There is a birthing stool in our living room.

There are handles so you can hang tight as you labor.  What a nice thought!

So our beloved midwife Amy told me a few weeks ago that I should feel good about the slow sloughing of my mucus plug starting around 37 weeks.  It's a good sign you won't go past your due date, she said.  Awesome, I said.  Then we had an appointment a few days ago, at 38.5 weeks, during which she told me she suspected we had another two (weekly) appointments to go before I popped.  WTF, lady?

Granted, the new estimate gives me a little more time to finish up with fence-repair estimates and vet trips.  I went for a massage on Thursday, saw a movie Friday, did some laundry on Saturday...  But, yeah, the other thing Amy said was that she was going out of town for the weekend on some obligatory family road trip, so, should her estimate fail, we'd be reliant on pinch-hitting hippies to bring our baby into the world.

Blah blah blah, yes, fine, the pinch-hitting hippies are trained and certified and whatnot, and, yes, one of them trained Amy to start with.  We were assured that they did not suck and that our regular doulas, Terri and Brooke, would both be on hand.  "But it's not going to happen this weekend," said Amy.  "If I really thought it was this weekend, I wouldn't go."

(Brooke, curious in her ability to veer from way-hippie to preppy, chimed in that we shouldn't worry, because her pendulum had declared I wouldn't give birth before my due date.  I assume this is an herb-scented Magic 8 ball or something to that effect, but failed to ask.)

I tried to be philosophical about it, more distracted by the extra time Amy had just added to my pre-baby maternity leave/purgatory than by her imminent departure, but Heather wasn't having it, swiftly deducing that Amy was changing her estimate of my due date for convenience: "She's just saying that to make you feel better about her leaving!" 

For someone who was admittedly suspicious of the entire homebirth/midwife/hippie operation from the beginning, Heather's horror at being without this particular midwife for our baby's birth was considerable.  And it wasn't just the possibility of being without Amy: Heather was certain.  At lunch after our appointment she said, "Man, if you have the baby this weekend, I am never going to stop giving Amy shit for it."

Here it is, though, Sunday afternoon.  Amy is on her way back to town, and our little one has yet to make a dash for the exit.  No pinch-hitting hippies, no awkward introductions, no nothing.  Instead, we had a Saturday night of hormonal hysteria, followed by a grumpy Sunday that doesn't look too much more relaxed.  Heather is mowing the yard while I fume inside, needlessly hostile to our pets, and Baby is just chilling, like it's okay for her to keep gestating to full term.