A Game Of Telephone

Remember that sleepover game you play as little kids where one person whispers a message to a second person and you see what the message gets misconstrued to by the time you get to the end of the line?  We played that game at church today, I think, except I’m not sure where the message started exactly.

Since my OB appointment on Friday, we have taken this whole having a baby thing seriously and we are now fully prepared, I’m proud to say.  With that in mind and my exam and doctors warnings fresh in our heads, we’ve been doing our best to wait for it without sitting around waiting for it.  The past two nights I’ve had a bit of weirdness going on.  The first time I brushed it off and ignored it since I was free of labor symptoms, but I felt too guilty doing it twice so I put a call into the doctor to be sure.

Not knowing when we’d get a return call or what the orders would be, we went ahead and got ready for church and headed that way.  On the way there it was decided that we should come in for a test and monitoring.  We dropped Josiah off at the nursery and left a message there saying that we were not in labor and would probably be back soon, but that Mom was to take Josiah if we were a no show to get him.  (Yes, we abused the system by using them as babysitters, but technically his guardian at the time was in church!  Or at least that is how I justified it in my head.)

Everything checked out fine at the hospital and they offered to have us stay since I am now 6 cm (7 according to the nurse), but were ok with us leaving since I wasn’t having contractions and that was our desire.  So with our warning to rush in as soon as anything happens, we headed back to church, where immediately upon walking into the foyer we start getting questions from random people about why we are there, did we have a false alarm, and aren’t we supposed to be having a baby?  Um no, not that we knew of at the moment!  I think we disappointed a few :)  What do you say to men you don’t even know (I guess they are in my Mom’s class?) about it since you have to explain what is going on “down there” to give a real explanation?  I just left them thinking they were misinformed since that is technically true.  I expected our SS class to be curious since we didn’t show up, we are close, and many of them know our “business”, but having strange faces corner me for details was a little awkward, I must say.  Suffice to say “All is well.  No baby yet.  Thanks for asking.” and keep walking!

So, somehow either just by not being there or by leaving a message for Mom that we were going in for some routine monitoring, we set the telephone wires on fire.  It was kind of funny, but left me speechless as to how to answer so many questions in a comfortable way.

As I write this, Jacob is scanning our childbirth book we never read which says that 4-7 cm is “active labor” and I should be having strong 1-1.5 minute contractions 3-4 minutes apart.  My body didn’t read the book either apparently.  The doctor just told Jacob to make sure he wears shoes with laces and has his pocket knife ready at all times.  It may go quick!  Why can’t I just be normal???  Or better yet, why can’t I miss the painful part of labor rather than the beginning stages?  Maybe this time I’ll get lucky and at least get to build up to it a little bit.  Surely there has to be some warning pains at some point, but right now I’m almost scared to even cough for fear of what is going on down there that I’m not even feeling!