I woke up this morning feeling a little disappointed in myself. As if I have anything to do with when I go into labor. But still I feel like I’ve failed.

I decided to just take things easy this morning and didn’t get to work until almost 10:00. That was nice. But not as nice as not coming in at all would have been.

When I got to work I had this e-mail from The King in my inbox:

The King: Please have the baby today. Just go ahead and do it. Or at least go into labor so we can know that things are moving along.

I told him I’d see what I can do.

I’m going to the Market at lunch to buy some raspberry leaf tea. Does anyone have any experience with that actually inducing labor?

• Phone calls from everybody and their dog asking if you’ve had the baby yet. And when you screen your calls and don’t call them right back, they think you have had the baby. And they keep calling. So you might as well just pick up the phone by saying, “no baby yet! Quit calling!”
• Seriously Mom, I’ll call you when I go into labor. You will not be forgotten. So quit calling.
• The doctor should be forbidden from telling you, “oh, you’re going to have your baby THIS WEEKEND!” Because really, what does she know?
• People should be smarter than to assume that just because today is your actual due date, it does not mean that you will have the baby on that date. In fact something like only 3% of women have their baby on their due date. Which means I won’t be having this baby today.
• I shouldn’t have finished all of my tasks at work last Friday thinking that I wouldn’t be back today. Because now? I’ve got to come up with some tasks to make me look busy. And maybe for the rest of the week. Which is pretty much impossible.

Any other suggestions of things that I should not have to put up with today?

It’s Saturday morning. You know what that means? It means today is the day that we should be taking my Mom’s advice on how to start labor.

But since The King fell asleep on the couch last night, the only snuggling that happened was between Preston (the cat) and I. And it was lovely. But probably won’t start labor.

The phone rang this morning and The King was sure it was going to be my Mom. This is how he said that conversation would go:

The King: Why are you calling us? We’re busy. I’ve got Isabel hanging from the ceiling with some sort of contraption to help with the hard-core sex and the inducing of labor.

My Mom: Oh, how’s she feeling? Any contractions yet?

The King: I can’t really talk right now. I need both of my hands free. Oh, and I’ve got something in my mouth. We’ll call you if this works. Thanks for the suggestions.

Thank goodness it wasn’t her on the phone.

Remember how we had planned to demo our house next week? But then we ended up doing it yesterday? Fun stuff. (And you know that by “we“, I mean we paid someone to do it, right?)

The King went over last night to see if the house was down. And it was. Apparently it took one hour to tear it down. Which is sort of sad since I’m sure that someone, a long time ago, spent a very long time building the house. Just to have it end up looking like this:

Isn’t it lovely? Today is the clean-up day.

The only stuff that was left in the house before demo was just junk. We were able to save a lot of the old doors and molding (which we hope to use in the new house). As well as donate the old fixtures to a home recycling foundation. We are also donating the concrete from the foundation of the house to a group that reuses it for retaining walls. The new house will be a “built green” house. Which means we are only thinking of the environment. (And thinking of the resale value!) We’re going for a four star rating.

And now, belly updates. Because, that’s really the only thing on my mind.

Yesterday’s doctor’s appointment went well. I am progressing just fine. Which is good. As the doctor left the examination room I heard her say (under her breath), “you’re having this baby this weekend.”

I may hold her to it.

She also told me that if I don’t have the baby by Monday (my due date) I need to call and schedule an induction for Easter Sunday (the 16th). So either way, I’ll have a baby by Easter. Can you even believe that? Because, I can’t.

After the appointment I treated myself to a manicure and pedicure. Which was Heaven. Please explain to me why we ladies don’t do that more often? Or at least why I don’t do that more often?

My toes are pretty. My fingers are gorgeous (this is of course, not counting the fact that they are all horribly swollen). I’m ready for this baby.

So ready that I’ve run out of clothes that fit. I was forced to wear something that wasn’t all black today. Not only is it not all black. I’m wearing white. Which really, never happens. (Although I’m super thankful to Marci for the hand-me-downs.)

But I’m also wearing (black) flip-flops. To work. At my office. Where we have a dress code. Which doesn’t include flip-flops.

And I don’t even care.

In fact, I’m happy about it.

So there.

The King’s Dad called us last night in a frantic. Apparently the contractor we had found to demo the house next week had a change of plans and if we wanted him to tear it down at all, it had to be today.

Which meant The King had to leave the apartment to run over to the house and get everything ready last night. Something he wasn’t ready to do. All of his tools were over at his parents house. He didn’t even have a hammer. I just kept thinking that maybe this was a blessing. Better to get it torn down today then next week when I might be in labor. Or something. (as if this baby is ever going to come out of me!)

So the house comes down today. The King will have to sneak over there during the day to see how things are going. Can you believe it only takes a day to tear down a house that probably took months and months to build? It’s amazing.

As if on cue, my Mom called as soon as The King left last night (she always seems to avoid him, which is odd). She wanted to know how I was feeling and to tell me that a women at the hospital she works at (yes, my Mom is a nurse in a hospital nursery) had a baby today and her due date was April 13th, which is 3 days after mine. Thanks Mom, just rub it in a little.

This is when the phone conversation got really odd. And by odd, I mean, so odd that I can’t stop thinking about it.

Mom: I talked to the head OB nurse at work today about you. She told me to tell you what you need to do to start your labor.

Isabel: We’ve read it all Mom. It’s in all of our books. And they told us all about it at our Childbirth class. Don’t worry. We know.

(Side note: don’t all pregnant women get sick of people telling them to have sex? We get it. Don’t worry. And mostly, our bellies are too big to have sex. But thanks for bringing that up!)

Mom: She said to wake up on Saturday morning and have sex.

Isabel: (totally uncomfortable already) Right Mom. We know.

Mom: But she said not just any sex. Hard-core sex. You need to start necking and petting. And make sure there is some intense nipple stimulation.

(Oh the horror of the words she was using: necking, petting, hard-core. Words I had hoped my Mom didn’t even know. Make it stop. Make it stop!)

Isabel: Mom, I KNOW. I don’t need you to tell me!

Mom: This needs to go on for a while. And don’t wait until Saturday night. Because then you’ll be too tired for anything hard-core. And too tired for labor.

Isabel: Okay, Mom SHUT UP! I don’t want to talk to anyone about this. Especially NOT YOU.

Mom: (sounding surprised and hopefully a little embarrassed) Oh? Okay. So call me after your appointment tomorrow. Okay?

Isabel: (my voice shaking a little) Okay, bye.

This is when I go and take a shower. I must cleanse myself.

I haven’t mentioned anything about it in a while. But there’s news. I figured I’d post about it today.

I’m pregnant.

(Oh, I’m so funny. I slay me.)

No, really. That’s not what I wanted to talk about.

Let me get you caught up, The King and I recently sold our house. The house we built. From scratch. (I know I always remind you that we actually built it. But seriously, we built it. It took up the major part of the last few years of our lives!)

This is why we live in the tiny one bedroom apartment. The apartment is temporary. Until we build the next house.

“The next house?”, you ask. “You want to do this again?” It’s not so much that I want to do it. But history has proven that we can do it. And make some bank in the process.

Almost 18 months ago, The King and I bought a second home. It’s a really crappy house in a really nice neighborhood. It wasn’t cheap. This means we’ve been paying the mortgage on this house for over a year. Along with the mortgage on the house we were living in. And now along with our rent. (And you wonder why I’ll be going back to work 8 weeks after the baby comes!)

The original plan was to remodel the house. “Gut it” is more like it. The King and his Dad started on the plans. They soon figured out that the house was in worse shape then we originally thought. That’s when the plan became to tear it down, expect for one wall and the foundation. Again, plans were worked on.

That’s when we decided to tear the motha’ down. All of it. Even the foundation. And just start from scratch. Oh fun. Let’s build another house. Just because. (Can you sense the sarcasm?)

The King drew up the plans (it looks great, don’t you think?). We submitted them to the City for approval. This was like a year ago. Two week ago, we finally got our permits. We could actually start building. But first we have to tear the existing house down.

Over the last few weeks, the King and his Dad have been trying to find a contractor to demo the existing house, remove all of the debris, and build the new foundation. (Keep in mind, we did all of this work on the house we just sold. So we know that we don’t want to do our own foundation this time. No way, Jose!) We think we’ve found a contractor to do all of this. One that won’t charge us more than the sixty bazillion dollars we’ve budgeted for it. Hooray.

So just guess when the demo will take place?

Next week.

Yes, the week our baby is due.

That shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, lots of people start building their own house the same week their newborn baby comes home from the hospital. Right, like maybe Charles Ingalls.