Tuesday was Az’s day off and my mother was in town waiting for me to have the baby. We decided to take advantage of our eager, trustworthy babysitter and go out without kids for the day. It was positively datelike.

It was a beautiful spring day, so of course our first stop was the library. He picked out a couple of grammars he hadn’t read yet (really - Spanish, Arabic and something I don’t remember) and I chose some travel narratives (my favorite postpartum genre) and got a couple of movies.

After the library we went out for lunch at PF Chang’s. I started having contractions during lunch, but they were light, and I’d been having those on and off for a month. They continued for over an hour and were four minutes apart, so after lunch we decided to go to the hospital just to check.

Predictably, almost as soon as I got into a hospital robe, the contractions stopped. The nurse told me I was only two centimeters dilated, and that the doctor would probably tell me to go home. After a few minutes the doctor came in and started to tell me the same thing. Then they saw my blood pressure.

Apparently my bp was creeping up into the danger zone. The doctor said, “Hmm. I think your blood pressure just bought you a ticket to stay.” I threw my arms in the air and said, “Woo-hoo!” (my mom-in-law assures me this will be the only time in my life that I will be grateful for high blood pressure).

They started me on pitocin at 5:30 pm. The doctor came in to break my water with that enormous darning needle. I don’t respond quickly to pitocin, so they inserted some gadget that measures contractions from the inside. Gradually my contractions increased.

During my last delivery, the epidural was so strong that I could not move my legs for hours. I hated that even worse than the pain, so I tried to hold off this time until the contractions were good and strong. The epidural took the edge off and I got a break from the pain for about two hours. I took a brief nap.

By 11 pm the contractions were hard and painful and almost constant. The epidural was not as effective as last time. It was my most painful labor. The baby was ready to come, but the doctor had not arrived yet. I spent the last half hour before the doctor arrived clutching the side of the bed and moaning and hollering. I am not a “silent birth” person. Az did the only thing a husband can do: he stood by the bedside while I was in pain and he tried not to be annoying.

Finally the doctor came in. I pushed through two contractions and saw her little head. He told me not to push through the third but to let the contraction ease her out on its own. And then there she was, all 9 pounds 8 ounces of her.

Az had our name list, which he had been pestering me with all day. He teased me in front of the doctor and nurses about how many names were on it until I finally snapped, “Would you stop making fun of me? I just had your baby.” Then he shut up.

And the name that JellyBean had been pushing for the last month until even her daddy capitulated was perfect. It suited her exactly. I had no doubts. We gave her my mother’s name for a middle name.

The baby was born at 00:09 this morning weighing nine pounds, eight ounces and twenty-one inches long. Mother and baby are healthy and resting.

My mother flew in yesterday. When we scheduled her visit, we assumed the baby would be here by now. Ha. My doctor, a rather rigid man, is not willing to induce for at least another week, so Mom may leave without getting to meet her new granddaughter.

But for now my Mom is cleaning my house, doing my laundry, playing with my children, and in general babying me as though I had some sort of excuse to lie around like a beached whale. After a nearly sleepless night last night, I had a long nap this morning. I slept the sleep of the nurtured while Mom got the kids out of bed, made them breakfast and read to them until I woke up.

The girls don’t see my folks very often. My parents are ten years younger than Az’s parents and they still work, so they can’t visit often. It took ten minutes for JellyBean and Sweetpea to decide that Grandmaw was worthy of adoration. Somehow they needed no more time than that to realize that everything they did was wonderful to her.

For now I am enduring the final stretch of pregnancy. Both my first two were early, and somehow I felt entitled to early, full-term babies. Now I have resigned myself to the idea that this one won’t come out until somebody makes her.

But it doesn’t seem so bad now that my Mom is here. I wish she could stay a year.

I went shopping Friday night while Az stayed home with the kids. By the time I got home, it was dark. The air was too cold for anyone to be out on their porches. I pulled into the driveway and I just sat there, free for a few moments in the bliss of being completely unnoticed.

I stayed in the car for maybe 30 minutes, watching the night sky and the trees, soaking in the silence. I have found this stage of pregnancy draining because of my appalling obviousness. I am large and clumsy. I don’t fit between the space people normally leave between chairs anymore. I have to ask them to excuse me. I have to speak up.

I huff when I walk up steps. I cannot even stand in line too long without squatting or leaning to rest. People stare.

I hate this. Now more than ever, I want to fly under the radar. I want to deal with this discomfort, and the disappointment that it isn’t over yet, without the questions and the stares and the playfully harassing demands “Haven’t you had that baby yet?” I want to be silent and secret until I feel ready to face the world.

Az cannot handle silence. He tells me every day that I look angry. He wants my words, and he wants me to tell him frequently that I am not nursing resentment against him. We have been married almost eleven years, and in that time he has not yet accepted that I can have emotions that are not about him. There is no polite and loving way in this marriage to say, “Please be quiet. Leave me alone.”

I want to hide myself in a cave and lie full-length on the cool limestone until it leaches all my troubled heat away. I want to be still and quiet in the dark, and not come out until this baby is ready to be born. I want to coccoon myself, and think about something else for a while.

She will come when she comes. There is nothing I can do about it. And so I want desperately to do nothing and be unnoticed until she comes.