I’m not quite sure where to begin but one thing I know is that this will be long. I want to remember as many details as I can even though it’s already getting fuzzy.
On Thursday I hit 41 weeks, a milestone I had never hit *without* already being in labor. With Mason I woke up exactly 41 weeks pregnant and my water had broke, a small leak, but still, it was clear, I was going to have a baby soon. With Emilia, I woke up with very consistent contractions after losing my mucus plug the very day before.

*Side Note* I remember looking at this picture and thinking I looked different. That I looked like I was ready to go, especially in comparison to my previous pictures. I just didn’t look as vibrant. I looked hot, sweaty, swollen and ready to go.
I guess I should start with the letter. The day I hit 41 weeks and I wasn’t in labor I decided it was time for me to write this baby a letter. I was starting to think that the reason I wasn’t in labor was not because baby wasn’t ready, but because I wasn’t ready.
I spent a good portion of this pregnancy thinking I was having a girl, switching to boy and then towards the end girl again, and I knew that Mason would be disappointed and I feared finally knowing. So I held on.
My letter explained to baby, and perhaps myself, that no matter what we loved this baby and this was who was meant to be in our family.
The next morning I woke up–still not in labor! As B walked out the door to go to work, I told him I was going to write another letter. How could I not be in labor yet?! I wrote the letter dang it, I let all my emotions out. WHY wasn’t I in labor yet?
While I wasn’t in full blown labor, I was noting some stronger than usual Braxton Hicks and they were coming fairly often. Often enough that I started to time them. Some were mild, some were hardly anything and some felt strong. I did say anything to anyone though, because I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.

They were fairly consistent for a while but nothing that stopped me from carrying on with my day. So my morning looked like this: I got the big kids ready for school, I dropped them off, I got Emilia ready and dropped her off at preschool. Shortly after a good friend messaged me offering to take Emilia so I could go get a pedicure. I took her up on it. The closer I got to picking up Emilia from preschool the further apart they got. After picking Emilia up from preschool I brought her to my friend’s house and got a pedicure. It was nice to just sit and relax, but any contractions I thought I was having had completely stopped at that point.
I headed back to my friend’s house around 2:30 we chatted a little about the letter I wrote to the baby and how I thought I was the one holding things up. We also talked about how maybe I just needed the kids to be out of school in order to get things going.
It wasn’t long before I was going to pick them up. At some point shortly before I left I had a stronger than usual contraction but I chalked it up to needing to go to the bathroom so I did. It was then that I noticed a little brown spotting, so little I questioned if it was anything at all. But as someone who had been obessively checking for any sign of labor, I knew it had to be something.
I gave my friend the update (we’re close like that) and told her “I’m having a baby this weekend”.
And then I was out the door and to the pick up line. Before picking up the kids I gave B a call to give him an update. I told him he didn’t need to rush home, but we were probably having a baby within the next 24 hours. I broke the news to the kids that we’d probably be missing skate night because I was pretty sure I was in early labor. They were so excited, but made me promise we’d go to Funky’s another night.
Once home it was clear that the Braxton Hicks I was having were less Braxton Hicks and more contractions. Around 8:10pm I went to the bathroom and started to lose chunks of my mucus plug. I came out of the bathroom and told B that “yup, this is most likely early labor as I’m losing my mucus plug” and he looked at me like “DUH”.
I decided at that point to let my mom and sisters know what was going on. I also decided it was time to lay down and get some rest inbetween contractions. At first I tried to lay down with the kids watchind Disney+ but they quickly made it certain I couldn’t do that because they were fighting over me. So intead I went upstairs and laid in bed. I was in and out of sleep.
At some point all three kids climbed into bed with me, B kept trying to get them to go into their own bed but honestly, I wanted them with me. I knew that this would be the last time that me and my three babies coslept. I knew that by the next night we’d have grown by one.

I only wish I had, had B grab a picture so you could see all four of us in the bed instead of just a blurry bump, Mason and Kyla!
To be continued…When things start to pick up!
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