Dum de doo de dum...

I'm at that point in pregnancy where it becomes a waiting and second-guessing game. I was sure Tali was going to make a grand entrance yesterday. All afternoon on Tuesday I had constant contractions and then all through the night they began to get stronger and stronger until about 4:00 am when I finally got up and started emailing everyone and their mother in order to make arrangements for the big day and to be sure all the offspring would still get to all their activities in our absence. Tad took the day off work (he was planning to take a half day anyway) and then around 7:00 am all womb-related activity suddenly ceased...stopped...nada....and has yet to resume in any significant fashion.

When I went to the midwife last week she found it difficult to discern head from tail and so I was treated to another sonogram. This one showed Tali definitely buns up (a good thing) but her head was a bit wonky to the side of my pubic bone. So the whole time I was having these wonderful contractions I was picturing the poor dear banging her head repeatedly against my pubic bone in lemmingesque fashion.

I returned to the midwife today who asked if I wanted to check the baby. I figured I wasn't doing much by way of dilation but I did want to see if poor Tali was going to come out a little squished to the left side of the cranium. She wasn't able to really feel the head well as Tali kept bounding out of her way at each attempt (it took a long try to get the heartbeat on the little monitor for the same reason) so it was back to the sonogram machine we went. This time we found Tali floating perfectly head down exactly where she belongs except there was a broad halo of fluid around the top of her skull. This explains all the floating about she's been doing and doesn't really indicate anything except that the breaking of my water is likely to more closely resemble the opening of a dam. Fortunately, never once has this happened on its own. In fact, with Nathan I was 10 cm dilated and nearly ready to push when the midwife had to break the membrane for me.

And so we wait...and wait....and wonder....and hope that somehow over the course of the weekend life will be able to go on, all will have a riding lesson, the friends will make it over to plan for the competition, Ben will get to his play-off and his All Star games, the boys will make it to the lego boat competition, JT will get to his play for which he is running the light board and the girls will make it to their t-ball game. All in the life of a large family....