the living room to sleep on the couch. I turned on the television and drifted off to sleep watching the Christian station. About 3:00 a.m. I woke up and continued to watch t.v. Then I felt a slight contraction and thought "Oh, is this it?" I layed still and about 10 minutes later I felt another one. I started to get excited thinking that I was finally in Labor. I didn’t want to alarm my husband too soon, so I layed on the couch and started timing the contractions. They were pretty consistent about 10 minutes apart, but they were pretty light. Jackie told me to call on the first pain, but I didn’t want to call too soon especially since it was so early in the morning. So I waited and after about an hour I woke my husband up. I waited for 2 more contractions and then decided to call Jackie. By then I was very much wide awake.

Jackie arrived at 5:30 a.m., and Mimi arrived at 6:00 a.m. By then the contractions started slowing down. I was so disappointed, and I felt a little bit embarrassed at calling Jackie prematurely. But they reassured me that it was ok. Mimi checked me and I was still only 3 cm dilated and 75% effaced. By 6:30 the contractions had almost completely stopped so Mimi and Jackie decided to go back home and told me to call them when they picked up again. They both assured me they would pick back up and I would have the baby that day. They even left all of their supplies and equipment in the bedroom since they didn’t have any other pending births.

I went to the grocery store to see if walking would start the contractions again. I did have a couple of contractions where I would have to stop walking, but nothing consistent. What a bummer!!! I just knew for sure that I would probably end up going a few more days until I had this baby.