Grab some popcorn and let’s settle in for a nice story, orrrr a terrible story if you are still planning on having kids in the future.

Join me for a birth story told in gifs.

Let’s start at the due date, January 20th, which historically for me has meant a big fat nothing. So surprise surprise, my due date was met only with more “You’re STILL here??”‘s. Thanks again for those. 40 weeks + 4 days felt a little more special as that is the day that both the boys had born, but yet again, no baby, so at 40+5 I woke up feeling pretty determined to have a baby.

Please keep in mind as soon as we got the all clear that baby was fully baked, we had been walking, squatting, lunging, eating spicy food, eating pineapple, drinking red raspberry leaf tea, taking evening primrose oil, sitting on a birthing ball, etc. I had even gone so far as chugging castor oil TWICE.

I could go on explaining the gravity our efforts, but it would just get into terms you don’t know like “rebozo sifting” or the unmentionable act that will surelyyyyyy induce labor…

…we were fully prepared to try anything to avoid a 3rd c-section. At this point I had been having contractions, but they were still inconsistent. So Wednesday (5 days late), was just like every other day, I woke up went to work, but I knew exactly where I was going after…ZUMBA. I was met with gasps and stares as it didn’t seem that people realized just how serious I was about having a baby ASAP. So there I was at the back of the class, doing my heavily modified version, whilst still timing contractions.  I would put another gif here but oddly enough they don’t have one of a large mammal doing Zumba, sooo we carry on…

I went home and we ordered in the spiciest Thai curry I could stand for dinner. At this point my contractions were about 5 mins apart and consistent. I was cautiously beginning to think that it might be the real deal.

Weighing the fact that I was having strong and consistent contractions less than 4 minutes apart with the fact that could basically be in the Guiness Book of World Record’s for slowest labor progression, we debated for a long time whether we need to go to the birthing center. As they continued for a couple hours, finally around 10:30pm we finally packed our bags (shame on us for procrastinating, but then again so did baby) called over a neighbor (also last minute, thanks Mike!!!), and headed to the center!!

Spoiler alert, baby Zoey was not born that night, or the next, or the next…do you get the picture??? So I’m going to leave you hanging right here for now, and I don’t even feel bad about it…at least you aren’t in labor.

Stay tuned.