I feel much less silly now, thanks.

So, yom tov.

Yom tov was nice. I'm glad it's over, but it was nice. Except, you know, for the throwing up part.

(You could stop reading now, or just skip a few paragraphs.)

Tuesday night, after licht, both MHH and I started feeling a little sick. After midnight sometime, he said, "I think I'm going to throw up." I beat him to it, and we took turns being really really sick most of the night. Stomach virus, something we ate, who knows. I can't complain too much--this is, bli ayin hara, the first time I've thrown up this entire pregnancy. So what if it's in my ninth month?

Wednesday morning, MHH is feeling better. I'm not. My stomach really really hurts, and the cramps just won't go away. And of course I start thinking, hmm, that fetal fibronectin test that says I won't deliver in two weeks expires at, uh, noon, wasn't it? Could I be in labor? No, I don't think I'm in labor. What if I'm in labor? No, I really don't feel like I'm in labor. It's just stomach cramps. Yeah, but what if...?

By dinnertime, the thought occurred to me that if it hadn't been yom tov, I would have called the midwife at, oh, I don't know, 8 am. So I picked up the phone (with a shinui) and had the answering service page a midwife. She called, I picked up the phone and told her what was going on. "Go to the hospital and get them to put you on a monitor. I'll call and let them know you're coming." "Well, I can't leave right now, my husband's out and my son is asleep. And I really don't think I'm in labor." "I really don't think you should wait." Um. Okay.

I did wait till MHH got home, and then I called a cab (remember, this is yom tov, when you only do things like this in life-or-death situations, so I'm feeling pretty weird about this--I mean, it probably is just a bug, because my husband had it too, but my midwife told me to go the hospital without delay, and you're not supposed to mess around with asking shailas when you're pregnant, so I know I'm doing the right thing, but still, it's so WEIRD to be riding down the street in a cab on yom tov, and okay, this is a pretty long parenthetical musing so I'll stop now.)

I got to the hospital, and amused myself at the information desk by saying to the lady, "One guess what I'm looking for." She directed me to labor and delivery and off I went. (I left MHH at home with Barak--I told him that if they were going to keep me, I'd have them call the babysitter, and if she showed up, he'd know I was having a baby and could take it from there.)

They were very nice, and put me on the monitor, and sure enough, I was having contractions, but as I told them the minute I walked in, I wasn't in labor. Contractions probably from dehydration, the doctor told me. Lots of fluids, try to rest, come back when they're five minutes apart. By the next morning, they'd stopped completely, so there you go.

Okay. That's the background to the really good story here.

On Friday, I went to see my midwife. Let's call her, I don't know, Fran. I really like Fran. She is nice. She knows I've been to the hospital, although she wasn't the one I talked to when I called. So she takes a look, and says, ooh, you're dilated, and tells me how much. (At 36.5 weeks, this is okay.) I told her I had felt a little silly going to the hospital. She said no, it was very sensible. Want to hear how I had my first?

Age 20, she was living in Italy with her husband, a grad student. They were there for a year, and didn't have a phone in their apartment. She was pregnant and close to her due date when she picked up some kind of a stomach bug. Throwing up, diarrhea, the works. She had some really bad stomach cramps and got worried. Maybe I'm in labor? I don't think I'm in labor. But these really hurt. (Sound familiar?) So she sent her husband upstairs to the neighbors' to call the midwife. The midwife, as midwives are wont to do, told her husband to time the contractions for fifteen minutes and call back. Her husband came downstairs and told her this, and tossed the keys on the bed. (You know where this is heading, don't you.) She really felt like something was happening and sent him back up to call the midwife. And you guessed it, as soon as he was out of the apartment, she realized she needed to push. Out came the baby. So there she is, lying on the floor in all the blood, tipping the baby upside down to clear his mouth, when her husband comes back downstairs. He is, of course, locked out of the apartment. What does he hear? He hears a baby inside, crying. So of course, he pounds on the door for Fran to let him in, bringing the entire population of the apartment building running to their apartment, and Fran, dripping blood and holding the baby with the umbilical cord still hanging out of her, had to get up and open the door.

So, you know, I feel a lot better about going to the hospital on yom tov now.