Pending Party of Four

9:30> woke up. got some food (toast and juice and a dr. pepper)
10:28> slammed the rest of my dr. pepper so that i could be finished eating/drinking by 10:30.
11:00> took a shower.
12:00> stared at the phone for a while. played some games. checked some internet.
2:00> painted my fingernails
3:00> napped. mostly just sort of thought thoughts for a while.
5:00> woke up
5:15> called per instructed when nobody called me by 5. was told i was next in line and that it should probably be another couple of hours. learned i could have cranberry juice.
5:16 > watched crappy tv. more internet. more games. started drooling over taco bell nacho bellgrande with chili, popeye’s chicken (although it was a kfc commercial), almost everything they showed on tv. started getting my usual evening contractions.
7:00 > america’s next top model
7:49 > got a call. still next on the list. still going to be a couple of hours. apparently nobody who was supposed to have their babies this morning felt like it.
8:00 > gossip girl because private practice was pre-empted by country music awards.

now > distracting myself with this blog entry. finding cranberry juice filling, but less satisfying by the hour.

next > …no clue. hoping to get a call by 11pm. may lay down again. at least all this waiting is pushing frustrated to the top of the emotional list, diminishing my anxiety down to near-nil.

so today, random scheduling conflicts at the hospital notwithstanding, we’re going to have a baby. she probably will not be born until sometime thursday morning, but the show will get started today.

i’m pretty scared.

i know inductions happen “all the time” and that most of the books i’ve read have at least a slight bias against them, especially when they’re elective, so i’m trying very hard to take all the perils they describe with a grain of salt. i just wish i had more stories of good inductions. so many of them (okay, maybe 3 of 4?) go along the lines of “omg, it hurt so bad and then i had to have a c-section anyway”. i’m worried about the stress my body’s going to go through. i’m worried about the stress charlotte is going to go through even more.

i don’t know how much of this is really related to induction, though. i’m sure at least some of it is simply labor-related anxiety. i do not handle unknowns well at all, even good ones or “no big deal” ones. monday’s visit to the hospital was uneventful, it at least killed one of the primary things that was concerning me. i’ve been to the hospital many times to visit folks. i walked my husband through the doors when he had to have his gallbladder removed, but i’ve never been a patient myself. as silly as that sounds, not having any experience checking in, having to put on a gown, and being the person in the bed was sort of freaking me out. at least now that’s behind me.

so, my plan for today is to finish up my breakfast/only meal of the day, which consists of 2 slices of cinnamon raisin toast, a hearty glass of cranberry juice and a can of dr. pepper. from 10:30 on out, it’s clear non-caffeinated bevvys for me, which pretty much means water.

at 11, i’ll take a shower. who knows when i’ll get another one, so i’d like to maximize how clean i feel as long as possible.

at 12, we’ll just wait for the phone to ring. there’s tv, the internet, and if we’re feeling very ambitious, dishes in the dishwasher that can be put away.

according to the most recent set of instructions, if nobody calls me by 5pm, i need to call them.

and that’s about all i can control at this point, which will have to be enough.