Monday, April 30, 2007

STRESS REHEARSAL

When Michelle said her contraction was done I looked at the stopwatch and saw that it had lasted about a minute long. When she said a new one had started, that put the contractions at about four minutes apart. According to our prenatal classes, the timing was consistent with going into labour. Looked like we were having a baby.

But I won’t stretch this out in some attempt to build suspense ‘cause the title of this post kind of gives it away: this turned out to be just a dry run. Still, it was quite a thrill.

The most thrilling part? We were both so incredibly cool. As she lay there, telling me about the next contraction, we both looked at each other with some mix of amusement, excitement, and some disbelief, but there was no panic. If this was happening, we were ready.

Make no mistake, we weren’t ready. We still had essential items yet to be bought, an empty office waiting to be converted into a nursery. Plus, this was over a month too early to deliver. Technically the hospital was going to have to stall the labour, and who knew what that would be like?

Then there were the commitments that I would have to cancel, the schedule to be rearranged, plans to be scrapped.

Yet at the back of my mind was a voice perfectly free of doubt, assuring me: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” And I believed it. We’ll get to the hospital. If we have a baby, we’ll get all the stuff we need later. Plans will take a back seat to this. And so I just sat on the bed beside her, holding the stopwatch in one hand and reading Wizard magazine in the other. We’d deal.

Within a couple of hours the cramping pains subsided. A friend told Michelle over the phone that it was a classic case of Braxton-Hicks contractions. I guess those are the doctors that false labour is named after. (How about that for a claim to fame? Makes me wonder what medical pioneer claimed the fake orgasm). So everything was back to normal.

The funny thing is that EVERYTHING went back to normal. Meaning that, the next day, I woke up worried about the essential items yet to be bought, the empty office waiting to be converted into a nursery, and even fretted over my set list at Bourbon Street that night. All the little neuroses were back.

And yet, I know that beneath those neuroses, there’s a guy who has everything under control. That guy has used this episode as a wake-up call to both of us, and we have made some progress getting things ready. I cancelled my coming weekend in Ajax. I’m officially on stand-by alert. Even my Just for Laughs audition tonight has an air of just killing time while waiting for the main event. This guy’s got the priorities figured out.

So I’ll let these little neuroses nudge me along. It’s okay to be nervous, there’s still a lot of uncertainty. But it’s nice to know that when push comes to shove comes to, you know, PUSH, I’ve got back-up I never really appreciated. That little bit of self that knows we’ll deal.

I just realized, this may have been the moment of zen I was waiting for in my January 25th entry. Wow. Here I thought I was just typing nonsense these past months. There’s an actual continuity thread going on here.

Too cool.