Iron Ball

What iron ball?  While it may sound like a special move out of a Kung Fu movie, it's the first thing that came to mind seeing and feeling Pearl's belly tightening up and becoming, well, like an iron ball.  It seemed a bit odd as frequency of these occurrences had increased and stayed for 10-15 minutes at a time.  This prompted an unplanned visitor to the doctor's office to check out possible labor (which it wasn't).  As a matter of fact, for the entire time Pearl was on the monitors at the doctor's office, there was *nothing* going on in terms of contractions.  Baby was doing great though, being his usual active self.

So while not quite there just yet, Pearl's symptoms are starting to indicate that things are "heating up" as we're approaching the baby's expected birthday (Dec. 22).  Probably within the next 7-10 days we'll get there.  In any case, our suitcase for the hospital is packed, and we think we'll be ready to go.