How Do You Really Know When It's Time?

The Internet offers many articles on what to expect in weeks 38 and 39.  The baby may drop. But that's usually only in first pregnancies, they say. What about second pregnancies and beyond? Doesn't the baby drop? My baby feels like it has dropped down to my knees, based on the lower back pains that are keeping me sleepless the last few nights. Yet, we all may agree that books and magazines and articles alike all tell us not to go to the hospital too soon. When is too soon? What is the point between being too presumptuous and being careless? Those taxi and elevator births sort of skew things a little bit, don't you think?  We don't want to bother our doctors in the middle of the night, but we don't want to ask our partners to become home birthing doctors either. Why don't we just camp outside our chosen hospital in the 39th week? That way, if it's a false alarm, we can just go back to our tents or cars. If it's not, then we can simply walk in the door. Whether a baby is already coming out of us or not, at least the professionals can finish the job, not the taxi driver or a panicked partner. Back to my earlier question, why do babies not drop as quickly as first babies? That means the first-time mother gets more of a warning. Hey, that's not fair. Regardless of how many babies one already has, it is still scary stuff to not know when the human being inside of you wants out. I want to know. How do I plan for anything, then? Even getting the mail seems like a hazardous errand if I'm supposedly not in the know.  It seems like the very most important detail that is being left out from us mothers is the detail we should be most in tune with. When is the baby coming out? It's just another example of a slap in our face on top of being punished with 9 months of pregnancy followed by painful childbirth for eating that apple. Here's the thing. You get to the hospital too early and you sit around for days, wasting everyone's time. You don't get there fast enough, and you're lectured by your doctor and made to feel like you're the worst mother in the world.  It's as if we are more concerned about what other people think than about living through the whole experience of labor on our own terms.  Even in the final moments of 9-month pregnancy, we are self-conscious.  Bogus.  Let's stop that.  I shouldn't care a less if my doctor is inconvenienced by me.  That's his job. Or is it? He gave me the speech on what he pays for medical malpractice insurance each year. Last check-up, he was on the phone telling his patient to not worry, to go home. She was obviously at the hospital too early in his opinion.  I could hear her pleading with him to come over, but he won the argument and tended to me and the rest of his patients in his office instead.  I detected annoyance in his voice.  Oh gosh, we clearly haven't gotten a hold of our own destinies. Still.  Yet, however appealing birthing at home with total control sounds, I'm still one who's wired to rely on technology.  So I'll wait until my doctor's green light tells me it's o.k. to proceed, suppressing my own annoyance or not. I'll follow those articles and believe my baby has not dropped.  At least, if all else fails, I live one block from the county hospital.