On Friday, I lived out my final day as an everyday-ho-hum 31-year-old. 31 is one of those rare prime number ages where the first digit is three times the second digit. The last time I was such an age was 0, and the next time will be when I’m 62, and then not again until 93. Next I’ll be 32, one of those beautifully divisible numbers. 32-16-8-4-2-1. Everything goes into 32.

I woke up around 4am to see Lauren working out the discomfort of contractions. Not shocking, seeing as they’d been happening for the past 48 hours. She said they were now very intense, down to 3-5 minutes apart, and had been consistent for a couple hours. She didn’t want to wake me, but once I had woken up on my own I knew it was time to head to the hospital. We gathered our things and called the OBGYN emergency line and they instructed us to go on to the hospital. We called the doula and she too would be on her way shortly.

We arrived at 4:45, and over the course of the next four hours, things quieted down dramatically and we were sent home. It was an emotional experience, thinking we were so close and then being told we weren’t really so close at all. But we were also applauded for coming in, as all signs pointed to it being time. By this point I was a little groggy but well awake and figured I’d just go in to the office even though I’d told everyone in an e-mail I’d “definitely not be in.” I did do some work but was wiped out by noon and took a half day.

As I was leaving work, I noticed my car’s front left tire had a big screw stuck in it. I carefully drove to Discount Tire and had to have the whole tire replaced… free of charge, thankfully, as I had the foresight to purchase a lifetime warranty. But still, another 90 minutes out of my day. I wandered over to get an iced coffee while waiting for my tire to be repaired, and in a daze somehow didn’t see the creamer right smack in front of me. Confused, I picked up a demo container of some sort enclosed in plastic and attempted to empty it into my coffee. A laughing employee informed me this was a display item for purchase and not only did it not contain any cream, it was still in its packaging.

Then I came home and crashed for a couple hours. Lauren, Anne, and I went to Whole Foods and got stuff for dinner, came home, and ate outside, enjoying a nice but muggy evening. We watched some standup comedy, I drank some birthday wine, we received a surprise delivery of warm cookies from Tiff’s Treats (thanks, Megos!) and then watched the Twins pile on an amazing 20 runs against the Tigers.

And that’s how I spent my final day as a 31-year-old.