You Never Know...

This time last year...

Matthew and I were sitting in our den, after a home-cooked Mexican dinner, watching something action-packed on television, and he was giving me a great foot massage.  I was pregnant and big as all outdoors. Baby (as we called our Gender Unknown Little One) was due August 2nd and, being the confident, well-informed parents-to-be we were, we were both convinced this kid was not showing up before next week, at the earliest. We planned a natural birth, no medical induction, and by leaving our baby's birthday undecided (some said to chance, we said to God), being overdue was normal. Even expected. And I knew, with my new mama instinct, I was having an August baby...

Just that day, I made an appointment for us to meet our new pediatrician the following Friday. It was the first opportunity the doctor had to sit down with us and, as I pointed out to the receptionist, Baby wasn't due until that Saturday, we should be fine to come in on the first. "If Baby comes early, just bring him with you!" She quipped back and we both had a good chuckle...

All the little things we did, all those funny old wives' tales you hear about how to trigger labor, none of which we considered as we cooked our spicy dinner or Matthew rubbed my feet and ankles...

I didn't think about it on the great long walk I took earlier that day. Nor did I think much about the cleaning frenzy that struck me that afternoon. My good friend Emily stopped by, with her eight-week-old, and suggested all this cleaning of mine might be nesting instincts. "Come over tomorrow to knit," she suggested, "unless you're having a baby!" Oh, how we laughed and laughed over that one...

I think I went to bed around midnight or so, leaving Matthew downstairs working on his first-time parent plan. He wanted to prep for Baby and the Sleepless Nights we were told to expect, so each night he stayed up a little later to prepare himself for functioning with less sleep. Thank goodness he had Playstation 3's NCAA College Football '09 to help him along in this endeavor...

I remember getting in bed, reading a little, writing in my journal and watching a re-run of Sex and the City on TV when I couldn't sleep. Around twelve-thirty or quarter of one, I flipped off the light...

And to use that age-old writer's turn of phrase, little did I know...