"Can't you hear me knocking?"

Ok...so Mick Jagger probably wasn't talking about the delayed birth of his daughter when he wrote those lyrics. But they seem so damn apropos.

If I haven't mentioned it already, BossLady's due date is this Sunday. We just came back from the doc's office this morning. It seems that our daughter is pretty comfortable and wants to hang out a little longer. I can't really blame her as punctuality was never my strong suit either. Having arrived into this world over two months early, I seem to have spent the past 35 years running late.

Anyway, we've started making contingency plans and if labor doesn't occur naturally, we're planning to induce in 12 days. This actually wouldn't be the worst scenario since it would allow the lovely BossLady to accrue a little more time on her maternity leave. And since her turbo-charged nesting instincts are revving HIGH, the extra time will probably allow her to refinish the floors, install a new bathroom, build a birdhouse and come up with a cure for cancer.

Being the well-informed parents of the new millenium (thank you for the internet, Al Gore), we've done some research on all the various ways to help induce labor. Personally, my favorite ones are the old wive's tales...eating buffalo wings, castor oil, driving on bumpy roads, or wolfing down bowls of macaroni & cheese made with A1 sauce.

So readers...send me and BossLady your favorite methods of inducing labor. If your selection works, we'll name the baby after you!!!

(ok...BossLady just rejected that idea. I guess we won't name the baby after you. But next time I discover yet another new atomic element or previously undiscovered planet, I promise to name it after you. Would that be ok?)

Comments

[Kristie]

Ha! Good old fashioned sex! Orgasms (the more the merrier)are uterine contractions (which I'm sure you already knew)and can give you a nice jump start on the actual birthing contractions. Besides, you wanna squeeze in a lot now because who knows how long it'll be before you get to resume such activity after your bundle of joy arrives! Not to mention...those contractions hurt like the devil later...and it would be nice to look back and remember what you were doing that started it as the hours tick by.

OK, maybe not. If she remembers the later part of those contractions more vividly than the beginning stages...you might never have sex again.

Just make sure she knows that epidurals are her friend!

[L.A. Daddy]

My wife's mother made her drink lots of castor oil. I couldn't even stand the smell of the stuff. All it did was give my wife nausea, cause diarrhea and make her throw up. So I guess it was an old wive's tale after all.

[Messed Up Mama]

My Mother swears that taking a long walk will do it. After all it helped her get a start on labor with my youngest brother. I agree with Kristie, sex is known to help get things going. One of my cousin-in-laws who has had 5 kids says that if you plan a romantic dinner the baby just can't pass up the chance to interupt. So I guess you could go for a long walk to a nice place for dinner, and then go home and have sex. LOL

[Anne-Marie]

When my SIL's mom was overdue, her dad put her on the back of his Triumph motorcycle and did 90 mph down the Pacific Coast Highway. The next day she went into labor.

My problem was staying pregnant. My son was born 7 weeks early and my daughter, 4 weeks early. We have no idea why either.

Speaking of preemies, if you have time, could you write your own early birth story? I'm very interested in how preemies turn out as adults. I look at Monkey Boy and wonder if he's the way he is (kind of on the weird side) because he's a preemie or inspite of it.

[Mir]

Yeah, don't do the castor oil thing. The reason it induces labor is because dehydration induces labor. Which is a pretty yucky way to go. (Both my babies were late, but the second one decided to kick me into labor on the heels of a stomach flu. Ewwww.)

Red raspberry leaf tea is supposed to be good. It tastes fine, if you like tea. But then again, I drank tons of it late in my pregnancies and as I mentioned, both of mine were late. So clearly I am full of crap.

However! The sex thing just might work! ;)

[Anonymous]

Having sex with my husband in my ninth month was almost a comedy of errors. We had the best intentions in mind but I'm a relatively small woman who gained almost 60 pounds during pregnancy. I felt like a beached whale. DH and I must have looked like a bunch of roman wrestlers fighting over a beach ball. We ended up laughing so hard that we ended up not having sex.

But at the suggestion of my SIL, I ate spicy foods for about 3 days straight. You name it, I ate it. Everything I ate had either Mexican jalapenos, Thai curry, Chinese chili peppers, etc. Sure enough, after 3 days, my beautiful little boy was born!

Good luck!

[Big Mark webdesign]

Good job, thanks

[Scott]

Well, I have no favorite, since I dislike labor of any kind--but my only method of inducing labor is getting off my ass, and laboring!