I have to thank Mother Nature for trying to help me have this baby.  All the snowstorms and weather changes we've been experiencing have created a great barometric pressure roller coaster that is helping all sorts of cramping and contractions to happen.  Unfortunately nothing has "happened" yet.

My living room has been partially transformed into a birth room. The furniture is rearranged and my husband set up the pool. I've sat in it, draped myself over the side, etc. Just trying to visualize myself having the baby in it.  We have flannel bedsheets set aside to be hung from the doorways and a space heater to make it nice a toasty in that part of the house.

Thursday I had a great false alarm. I actually called my midwives to let them know that I might be having the baby, but everything died out after I went to bed.  It was a good test run though, now I know how much shorter my patience is when they are happening. Though it was odd because that whole day it was almost as though my son knew something was going on. He was hyper and completely underfoot the whole day. Which is how he gets when he knows someone is coming over, we're going out somewhere, or if he'd somehow snuck one too many cookies when I wasn't looking.

My mother in law came down to help ease my poor husbands mind. He is the only manager working the opening shift this weekend and he was becoming paranoid that I was going to have the baby. It's not that he worried he's going to miss the actual birth, he just doesn't want me to be alone when everything starts to happen. I don't want to be alone either, but with the way the weather has been I was starting to convince myself that I might have to deal with that as a reality.  So after Thursdays "test"  she said that she would come down one day early, she had already requested about two weeks off to be available if we needed help. Which, with two more snow storms (todays and one on sun/mon) I'm glad she did. I'm really starting to think this one is going to come on it's date too, but just in case. Babies have a habit of coming when they are ready, to heck with everyone else.
The only downside is that my husband and his mom, banter, a lot, over just about everything. That's the kind of relationship they have. He makes comments about how she doesn't do something right, she attacks back with "Well, this is how I've done it since you were a kid......" bla bla bla. I don't mind it here and there, but when they get into full swing, I feel like I'm stuck in an episode of "Everybody loves Raymond" or some other show where the mother and son have that kind of relationship.  (Ok, she's not as bad as Marie......but still.)
So, if there are a ton of blogs between now and when I have the baby, at least you will know why.

Moving on...
Our plans for what is going to happen with our son have become fluid, to the point that they are changing almost daily. Having someone else here to help deal with him, who doesn't mind if they witness the birth or not is extremely helpful. I've already decided that I don't mind if he sees the baby be born. It's not going to be how it was at the hospital, with a birds eye view of my crotch under a bright light and the baby crowning. If I have the baby in the pool, it's just going to be me (hopefully) making what I've been telling him, my funny face and then lifting the baby out of the water when it is born. That I have no problem with him seeing. In fact I think it might be interesting to see how he retells it later. My dad filmed mine and my brothers births. I always told everyone I was born in a movie. So, I'm envisioning my son telling people that mommy pulled his little brother/sister out of a pool. Which is all he needs to know.
My husband and I have also talked about how we want to record the birth. I might feel differently about this later, but at the moment I was thinking snippets of moments here and there until I'm actually having the baby. Then I really want to have the camcorder propped up somewhere and just recording the whole thing. With my sons birth, there are snippets through the day, then there is me right before he is born when we were going to start pushing and afterward when he was born.  Not that I really wanted to see me in my bright lit glory having my son, but I would of liked to have had some recordings of what he looked like after he was born. When they took him over and were cleaning him up, etc. Things I didn't get to see because of where I was.
I do know that I want lots of pictures afterward, that way I have plenty to pick from. It's hard to think about this stuff when you are in the moment, but these are moments that don't stay for long and memory can be as kind as it is cruel.

Onto to my quote for the moment:
Everyone says I'm waddling real good, I just tell them "it's hard to walk with a head stuck in your crotch. "