Ah, Sweet Labor

Sorry for the lack of posts.

No, there is not yet any baby. We're feeling pretty good about today. Maybe tomorrow. But it's pretty hard to imagine it going on much longer.

Not because Shannon is so big, although she is, or because it's gone on so long, although it has. Shannon's been feeling a pretty steady rhythm of contractions since 4:30am Sunday. We went in for a regular appointment Monday morning and it went on for several hours as they checked her cervix (three times! yee-ha!) and checked the fetal heart rate. For a while, it looked like they might just keep us there to have the baby.

Evidently they decided we had some more time. But Shannon and I spent last night up watching TV, with pretty kick-ass contractions happening 5 to 9 minutes apart. We tried to sleep from about 4:00am on, with contractions waking us up every 10 minutes or so and me getting out of bed to help Shannon to the bathroom at about the same rate.

By the way, did you know that NBC lets Carson Daly host a really late, late show after Conan O'Brien? I had no idea. Such are the joys of labor: you get to watch Carson Daly try to do stand up. Once that was over, we watched an infomercial for Turbo Jam before realizing that we still had one Netflix DVD left: a dark, brooding Russian film about two opposing soldiers recuperating in Lapland during World War II. Believe it or not, it was actually a great thing two watch at 3 in the morning.

So Shannon and I are still hanging out and watching daytime television. But the contractions are coming more frequently, and are of longer duration -- 60-70 seconds now, as opposed to 25-35 seconds Monday morning. So I think we're on.

Unless we're not.