False labor/ Pre labor.....either one sucks

Okay, so again, it's been a while. Sorry.

Since last posting we have sold our house, moved, Nathan got a new job, we headed up Jonah's school's largest fundraiser and I have grown a baby. Now, I am ready to have a baby.......seriously, like NOW!

My official due date is April 26th, but we have thought for a while that we were looking more at the end of March, beginning of April. The doc thinks based on my history and the size of the baby that I will (or would) be 2-4 weeks early. So, here we are April 5, 2011 (week 37) and I have had "false labor" a few days ago for about 10 hours and then what they call "pre-labor" all last night. Oh, and last week at my check I was already dilated 2 cm and about 80 % effaced - false hope as far as I'm concerned.

"Be careful what you wish for" is such a true statement. I kept hoping that I would get to experience some actual labor that I could stand before I did the dramatic water breaking, rushing to the hospital thing that I did with Jonah. So what I have gotten is more than a total of 24 hours of thinking I am going into labor with NO results. In my mind I saw a couple hours of home labor and then a swift trip to the hospital and a speedy delivery. Ha, ya right! I can get myself so stressed out and worried about the excruciating pain that awaits me that I can almost make myself throw up and that's when I'm feeling good. I am not convinced that I will have time to receive an epidural (which I am not looking forward to in and of itself) so I am trying to prepare myself for natural delivery, just in case. Turns out, there is no real way to prepare yourself.

I was thinking, up until last night, that I would be able to relax and hold it together, but last night as I was having painful contractions mixed with intense back pain and cramps I lost my cool. I made Nathan get off the couch simply because him being on the couch was annoying me (for anyone that knows me - I'm usually fairly laid back). I then told him I thought I was going into labor but that he wasn't allowed to call anyone or prepare in case I was wrong.......pretty logical. Especially since we had two sleeping toddlers upstairs that are not quite old enough to stay home by themselves in case he had to rush me to the hospital. Logic was out the window and instead I paced around, sighed heavily over and over and refused to answer his questions about how I was feeling. My only statement was, "I don't know, stop looking at me!"

Now that I am feeling a little bit better today I am trying to identify my mistakes and find the humor in my irrational behavior from last night. I do apologize for the scatered nature of this post, but it's the best I've got right now (some slight irritability seems to be hanging on). Just thought I'd write down, in the moment, how I feel so that once it's all over I can look back and breath a sigh of relief.