Serenity when?

I’m relying more on folklore now as I try to speed along this labor. Eating pineapple, planning to go out with Rob for a spicy Thai dinner tonight (I’m willing to face the risk of it all coming right back up). Web sites like http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/inducing-labor/PR00117 are quick to say that techniques like eating pineapple and spicy foods or engaging in unmentionable bedroom acts aren’t backed by scientific research but are fine to try. And every time I start with contractions, I start pacing around the house in the dark, trying not to wake up every member of our already sleep-deprived household.

Meanwhile Will has managed to catch himself the worst cold he’s had in months. When he’s laying down and trying to breathe, he sounds like a snorting pig on his death bed and I want to just open his mouth and tell him don’t even bother trying to get air through that little blocked-up nose. The Zyrtec and Nasonex that he’s taking on doctor’s orders – oh I hate giving medicine – seem to help little. And so Rob carts our struggling-to-breathe, insomniac son back to bed about 50 times a night while I lie there sometimes wishing he could be with me instead rubbing my back through an occasional contraction. We are all so needy and exhausted now. It feels like we are being tested. And yet I’m managing to keep perspective most of the time – still excited for this baby to come join our crazy household and beginning to think that he’s wise enough to be waiting for us to finally get our act together. Hey, solve some of this chaos, and maybe I’ll come meet you, he must be thinking. So I’m trying to keep him in my forethoughts and repeating my own versions of the Seinfeld mantra “Serenity now, serenity now.”