Refresh... Refresh... Still Pregnant.
Mentally fully dilated, physically awaiting dispatch.
Today is the exact gestation I was when I went into labour with my first baby. Which means, naturally, I have spent the day behaving like a woman on permanent amber alert.
Every twinge? Googled.
Every cramp? Potentially significant.
Every trip to the toilet? A forensic event.
Second pregnancies make you think you have insider knowledge because you convince yourself you possess data. You are no longer entering labour blindly. This aint your first rodeo. You have a precedent. A pattern. Expectations.
My son Alfie arrived at 38+4, therefore, in my mind, this baby should also be arriving at 38+4. Anything beyond that now feels frankly quite rude.
The problem is that once you’ve had one “early-ish” baby, you stop emotionally preparing for the later weeks. You spend your entire third trimester saying things like:
“Oh I probably won’t make it to 40 weeks.”
Fast forward to 38 weeks, you’ve started your maternity leave, washed every babygrow and your uterus having no updates starts to feel a bit passive aggressive.
You wake up furious to still be pregnant.
Friends text “ANY NEWS????”.
Your partner starts looking nervous every time you bounce on a yoga ball.
Meanwhile the baby is inside, utterly unbothered, doing hiccups directly into your cervix.
What nobody tells you is how emotionally confusing it is when your body feels like it’s gearing up.
The ominous twinges.
The pressure.
The exhaustion.
The lightning crotch.
The “this absolutely must be something” feeling.
And then…
nothing.
You go to bed convinced labour is imminent and wake up 100% still pregnant, eating toast in yesterday’s leggings while your toddler demands you crawl through a play tunnel.
There is also something uniquely cruel about having had a relatively early first labour because people reinforce the expectation constantly.
“Oh your second will definitely be earlier.”
“Second babies fly out.”
Of course logically I know none of this means anything. Second babies can come earlier, later, faster, slower. Bodies are not machines. Labour is not a subscription service renewing on the same date each year.
But emotionally? Emotionally I packed my hospital bag three weeks ago and now glare at it daily like we’ve both been stood up.
There’s also a strange grief in passing the milestone where your first labour began. It’s hard not to think: Oh. Last time I was already meeting my baby by now.
Especially when you’ve spent months imagining the same timeline.
Instead, life carries on in this weird suspended state where every plan feels temporary. You don’t know whether to make plans with friends or hunker down. You analyse mucus like a detective. You become deeply invested in whether the change in nipple colour means something. You begin to suspect your baby and uterus are actively collaborating against you.
And underneath all the impatience is the simplest thing:
You just desperately want to meet them.
You want to finally see the little person who has spent months feng shui’ing your organs and karate kicking your ribs at midnight.
So yes, today I am impatient.
I am over-analysing everything.
I am simultaneously exhausted and too alert to relax.
If history repeats itself in the next 24 hours, wonderful.
But if not, I suppose I’ll wake up tomorrow still pregnant, still waiting and still feeling strangely betrayed by a timeline that only ever existed in my own head.