I'd planned to take 2 weeks off before giving birth to my first child.  I had some things left to do to get ready and this time would be perfect.  Some colleagues and I went out for lunch on Thursday - to a place where they have a favorite mango chicken dish that I was so looking forward to eating.  Later that afternoon I didn't feel well.  Figured the lunch wasn't sitting right with me and kept on with the day.  That evening my husband and I went to order rugs for our sunroom and the baby's room.  As we placed the order, I still felt like lunch was not agreeing with me.  This was odd all these hours later, but I am not a stranger to an upset stomach, so I pressed on. 

 

The most unusual point in retrospect was that when we got home, I skipped dinner and went to lie down.  I had my husband take a photo of me standing sideways, feeling like the belly had taken on a pretty substantial profile, and needed noting. But then went to bed.  In retrospect, it all makes sense, but at the time, who knew?  It was our first.  We'd never been through this before now, and boy was I tired.

 

Then I proceeded to wake up every few hours and then probably a couple hours at a time to go to the bathroom.  It seemed somewhat reasonable - this baby had been waking me up for months now.  But this time I really didn't have to do anything and would go back to bed.  As the night progressed closer to morning, I started to think something may be up, but didn't want to head to the hospital in the middle of the night, so kept taking 2-3 hour "naps".

In the morning I called the doctor - the pain had been worse than anything before - aching pain. When there, she checked me out and said "meet you at the hospital, you're having a baby." So off we went, not knowing what to expect, or carrying anything like a bag. We didn't even have a camera. And at the rate I was progressing, we were lucky my hubby had time to get to the gift shop to purchase a disposable camera.