How Would You Feel If YOU Scored a 1 Out of 10?

NOTE: I'm going to talk about having a baby. Nothing gory, I promise, but I'll still be throwing a lot of labor lingo around like dilation numbers. I think we can all be grown up enough around here to mention things like *gasp* cervices. Just deal, okay?

(Also, I am happy to have had an excuse to use the plural of cervix. I don't care if "cervixes" is correct too, because "cervices" makes me smile.)


My sister Jessica is having her baby as I write this. She isn't due until tomorrow. (Every time the phone has rung the last few days, I've wondered if it's her telling me she's having/had the baby. She called me on Tuesday just to ask a question and got me all excited. I feel like she needed to start every conversation with, "No baby yet." Like even before she said, "Hello." If I picked up the phone, the first words I heard in her voice should have been, "No baby." Because my suspense should be her first priority in life, right? But tonight I emerged from hiding in a closet due to a tornado warning in our neighborhood, put the kids to bed in the dark because the power was out, and then decided to give my mom a call. Because what else can you do when the power is out besides use your land line? On one o' them archaic CORDED phones, no less. Only then did I find out my mom is waiting in the hospital waiting room for news of the yet-to-occur birth.) I know that she'll probably hate me for saying it, but I'm secretly pleased that Jessica didn't have her baby any sooner. I mean, she went in for her 35 week appointment and was already dilated to 2.5 cm. I believe she was at a 3 just before she went into labor this morning.

Similarly, my best friend Leann is due to have her baby on the 23rd of June. She went in at 35 weeks and was also at 2.5cm. Last I heard, she was at a 3.5.

All I have to say to these women is, "I hate you people."

In case you wanted to know, nothing's really happening with my cervix thus far. No big surprise.

When I went in to be induced 4 days past my due date with Claire, I was what I like to call a "courtesy 1." I believe the exact quote from the doctor was, "Mmm... we'll call it 1 cm." As in what the doctor was really saying was, "Well, at the last few appointments I've had to tell you that you weren't even a 1 yet and I just don't have the heart to tell you that you're still not even a 1 although you're past your due date, so we're going to call it a 1 to make you feel better since it really makes no medical difference if you're 1 or less than that. Either way you are SO not about to go into labor any time soon and we have our work cut out for us 'ripening' your cervix."

With Scott, I think I made it to 1 cm sometime shortly before my due date and when I went in to be induced with him (5 days late that time) I was at 1.5. Yah, still not exactly ready and rarin' to go the second time around. In fact, toward the end of my pregnancy with Scott when I asked my doctor at what point I should go to the hospital if I started having contractions, do you know what she did? She laughed at me. Laughed! She answered my question, but then she told me that she highly doubted I would go into labor on my own.

So I am resigned to the fact that needing to be induced a week early this time means I will DEFINITELY not dilate ahead of time. At least not to any useful extent. I keep telling myself that everyone is different and that's just the way my body rolls (and "rolls" is a pretty good description of both how I look and move these days). But I can't help but be jealous. I mean, my only sister was my biologically best bet for a "labor twin," right? But apparently she doesn't have a lazy cervix, as I like to say in derision of my own anatomy.

Does no one actually deliver past their due date anymore? I want to hear that I'm not a freak of nature. I guess I know a few people who have delivered late. But I bet they all reached their due date dilated to like a 3. Or you know, something larger than 1.

Hmph.