No news from the front

[ailbhe]

I haven't stopped having contractions, and I haven't started having the serious, active contractions. And I have a horrible headcold - my sinuses are pretty badly congested and it feels like it's starting to spread to my chest. The due date is Wednesday or Thursday, depending on whether we acknowledge the leap year or not.

I missed the most important wedding of the decade for this. It better be worth it.

I'm drinking lots of fluids, and because it's finally Monday, I've made an appointment to see a GP to find out if there's anything I can do to nuke this cold. I've been taking paracetemol to help me sleep, as otherwise the pain of breathing through my mouth wakes me. I've been hanging over basins of steam and sleeping on a tissue covered in tiger balm. My ears are ringing and it's hard to breathe through the contractions.

The contractions, by the way, are really weird - it's painless involuntary muscle movement, and quite strong. It's tiring, unavoidable, and makes me think of those machines for toning your abs while you sleep.

Pregnancy, by the way, is a lot like making popcorn. You put the corn in the pan, and the oil, and wait for it to get hot. You watch. You watch and watch and watch. You wait for the first pop. The first pop comes. You bound around the kitchen, squealing in glee, thinking "Soon I will eat mounds of yummy buttered popcorn! With salt, and maybe a glass of milk... Yum yum yum! Wahey!"

Then you wait for the second pop, and eventually it comes. Then two or three more.

Then there's a long, boring period when it pops ... once ... every ... so ... often, so you can't leave it alone and go to the bathroom, you have to keep watching, in case something happens, but it's boring, and there's no sign of enough popcorn being popped to dump it in a bowl and start cramming it into your mouth, and you're tired of the whole idea of popcorn, and you need to go to the bathroom, and you want to do something else.

This slow popping goes on, and on, and on.

Then suddenly there's a massive flurry of popping, when you've decided to give up and eat toast instead, and it pops and pops and pops and pops and pops and pops and the lid comes off and it spills all over the kitchen and pops and pops and pops.

If only it were more like a microwave dinner, where you can time it to the second and it goes PING when it's ready.