Well, is it or isn't it?

So, it's 5 am, and apart from one almost-clear hour, I've had painless contractions regularly since 8 pm yesterday. That's 9 hours. By regularly, I mean every 20 minutes, with a couple of 10 minutes, a couple of 25 minutes, and a few 15 minute intervals. So I suppose I mean often more than regularly. All this and you want coherence too?

It's appallingly lousy timing, because whether or not this is early labour, we have a very dear friend - family, really, though not blood-related - arriving from a transatlantic flight at about 11 am today and I can't cope with the idea of another person in the house. There's me, Rob, and my mother, and that's quite enough. I especially can't cope with the idea of a female who hasn't had children in the house; I think I'm afraid of advice, since I've already had a gutful of that from people with lottle or no personal experience of living in my body, and no professional qualifications. This is unfair, because the arriving guest isn't stupid enough to give advice on a topic she knows nothing about, but I'm putting it down to hormonal paranoia.

At 2:30 am Rob called the friend's mobile and left voicemail asking her to please call before leaving the airport in case we need to make alternative arrangements, so hopefully she'll do that. I really hope she can accept the irrationality of my current state of mind; I don't want to offend her, and I still can't handle the idea of another person in the house. I also called the hospital then and told them the pattern od the contractions and they said it sounded very like early early labour, and that I wasn't a paranoid hypochondriac freak, and that I should try to doze between contractions if possible. Well, that hasn't been possible, but I'm no longer crying from the stress of it all, which I was when I called them.

I got Rob to give me his laptop and go to sleep; at least one of us ought to be partially functional, I think, or try to be. I will wake him at about 8:30 and ask him to call someone who might be able to accommodate our friend for a day or two while I work out if this baby is or isn't coming; I know I'll feel a lot better if she has an alternative place to stay, because no way can I just close my door to her - not possible. Need to sort out alternatives.

Waffle waffle. Here comes another contraction. The weird thing is, these don't hurt - but nor did fracturing 5 bones in my arms, at first. I can't trust my pain-sense to tell me when I'm in pain unless something else does too. I almost always feel pain when I see an actual wound in me, for example.

Am I making any sense? It's 5:15 am and my stomach is all sick and queasy and I haven't had any sleep and I think I'm having a baby, in a laid-back slow-movin' never-gonna-happen kind of way.

Gosh, suddenly I love my baby a whole lot more than I did a minute ago. Wow. Maybe it will be born, after all? I was beginning to think I'd just stay pregnant forever.

I think I should shut up and post this. I bet I regret it after a sleep and desperately want to delete it. I can't tell whether it reads like a drunk post or a loopy one.

No change, no pain, no gain

I'm about to retire for the night. I have continued to have painless contractions at 15-20 minute intervals. This could go on a while. It's possible that I'll go into labour proper in the night, or that it all stops for a further two weeks. I've had another hour's sleep - that's 3 since yesterday morning at 8-ish - and I've eaten properly today. My guest arrived, didn't hate me for sending her elsewhere, and left. Rob andI aren't going to an important wedding tomorrow unless I wake totally contraction-free, in which case he might go. I can't risk travelling that far from the hospital any more.

If anything truly exciting happens, beyond hormonal hysteria and frustration, I'll let you know. Promise. Meanwhile, please assume that I can continue to have painless, regular contractions every 15 minutes until the heat-death of the universe. It seems quite plausible to me.

And talking of heat-death, today was gorgeous weather. Rob mowed the lawn in the evening.