It has been a little more than a week now that we have been blessed with Little Baby Emma in our lives, and sometimes I still can’t believe that she’s here! 🙂
We had been waiting for her arrival since I hit the 38th week, and every day since then had been anxiety-filled and putting what-ifs into question. Â I had also gone for several rounds of prenatal fetal non-stress tests before Emma’s arrival, and every time I had been told, “Your baby looks perfect! Â This baby’s beautiful!”
Apart from the regular Braxton-Hicks contractions I had been feeling, there was no other indication that Emma was gonna come soon. Â Week 39 came and there was obvious stress on my bladder and pubic bone. Â I was finding it increasingly hard to move around, but I still did my regular stuff: cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and even some yoga and light cardio on the elliptical. Â Her movements in my belly were more prominent at night. Â I tried to keep my mind off the waiting by doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, rewashing Emma’s crib linens, whatever I could think of, but nothing happened.
I drank a lot of labor prep tea (containing red raspberry leaf) and also had yogurt with pineapple in it, in the hope of starting off labor, but guess what, nothing happened.
Initially I had predicted Emma would be born on February 28th, but that day came and went without incident. Â Then Pete predicted she would be born on the same date as her sister Hannah’s birthday, but March 2nd came to pass too. Â Then we thought it would be March 5th, and I thought for sure it would be March 8th. Â But nothing happened.
Incidentally, we had a blizzard on March 8th, which lasted till March 9th, so had she decided to make her entrance that day, it would be hard for us to make our way to the hospital too.  Clever girl. 🙂
On Saturday, March 9th, I felt stronger contractions, or rather they felt like the urge for a bowel movement. Â Nothing happened then though, except that I *thought* my mucus plug was dislodged that day. Â On Sunday March 10th, at about 11:00a.m. I definitely had “the show”, and I excitedly told Pete about it.
“This is it,” I said. “Emma will be here in a day or so.”