He's not here yet.

I"ve been in the hospital since 3pm this afternoon. They made us wait a fair
while because there was a lady in a bad way after giving birth here, so I
can't blame them, but the prostaglandin gel, which starts the inducing
process was supposed to be applied at 4pm but actually went on at 6:30pm.
The internal exam said that I was in absolutley no way even approaching
natural birth time, so unless I have an unusually good reaction to the
hormones, I won't be going into labour any time today. I"ll have another
round of prostaglandin applied at about midnight, then the obstetrician will
be around tomorrow morning to tear the membranes and get the actual labour
started with a drip containing artificial oxytocin.

Meanwhile, I can't get the modem on this to dial out because its a weird
dial tone and their PABX doesn't recognise normal Australian dialling tones,
so there won't be any "live" updates unfortunatley, nor
chat-between-contractions, and you folk will have to wait for me to upload
the photos when we all get home, sorry.

I'll keep in contact with Tish via phone, so she should be able to give you
updates throughout the day, and I may be able to talk to Flippy, Jean and
Dave  if I'm lucky - although I can only make local calls on the hospital
phone I snuck in my mobile phone and will buy some long distance credit for
the phone here (Tish is technically a long distance phone call) tomorrow
when all the admin people etc are here. It being Sudany night, only the
nurses are here, there is no kiosk (thankfully I brought my own chocolate
supplies) and the admin people that look after phones, money and all the
good stuff won't be back till 9am tomorrow.

Please DO NOT try to call the hospital, at least not until Cary is well and
truly here. By the time you folks read this, I should be well and truly in
labour and therefore not in my suite but in the delivery ward. And if you
ring there, that means someone who ought to be attending me (or someone else
giving birth at the same time) will have to leave the birth and go answer
the phone. Which is *Not* a good idea, and besides, I doub I"ll be in any
mood to be polite and chatty. I'll do my very best to keep Tish up to date,
and she can post the liveupdates on my behalf. Joel will be bringing the
laptop with all the messages downloaded on it in thr morning, and uploading
my replies whenhe goes home in the evening - its the best I can do.

Well, not much to say except that hospital food hasn't improved since I had
my wisdom teeth out nearly 20 years ago, the room in comfortable, and hte
staff friendly. And i"m looking forward to seeing Cary on the outside, a
glass of good Shiraz and a *caffeinated* cup of coffee.

Will keep in touch as much as I can, and thankyou for all the good thoughts,
prayers and purrs I know y'all are sending me.

I can'tbelieve that in 24 hours I'll be a mother!

Yowie