Are you coming?

Dear Thumper,

Hi. It's Mom.

So, are you coming?

I know I'm only 36.5 weeks along, with 24 days to go, according to Dad, but you're making all sorts of stuff happen in there.

• Last night I was bizarrely and uncharacteristically weepy. Not like me. And counter to my whole pregnancy to date. Dad took hours to calm me down and I woke up all puffy and miff.
• This morning, early, I had lower back pain. Like period pain. Again, unlike me and unlike things so far. But it went away.
• Lunchtime, or just after. Dad and James came home from lunch and I had a funny feeling. I'm a bit skaam to describe it here - which is silly, cos you're my kid-to-be and I'm about to spend several years wiping your little bum, but this is the Interwebs after all... So I'll just say, there was some strange leakage. But it went away.
• Tonight, standing in the kitchen, I asked Dad to take a photo of me in Auntie Tanya's lovely preggie pants and the red top Yaya bought for me in Woolly Moolly. And just as he was about to take it, I had a weird pain right across my bump. Never had one like that before. I got a fright. Pulled my 'ouch' face; the one Dad thinks is funny. Closest thing to a contraction I could think of.

And so we got busy with the iPhone contraction timer. Baby's Coming, it's called. And it's great. Problem is, I then had four contractions, 20 minutes apart, of about 90 seconds each, for over an hour. And now we don't know if you're en route or not.

Things got a bit irregular after that. We phoned Midwife Marilyn - who suggested two Panados and a hot bath, surprisingly :) - and said it might be early labour. So now we're in bed and we're to call her when 'things' are five minutes apart.

You can imagine what happened after that. I had to wash my hair and shave my legs, just in case. Dad got busy packing the gear bag: Kindle, camera, phones, iPods, etc. Dad made your bed. Dad checked the bags - both of them; yours and ours.

And I made a list of all the clients I'm going to have to ass-lick if indeed there's no more work for me:

• Tomorrow's training client.
• Friday's - fok.
• Safrea - and the 30 people coming to a) hear me speak and b) enjoy the evening I need to host.
• Monday's training client.
• The two clients who still want changes.
• The few students with marking due.
• The two clients that I owe small work.
• And the few who're waiting on prep.

YIKES. Oh well. I'll have to apologise profusely and get over it. Fast. You're more important. Promise.

I'm still fairly sure it's a false alarm. But denial is apparently a strong labour sign...

We're now 15 mins, 14 mins, 11 mins apart - no pain, no real discomfort, just funny twinges that start in the bladder almost, stretch across the whole belly, and then end with a final twinge in the bladder. Useful when trying to gauge duration, but not sore or even unpleasant... Which is weird. You also tend to kick in between, which is interesting :)

I'm gonna sign off now. Better get some rest in. We might be seeing you soon. Sooner than we thought.

May you only ever do things in your own sweet time.

Love you.

Mom x