The morning started like any other morning, meaning the alarm went off and I propelled myself from my nest of cast-off blankets and pillows, wishing I had a pulley system and a pair of work mules to haul me to my feet. I waddled my way to the bathroom, my gait more side to side than forward movement. I peed for what would probably be the first time of fifty that day. A noteworthy development was a weird, phlegm-like gob of stuff had passed out of me sometime during the night, not unlike a chunk of jellyfish. I’d seen more like it the day before. I was pretty sure it was my mucus plug, and losing that was totally normal. It meant the kid’s head was in the right place in my pelvis and my body no longer felt the need to hold everything inside.

It was gross!

Did I mention bodies are gross? Because they’re gross.

My book—and Dr. Cardiff—had told me losing the plug was an indication that my system was doing what it was supposed to do in preparation for birth. It could happen awhile before actual labor, so I wasn’t really thinking things were imminent yet. I wasn’t due until the sixteenth, after all. Sure, I had nasty backaches that morning, but those had been around for months thanks to the weight gain in my midsection. And sure, I’d had cramping, but Braxton Hicks had been happening off and on for a couple of months. Those were weird practice contractions, where all the muscles in my midsection would tighten up for thirty seconds or so before releasing. My stomach would get super hard for the duration of the contraction, and then it would go back to normal.

The thing was, my Braxton Hicks had never hurt all that bad. They were frequent, sure, but there’d never been pain. I had pain on Tuesday. It probably should have told me something was different, but again, all of the books—all of my talks with my doctor—said Braxton Hicks could hurt and that it was okay and normal. I didn’t push the panic button.

What I’m getting at is, the movies make it look like you know you’re in labor immediately. The reality is a lot of the symptoms you have are symptoms you’ve been having throughout the third trimester, and the pre-labor signs look like a slight uptick in your everyday body aches and pains.

Which is how I went to school when I was actually in labor.