Still here

We're ready and waiting. I've had a pedicure. We've celebrated the 2^nd birthday of our precious daughter, Nora Kathryn (her birthday is today; see pictures of her party and afternoon at the park with mom and dad from earlier in the week). We've bought a car and strapped in our baby car seat. And now, we've had a trial run at the hospital.

Although this is my second baby, this will be my first labor. It turns out labor doesn't work as straight forwardly for me as I thought it would. I'm tempted to be embarrassed when I report that last night at 9pm we were heading to Knoxville having reached that contractions-five-minutes-apart mark. I had been having stronger contractions off and on for almost 24 hours at that point that had built in intensity, regularity and length. I knew that I wasn't in active labor at that time, but thought I was on my way. And being an hour and a half drive from the hospital, I wanted to play it safe. Turns out my body is taking its time preparing for labor, and the contractions that had me going to the hospital became irregular again on the drive there. We got back to Etowah at 3am a little more educated in this process called laboring with an estimate that the baby would come “within a week.” That was one of the lesser helpful pieces of advice. It's 4pm now and not much is going on. I'm in a coffee shop resisting the urge to start timing the contractions that I've been having for the past couple hours. It could be a long “week” if I become a clock watcher. That's probably more than you wanted to know about my current status, but there it is. Stephen has been a great support, Nora has been a sweet comfort and I'm more patient now with how my body is preparing for baby's arrival. I have to admit though, I would love to have an update with snapshots of Joseph sometime this weekend.