We took last week off, partially to wait for the baby and partially because there was snow and ice and school was canceled. It was an excellent week, though the wife had to adjust since she thought she would get some quiet alone time, and instead she got a full house every day except Monday. As the week progressed, though, I know she started to feel guilty that she was already burning through her maternity time and that the baby obviously had a different time table. Now here we are, starting to burn through a second week of leave, and I’m heading back to work while we wait, since I only have, at best, two weeks off for when the baby gets here. I could rant and rave about how nice it would be to get paid maternity and paternity time, about how I feel like our country doesn’t really support people who want to have babies, even those responsible families who support themselves … but I won’t rant, and I won’t rave. But it would be nice.
Yesterday we had a nice quiet day to ourselves. The rain cleared and I took Georgie to the park. We haven’t been in awhile, since we’ve been going for walks through the woods instead. The park is nice because it’s much more of an endurance contest for the dog, and when we get home he’s thoroughly worn out. It also helps wear down his nails, since we spend a good ten minutes, at least, throwing the ball around in the basketball court and he gets to run around on pavement. At home, on a friend’s advice, we had some wine, and kissed a lot. We played cribbage while we waited, and listened to some of the birth music we’d picked out, and tried our best to be patient. From about 6:30 on that evening there were some pretty good contractions, but they eased and we went to sleep.
For my part, I’ve stopped asking the wife if “anything exciting is happening”, because it just annoys her and makes her feel pressured. If I ask her how she’s doing, I try to do it in an upbeat and encouraging tone that implies that I simply care about her well-being and want her to be comfortable. Which I think annoys her slightly less. I told her last night that, at this point, I would stop asking, since the baby obviously wasn’t getting the hint, and just wait for her to tell me if anything changed. Obviously baby has its own timeline, and even though I suspect that it might be a bit lazy, baby’s calling the shots right now and won’t be rushed.
Anyway, the wine and kissing wasn’t all that bad, effective or not, so maybe we’ll try that again tonight.