They call it "estimated" for a reason

As my "Estimated Day of Delivery" is within striking distance, I'm finding patience extremely hard to come by. I am beginning to understand how some women agree to medical induction at 40 weeks and 1 day, especially those with older siblings. The physical demands of caring for two little ones tends to compound all pregnancy related discomfort, I've found. Plus all the false starts, hours of contractions that don't lead to active labor, are emotionally exhausting.

In fact, I was fairly confident that labor would begin last night, I even mentioned it to Maggie when putting her to bed. Every night she loves to hear what's going to happen tomorrow. So I told her what our plans were, and then clarified that if the baby came overnight, Grandma would be here in the morning. This started a barrage of questions, including Maggie asking when Daddy would pick her up and take her to the hospital to see me and meet the new baby. When I told her about the visitor restrictions that don't allow children, Maggie's eyes grew big and round and swelled with tears. She began sobbing and said, "But I wanted to come to the hospital like Rose!" Rose is a character in this beautiful book we read several weeks ago to prepare for baby. I hugged her tight and shared the disappointment that she couldn't come.

I called the hospital today to ask when they expected the visitor restrictions to be lifted since flu season is almost over. Their answer - March 15th. While I'd love Maggie to have the chance to experience the arrival of her newest sibling in the same manner Rose did, I don't think I can wait that long!