“I think we should wait until Monday,” I say, truthfully. I figure that gives me time to put the finishing touches on the first draft of my Tween novel and allow Jack to come on his own.
“Oh, Julie, I don’t think you should do that. I think we need to induce tonight.”
“Tonight, you mean hours from now?”
“Yes. I’ll call the hospital and find out when they have an opening. Don’t worry. We do this all the time. Everything will be okay.”
She proceeds to insert her hand up into what seems to be my bowels and tells me my cervix is high and barely open. She’d love to wait longer, but there are dangers. Fluids are getting lower, and 42 weeks is really the cutoff.
I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d just been told I only had hours to live. I know that sounds morbid, but I had a whole to-do list for today. My best friend laughed when she heard this. You better add “birth a baby, in red, to that to-do list.” I get her point. That’s a little more important than cleaning out the silverware tray, even though there are crumbs in it. “Will I be able to do that once I have a baby?” I asked her. “Probably not, but that’s okay,” she said, then added, “I cleaned mine out yesterday.” She doesn’t have kids.
On the way out of the building I was walking next to a fun chatty couple who had left my doctor’s office. They asked about my baby, and I broke the cardinal rule of asking her if she was pregnant. She told me she had three teenagers. She said I have no idea how much I’m going to love this baby once I hold him. “It’s like the Grinch,” she explained. “Your heart beats outside of your body.” Ironically I’d heard Al Roker say the same thing on the Today show a few days ago.
Before we split off, she said that I’ll lose about 40 pounds in one day while breastfeeding. “Uh, honey, it didn’t happen that fast,” her husband confided. “Don’t get her hopes up.”
So here I go, off the give birth, somewhat artificially. Wish me luck.
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