Counting Up

For nine months now, we've been counting *down*, but for the last 12 hours, we've been counting *up*. We came into the hospital last night around 12:30 for our appointment to induce labor. With the baby being one week overdue, we had scheduled a time to being the labor process.

It took a while to get checked in...we only got to our labor/delivery room at 1am. And after all of the questions and checks, it was closer to 2am. The good thing is Radha was already more than in the morning. So we skipped the drug meant to soften up the cervix and went right to the one which induces contractions. Even so, it was 3:45am before Radha was given the IV drip with the drugs.

We both got a couple of hours of much needed sleep and started the morning off bright and early at 6:30 with more checks. Things proceeded quite quickly from there. Before we knew it, the anesthesiologists came in for the epidural and Radha was 6cm dilated.

So we've now been in the hospital for 12 1/2 hours slowly counting up. The goal is 10cm dilated and then Radha can start pushing.

For the first time in a while, I'm actually feeling a bit nervous. So is Radha. We've been anxious for quite some time, especially since the due date was a week ago. But only as this "count up" is getting more intense are we getting nervous. I'm sure it's something every first time parent goes through. In my fitful sleep, of all things, I dreamt about the baby's first encounter with our dogs, Junior & Buddy. Strange how anxiousness about being good parents isn't coming to the fore. I think I dreamt about the dogs since the nurse told us about a good way to get them acclimated to the baby's smell. After the birth, I'll be taking the baby's newborn cap home and let the boy's sniff to their heart's content. I'm really looking forward to being a big family.

In the meantime, I'm still counting up.