Wait, wait, wait. Where is #4? you may be asking. Remember, I tricked you and called it “The first time” instead. Duh.
Before I get started, though, how are all you mamas-to-be holding up in this heat wave? Especially those of you so near the end? I hope you’re staying cool and as un-swollen as possible. Is that even a word? Eh, it is now. I totally lucked out last summer – it didn’t really get super hot until right when D was born, so I was able to hole up in air conditioning permanently with good excuse. The heat and the lake did make an exquisite combination this morning, though. As I was driving over a bridge, it must have been the cool air coming in off the lake that made almost an envelope of fog over the end of the bridge. Kind of like you were driving straight into a huge cotton ball. Very cool.
So anyway, this one can be summed up in 2 words: Mucous. Plug. Yep, you read that correctly. Mucous plug. Holy hell, SM, you get more disgusting by the minute. Whaaaat? It’s not my fault. Blame nature. Or evolution. Or something. It’s just one of those things, those nasty beautiful things the female body does while pregnant. I warned you from the get-go that this little series of posts was not for the faint of heart. So quit your bitchin’ and follow along here. Seat belts fastened? Good.
First off, what is it? Basically it’s just a big wad of snot that builds up in your cervix while pregnant to make sure everything that’s supposed to stays inside and everything that’s not supposed to stays out. Very scientific explanation, yes, but you get the gist. So by the end of a pregnancy as the cervix starts to shorten and thin to prepare for delivery, the mucous plug is no longer held as tightly in place, and eventually SLURP! Out it comes.
Ok, now here’s the thing. I had read about the mucous plug while I was pregnant, and knew full well that I might meet it toward the end of my pregnancy. Even armed with that knowledge, however, it still scared the living shit out of me when we finally did come face-to-face. Because I was soooo not ready for such an early sign of labor when it came out, 16 days before my due date. 16 days?!!? No, not fair, not fair. We desperately needed those 16 days sans baby to keep working on our house. For we were in the throes of a full kitchen remodel when D was born. And I just kept praying to that little baby (we didn’t know she was a “she” until she came out) inside me to just stay in there, just stay in there, pleeease just stay in there until your due date. Mommy and Daddy need to get more shit done! Actually, I secretly made a deal with it (yes, i called her an it before she was born because constantly typing or saying him/her and he/she is really annoying) – just stay in there until August and we’ll call it a deal. I guess she heard me, for sure enough, August 1 rolled around and out she popped (which ended up being 8 days after the mucous plug did). I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain very well though – we still didn’t have any counter tops in the kitchen at that point.
I think one of the reasons I freaked out when I saw my mucous plug on the outside of my body, was that you really have no idea how quickly things will progress once it happens. Once I saw that huge glob of snot in my underwear (and yes, that is exactly what it looked like. huge and snotty) I immediately looked it up online to see what happens next, right after I started breathing again when the panic attack subsided. And that was no help whatsoever – everywhere said it could signal labor in the next 12 hours, or it could signal labor in the next 2 weeks. Well what the hell am I supposed to do with that? Go to the hospital and tell them hi, my mucous plug just fell out so I need to sit here and wait for oh, maybe 2 weeks? Yeah, didn’t think so. We did have a family picnic to attend up in Sheboygan that afternoon, though, so I told R we might want to think about skipping it and sticking close to home just in case, since I’d just had my very first labor sign. We kind of gave each other the “holy shit, we’re having a baby” face, but decided to go to the picnic anyway. I was having no other signs of labor, no contractions of any sort, so we figured it’d be fine to go. Turns out that may have been the one time in our lives when we were right about something.
So yeah, the mucous plug. You might see it when it falls out, or you might miss it if it just heads straight for the toilet water when you’re doing your duty. If you do catch a glimpse of it when it comes out, though, you know you’re approaching go-time. Unfortunately you just don’t really know exactly how much longer you’ll have to wait. At least you’ll know that you’d better get that bag ready, and you’ll probably perfect your “holy shit, we’re having a baby” face.