When we left the flat this morning, I had a distinct moment of thinking 'next time we're here, it'll be a family home.' Which proves the danger of sentimental thinking - it is one already, apart from anything else. And here the three of us are, back again, the youngest still tucked inside like a Russian doll.
"My water broke," my wife told the midwife. She got a sceptical look in return.
"I need to look and see," the midwife said. "Then we can confirm you're in labour."
My wife did some private muttering shortly after, to the tune of 'if you're going to tell me my water hasn't broken and these aren't labour pains, I'm going to drive you through the nearest wall with the power of my naked hands.' Words to that effect, at least.
All was well, though. So this is officially the first stage of labour, latensfasen i Svensk, rather than my pre-emptive call this morning. She had a lot of light cramps last night, along with a strange scrabbling sensation from the baby, rather as if it were trying to tunnel out like a dog. This morning, as the scrabbling turned into more recognisable crampy pains, she had a strange look in her eye. A look that said 'is this it? is this all they've been complaining about? Hah! Wusses, all of them.'
No such luck, obviously. They were longer and even crampier by the time we left the hospital, but both the midwives we saw had nodded sagely and told her to expect them to get worse. "You can come back when they're more painful," one of them said. She paused significantly. "A lot more painful."
So we're back home for now, with a checklist of symptoms (both normal and emergency) that would count as a Get Into The Delivery Room Free card. At some point in the next couple of days, we will have a baby. The instruction is to sleep as much as possible. Because we won't for the next few years.
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