It’s vacation time here at Maryland Family, but luckily we have plenty of friends willing to step in and blog for us. Today’s guest blogger is Maryland Family’s calendar editor, Laura Barnhardt Cech, whose second child is due Sept. 10.

With my first baby, my first inclination that I might soon be going into labor was an announcement from the doctor: “You’re two centimeters dilated.”

And even then, it was three days before my water broke (actually sprung a leak).

This time around, I’ve been feeling Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks. It’s a variation on a cramp, and usually comes in waves at night. A few times, the Braxton Hicks have been strong enough or close enough together that I’ve looked over at the clock. They’ve gotten to the point where they’ll last 30 seconds or longer and come four minutes apart, but then they disappear.

It’s starting to remind me of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” story. I can only get excited so many times. So, I’ve started to ignore the occasional contraction. Today, I started feeling them pretty close together in line at the McDonald’s. Did I consider leaving? No way. (Plus, my 5-year-old had his heart set on the Happy Meal’s Lego racer.)

Then it occurred to me that maybe I’ve become a little cavalier about what could actually be labor pains. Did I really want my little girl’s birth story to begin in a fast-food drive-thru? So, I called my husband and my mom and increased the alert level to orange.

After that, I didn’t feel guilty having a hamburger and fries.