Toads-in-the-Hole

It’s Sunday. The final day of our Spring Break holiday from the classroom. And our day has been fraught with turmoil.

Last night, I began having friendly, regular contractions at about one o’ clock. The painless tightening and pulling continued until five o’ clock, when the alarm was scheduled to buzz awaking me for my second-to-last twelve hour shift at the hospital where I’m completing a one hundred-hour clinical internship this semester. Instead of jumping in the shower and bolting a bowl of Cheerios, I rousted Joel from his slumber and asked him to accompany me for a morning round-the-block stroll, to see if my contractions might improve with activity. On our early morning walk, my contractions increased from one every twenty minutes to one every ten minutes. Promising! So, I called in “crampy” to my clinical instructor, explaining the situation (somehow I knew I’d love working one-on-one with a labor and delivery nurse). After a piece of cinnamon toast, Joel and I decided to hop back in bed and catch some rest with the rationale that if today is truly the birthday ER’s choosing, we’d need a bit more sleep to cope with the roller coasters ahead.

But with rest came the relaxation of my uterus.

My contractions have slowed to a snail’s pace (one every hour or so) and my mood has plummeted. Having vague signs and symptoms of impending labor is frustrating and depressing.

To console ourselves, we ventured downtown in the sleeting March lion-ish weather to our local video store to take advantage of the Five for Five deal: any combination of five films or games for five days for five dollars. We’ve determined that distraction will be our best friend during these lingering, crampy final days. We are set up with a couple of Playstation games (The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), a couple of new televisions series (Lost and Band of Brothers), and one good old fashioned fun flick that we’ve been charmed by before (A Knight’s Tale). And, of course, all the pathophysiology and pharmacology reading that we can stomach.