Contractions and Delivery Dreams

When I was pregnant with E, I had no contractions until labor began. They didn't stop until she, and the placenta, were out of my body. It was very nice.

Since Tuesday morning, I've had two false starts. At 3:30am, I started having contractions. They were pretty mild and about 30 minutes apart. They stopped around 6 or 7 that morning. I fell asleep in my chair and woke up to one at 8:15. I'd say that was just an aftershock, because there were no more after that.

Last night, after the board meeting (I went, thinking it would induce labor like it had with E), contractions started again at 9:24. They were every 8-10 minutes, and seemed to be getting stronger. I almost called the doctor, but Paul told me we could wait until they were closer together and we were nearly ready to head to the hospital. It's a good thing. They stopped at midnight.

So now we wait some more. Perhaps this is why labor is so much faster with the second child. Perhaps there is a lot of this starting and stopping going on. Either way, it's a real pain, and this kid is in big trouble.

I had an interesting dream over the weekend. I had a dream that I was in my room and Paul was in another room with E. I was leaning up against the wall and looked down to see L crowning. I called Paul into the room and pushed him out, saying "Oh good, you were here for the birth of your child." He didn't cry much, nursed for about five minutes, then turned into a two year old. I was worried, because we hadn't called Dr. Kawahara when he was born, so we didn't have his birth weight and measurements, and now he was suddenly two, and I thought we would get in trouble; not to mention the fact that we were suddenly very behind on immunizations.

Of course, I'm a little nervous about the infancy period, and quite happy with my current two-year-old. It was a difficult time, and I'm hoping that it's a little easier the second time around. I'm sure having an infant and two-year-old will create new and interesting challenges. E seems pretty excited. She said the other day, very proudly "I'm going to be a big sister!" It was like she had just realized it. It was very cute. I hope she enjoys her new role.