And now, we wait.

Today is the due date we've been waiting for.

Everyone has been waiting. The boys are patiently biding their time, filling their days with games, art projects, tv downtime, ball practice and swimming. They know when the baby comes Grammie and Grampie will be coming too, to visit with the new baby and to take them back to Nova Scotia for a week visit, a week these two boys are excitedly anticipating. That Grammie and Grampie, along with Troy's siblings, are waiting for the news that the baby is on it's way, to begin their six hour drive here. My sister is waiting, on call via texting, to be summoned for babysitting duty for these three when the time arrives. Troy is waiting, cleaning, working away on the house, waiting on me. And mostly, I am waiting, kind of painfully, my body so obviously readying itself for labour, teetering between contractions and nothing.

I've never made it to a due date before, this is a new birth twist for us. When I finished up work a few weeks ago I completely expected to barely have enough time to get things in order before the arrival of our new babe.

Troy's been sticking close to home and we've been puttering away at the house. At first our work was hurried and with the feel of a deadline pushing us. We still had our bedroom I was hoping to finish renovating. (You know, the never-ending bedroom project, the bedroom that's been gutted for six months? Yeah, that one.) Troy finished the closets in our room, building the most beautiful walk-in, a bigger closet than I've ever had. I painted the room, and then Troy put in the new flooring. (Beautiful bamboo, I'll do a room post soon!)

Then we moved in our clothes and our bedroom furniture. This unleashed a series of rooms opening up to be organized into what they are actually intended to be used for. We set up the baby's room, that had been previously used as our makeshift closet. And with all our borrowed time, I organized toys and reclaimed the playroom (where our bed had been during the bedroom renovation project). If this baby doesn't come soon, I might even get to organizing the office, where the office and playroom furniture had been stuffed. After a year, I actually feel like we've moved in! It's amazing what a few closets can do. 

Thursday morning I had a few contractions throughout the night and on into the morning. They were just beginning to have a regular 20 minute interval by noon, and I had just decided that maybe we'd have a baby by the end of the day, when they stopped. Just stopped! Now this pregnancy has definitely been different from the others in these early contractions. I've had contraction-like pains throughout the pregnancy that I've never had before, Braxton-Hicks I suppose, whenever I over-exert myself mostly. And now, for the last three days really, I've been bouncing between contractions that feel 'real', and this mild dull constant pain of smallish 'sort-of' contractions. With the boys, my first two deliveries, I really didn't have (or at least notice) any early contractions at all. Thane's delivery especially (my first), was a comedic scene that was movie worthy, beginning out of the blue with major contractions just two minutes apart and ending only an hour and a half later with our baby boy. You might laugh, but the fast pace was ridiculously overwhelming, especially with no prior experience to rely on! Seth's birth was similar, but with at least an hour of the earlier contractions that served as a pretty good warning to get ourselves to the hospital.

So that's the birth experience I went into my third pregnancy with. At the first sign of contractions I knew to get moving, a baby wouldn't be long arriving now. But Miss Claire was different entirely. I woke up with her contractions and hurried to get our things together while Troy called his mom, who would be watching the boys. And then the contractions just didn't get closer together. All day the contractions petered in, hovering mildly around 10 minutes apart. I wasn't even sure how to approach that waiting! Around noon, nervous by my previous labours, my mother-in-law came and waited with us, a nice distraction. By supper they had finally progressed to be five minutes apart and we headed into the hospital. By the time we got there however, they had gone back to 10 minute intervals! The nurse sent us to go out for supper, so we went to East Side Mario's and walked around the mall a bit. It was quite funny actually, it seemed so bizarre to me to just be walking around in public in labour, but the contractions were really pretty manageable at that point. Finally we reached contractions two minutes apart, headed back to the hospital, and within a couple quick hours Claire arrived.

It's funny how each pregnancy, each birth, each baby is so different.

Right now that baby Claire is walking around determinedly diaperless. Typical of each child being so individual, while my boys had no desire whatsoever to potty-train even by 2 and a half, Claire has decided whether I'm ready or not that she must get rid of the diaper. (Because of the impending newborn I really am not feeling so ready.) She wants to sit on the toilet whenever we're near, and comes and tells us, with her pointing and gestures, when her diaper is full, or just takes it off and brings it to us. Yesterday Troy brought out the potty and they have been inseperable ever since (the potty and Claire). She's pretty much refusing to have a diaper put on and carries the potty all over the house.

This is how she has been waiting for baby.