“Third child syndrome”

I had another appointment with the midwife yesterday. The synopsis: Yep, still pregnant. Yep, still huge – baby continues to be in the 90th percentile for size, meaning he’s bigger than 90 per cent of babies at this gestational age. Yep, mommy and baby still healthy and hearty, if not a little stressed (he’s fine, I’m a little frazzled). Yep, we’ll see you at your appointment next Wednesday — if we don’t see you before that.

I was telling her what I posted about yesterday, that the waiting is not the worst thing but the false starts and rather nauseating pattern of raised expectations and dashed hopes. She smiled knowingly and with sympathy and said, “Oh yes, the third child syndrome.”

The what? There’s an actual SYNDROME and nobody told me? Apparently third babies tend to do this. They toy with mother’s sanity, playing these coy games. She assured me that fourth babies do not do this. I said it’s a wonder there ever ARE any fourth babies, after all this!!

She also made me laugh when she observed that the midwives say there is a certain “look” in the eyes of near-term mothers. At first, I thought she was meaning that there is some sort of ephemeral sign they can read, meaning the baby’s arrival is pending. But no, this is more of an emotional barometer, maybe a little bit too much white showing around the edges of mom’s eyes, or a bit of a twitch, that indicates a woman has had entirely enough of being pregnant, thank-you-very-much. And yes, she was reading hints of *that* look in my eyes. Snicker. I coulda told you that for free!

Not only is tomorrow baby’s official due date, it’s Simon’s birthday AND they’re forecasting a winter storm. I figure after nine months of desperately hoping that I don’t actually deliver on February 1, this combination of circumstances virtually guarantees that he will in fact arrive tomorrow. Murphy’s Third Child Law or something like that! And if he doesn’t come tomorrow, I’m thinking we’re going to have to go in and get him. I signed the paperwork yesterday to start setting up the induction for some time late next week. Damn stubborn babies who don’t listen from BEFORE day one — sheesh!!

So, I’ve been rather self-centred lately — but very much enjoying all your comments and kind words. It’s a beautiful sunny (if not a little frigid) morning here in Ottawa, and I’m about to drop the boys off at the nanny’s house for the day. Life is really not so bad, ya know? What’s lovely in your corner of the world today?

The one where the baby is *still* mere hours, days, weeks or maybe months from being born

I’m trying to be patient, I really am! But it seems like every time I settle in and convince myself that there is nothing to do but wait it out and enjoy these last few days, my body throws something new at me that gets me all excited again — for nothing!!!

While my labours with Tristan and Simon were quite different in a lot of ways (with Tristan I went into labour spontaneously two days past my due date, and with Simon I was induced 10 days past my due date) in the end they were both fairly linear in their progression. Once labour started, it moved, albeit at differing speeds and stages, pretty much unerringly toward birth.

Not so much this time around. Believe it or not, I’m fairly content with the waiting. At the most, this baby will be here sometime in the next 10 days or so, and that seems perfectly reasonable to me. It’s the “Ohhh, I think this is it, here we go!!” excitement, followed by the letdown of “Oh, never mind, we’re back to waiting again” that’s really starting to fray my nerves. First there was the 12 hours of progressive contractions last Thursday, after which it took me about three days to get my head back into a place where I was content to wait it out another week or more. Then yesterday with the lost mucous plug, I really thought we were good to go, until my midwife confirmed that in the absence of other symptoms, it really doesn’t mean much more than “Baby could come any time in the next couple of days or weeks.” Whimper.

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You might remember my sweet bloggy friends in Toronto and environs got together and chipped in for an absolutely gorgeous hand-made baby blanket and pillow for the Player to be Named Later. Yesterday, just as I was trying to wrangle my excitement over the non-progress of the lost mucous plug back into perspective, the doorbell rang. It was the postlady, with a package from Marla.

In the package were the blanket and pillow and an equally adorable little taggie blanket for baby to play with, and there was also an extra little care package from Marla and Josie.

Baby gifts

Look at these and tell me they are not the most adorable things you’ve ever seen!!

Baby Chucks!

Marla has predicted that Baby was simply waiting for his care package to arrive, and would make his grand entrance within 24 hours of me receiving it. So Canada-Post-As-Oracle dictates that he has until shortly after noon today to arrive. Hmmmm, unless this is a *really* sudden and fast labour….. but I’m secretly hoping she’s right!!

Thank you again to Ann and Andrea and Jen and Nicole and Kate and Nadine, and especially to Marla and Josie. I love all of you!

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Or, maybe the Player to be Named Later is just waiting to see the outcome of the Canadian Blog Awards. Today is the final day for voting, so if you haven’t done so already, this is your last chance to vote for us! Don’t do it for me, do it for Baby! (Shameless, aren’t I?)

Playlist for labour, and your latest update – now more convenient!

My brain is moving even more incrementally slowly than my cervix. Two days ago, I posted about a song that made me think of the end of pregnancy. Yesterday, I posted about my iPod. Today, how about suggestions for a playlist for labour?

A while back, I had a post about the best pregnancy songs, and y’all had some great suggestions. Labour is a different creature altogether. You want some loud, harsh music to drown out the contractions, some soothing songs for those quiet lulls, and some high-energy music to inspire you through to the finish. (At the very least, I’ve gone through and made sure all the Christmas music has been removed from the iPod once and for all. I can only imagine how irrationally irritating it would be to be labouring along and suddenly have the Twelve Days of Christmas stuck in my head!)

Any thoughts on what you had or would want on your delivery-room playlist?

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I’ve had a Twitter account for half a year or more, but never actually got around to using it. For those of you who don’t know it, Twitter is a way of broadcasting what you’re up to, in 140 characters or less. It reminds me of the “status” feature on Facebook. So, rather than sticking up random blog posts, I can keep y’all updated through the Twitter badge over there in the sidebar, just under the (really rather annoying and kind of creepy) Babywatch ticker. If I wasn’t so embarrassingly technologically inept, I could probably figure out how to send updates from my cell phone. But I am, and besides, Beloved is carrying the cell around like a talisman these days, waiting for his summons!

So, as long as I’m within arm’s reach of the computer (and those of you with whom I’m currently playing Scrabulous know is most of the time!) I’ll post an update at least every couple hours. All DaniGirl’s Uterus All The Time — does it get anymore embarrassingly narcissistic exciting than that?

As if the Captcha Oracle wasn’t enough fun…

I really wish I had something better for you this Monday morning than a meme — but I don’t. But after all the weekend fun with the Captcha Oracle, this one seemed to at least fit in thematically. I wasn’t going to post it until I had my answers, but some of them were too priceless NOT to share. Thanks to Suze for the blog fodder!

iTunes Revenge

Rules: Put your music player on shuffle, press forward for each question and use the next song title as the next answer. (And yes, I have done something similar before… but this one has different questions.)

What does next year have in store for me?
Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears (ha! Good start!)

What’s my love life like?
Silver Bells – Perry Como (WTF? I thought I deleted all the Christmas music?)

What do I say when life gets hard?
Boots or Hearts – Tragically Hip (Okay, that’s kind of eerie in a way only a few people would understand. This was my theme song when I was going through my divorce. Way too weird!)

What do I think of upon waking up?
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard – Paul Simon (???)

What song will I dance to at my wedding?
(I skipped this one – the answer is “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Alladin.)

What do I want as a career?
Something – The Beatles (Well, that’s plenty specific.)

My favourite saying?
Looking for a Place to Happen – Tragically Hip

Favourite place?
Silly Love Songs – Paul McCartney

What do I think of my parents?
The One I Love – REM (Awwww!)

What’s my porn star name?
Red Rain – Peter Gabriel (snicker)

Where would I go on a first date?
Come What May – Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor (On the first date??)

Drug of choice?
Fall Down – Toad the Wet Sprocket (Yes, concussions can be a rush.)

Describe myself.
When You Were Young – The Killers

What is the thing I like doing most?
Here for a Good Time – Trooper (snicker)

What is my state of mind like at the moment?
Hard to Laugh – The Pursuit of Happiness (Yes, it’s hard to laugh when you are dying of impatience – but I’m managing!)

How will I die?
Too Much Love Will Kill You – Queen (I swear, I am NOT making these up!)

And now, the question we are all dying to have answered, WHEN will this baby be born?
Stuck in a Moment – U2

Hard to laugh indeed!

Closing time

Beloved has resorted to drastic measures. He leaned in close to my uterus this morning and said, “We have candy! We have TV! We have video games! Just c’mon out and it’s all yours — follow the light!”

We were in the car later, and decided the lyrics of this song are surprisingly applicable right now:

Closing time – time for you to go out, go out into the world.
Closing time – turn the lights up over every boy and every girl.
Closing time – one last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer.
Closing time – you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.

I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home…

Closing time – time for you to go back to the places you will be from.
Closing time – this room won’t be open ’til your brothers or your sisters come.
So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits – I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time – every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Yeah, I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home…

Closing time – time for you to go back to the places you will be from…

I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home…

Closing time – every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end…

And yet, like the party guest who won’t leave long after you’ve cleaned up the kitchen and washed off your makeup and even put on your fuzzy slippers, he just won’t leave!

Why I love my mom and my midwife

By the time I figured out that the contractions were not the real deal yesterday morning, I was in a pretty foul mood. I felt supremely betrayed by my body, as false labour was nowhere near my radar screen, and it was outside the realm of the conceivable that what had started would not simply escalate into the arrival of my son. So when I realized otherwise, I was in one cranky-ass bad mood.

My mother, whom I had called early in the morning to put on high alert before the disappointment set in, called me back just before lunch time and offered to take me out – of the house, but mostly of my own head. I warned her that I was in no fit state for company, having lost an entire night’s sleep AND been recently denied something I desperately wanted (something I never take well!) and told her I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend any more time with me, so couldn’t imagine why she wanted to. She perservered, though, and we went out to the mall for a little lunch and a wander about.

By the time she dropped me off a couple of hours later, I felt 110% better. Nothing like a little lunch, a little retail therapy and some unconditional love to restore your perspective on the world. There will still be a baby — just not a baby TODAY. My mom rocks!

And then the midwife called late in the afternoon to check on me. When I told her what was (not) going on, she asked if I would like it if we had an impromptu appointment on the weekend just to ‘make sure everything was on track.’ How great is that?

So I met her at the (closed) midwives’ office this afternoon, and she checked out me and the baby. I had my first internal exam this pregnancy, and I’m a full centimeter dilated. Woot! (Might not seem like much, but I’m still six days away from my due date, and with Simon I was 10 days past and three hours into inducement hell and my cervix was still locked tight and “unfavourable” — perhaps one of the cruelest words in obstetrics.) She said my cervix is soft but still long, and she actually touched the top of baby’s head, which set me all a-tingle. She said she had been considering sweeping my membranes (basically, using her finger to separate the amniotic sac from the uterine wall, which often generates the hormones that trigger labour) but that it was her opinion that it wouldn’t do any good and would only cause me unnecessary discomfort. She did say, though, that “if we make it to the next appointment” she would try it then.

And the final word is pretty much what it has been all along — could be soon, could be two weeks. I can only laugh at this point. Could there be a worse torture for me that all this uncontrollable not knowing? I can’t imagine one!

But I received three e-mails this afternoon with varying degrees of curiousity (and the page views are insanely out of whack with the visitor count, meaning either y’all are clicking back regularly for updates or going mad with the refresh key looking for fun captchas!) so I figured an update was due — even if the baby isn’t. No real contractions since yesterday, so it looks we’re back in a holding pattern for at least a few days. And I’m okay with that!

But hey, if you need something to do OTHER than playing with the captcha oracle (which, admittedly, is a fun new game!) and you haven’t already done so, you could always mosey on over to the Canadian Blog Awards and vote for your favourite family blog

The captcha oracle

You guys are making me laugh with your captchas, but when I went to comment on the thread and tell you so, I had my own predictive captcha experience. In fact, I had to get a screen capture and show you what the Captcha Oracle has in store for me:

captcha1.jpg

Cuz that’s what I need. A stubborn, reluctant and stuck baby who is bigger AND BIGGER AND BIGGER by the hour!!!!

Oy!

Nevermind

Forget I said anything. Nothing to see here today, folks. Contractions? What contractions? Sigh.

I’m truly at a loss as to how one can go from 12 hours of *real* contractions (this is baby #3, I know from contractions) every 2 to 6 minutes to nothing. I wouldn’t even mind, if I weren’t so bloody tired now — and can’t sleep a wink because of the damn restless legs.

Anyway, thanks for all your kind words and comments! Check back again in two weeks, cuz he’s got to come out eventually…

This may turn out to be a very long day

Just after 8:30 am. Contractions are sporadic and not too intense. The midwife suggested I go back to bed – as if!! If I couldn’t sleep overnight, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep now, despite the long sleepless night.

I have no experience with false labour, and was in fact just yesterday saying to a friend (guess I should have touched wood) that I would far prefer the interminable waiting to the series of false starts and unproductive trips to L&D she recently had with her third baby. The midwife said this could go either way at this point. If baby is nice enough to be born during the day, my mom will be able to be there at the birth, but if not, she’ll have to take care of the boys. I’d really like her to be there, so here’s hoping things get moving soon!