Overdue

So I am officially overdue. Aside from one day when she wasn't so sure, my midwife always said she thought I'd see my due date. And sure enough, it came and went.

Not only did I not anticipate that I'd go into labor today, but I barely thought about it. Only a couple of times did Erik and I mention it to each other (mainly in the form of, "Happy Due Date!"). I did mention it to one stranger in a restaurant when her daughter commented that I was wearing a dress and had a big baby "in there". When her mom said her daughter's comments were sometimes embarrassing when she was wrong, I assured her that she was right this time and that the baby was "big" because it is due today. I should have known that would get a "WOW!" - didn't even cross my mind that it would shock her. Maybe it should shock me more...? Somehow I am calmer than what's usually expected...? Nervous about labor but not anxious about when...? I don't know. What can I say?

My plan for the 4th of July was to avoid the festive chaos that I usually adore in effort to not get stuck in a crowd or traffic should labor start. We slept in, had brunch, went to the store, saw friends, went out for dinner, had dessert and coffee afterwards. And as we were driving home to turn in and settle for the night, we saw some fireworks in the sky that prompted my man's suggestion, "Let's just drive around a little and find some to watch from the car." "Totally", I agreed. We stop home, pee and fill a big plastic cup with decaf iced tea. Instead of just finding "some fireworks", we drive toward downtown just to see if we can see them from the upper deck of the freeway. We can't, so we drive closer and closer to the big downtown display until suddenly we see them bursting between skyscrapers, and we quickly exit the freeway to find a side street on which to turn and hideout and watch them. Little did we know it was a vein straight to the fireworks with a completely-stopped line of traffic sitting directly under the colorful explosions. We excitedly rolled down our windows to hear the repeated boom, and happily sat in standstill traffic as we watched the fireworks closer than we had seen them in years. After sitting at the same light and watching it change probably 35 times, the grand finale happened, and we quickly flipped a bitch and headed back to the freeway with no problem at all. We laughed at having spent a day purposefully avoiding downtown and traffic just to end up in exactly that.

Though we went to bed hours ago now, I am still up with many contractions and an insanely active baby. Given that my two guesses have always been June 28 or July 5, I REALLY just want to sleep right now and be prepared for what may come. But no, Firecracker is apparently like its mother and loooooves to stay up late and looooves the 4th of July too much to go to sleep now. So here we are. July 5th.