Another week?

Why hello 41 weeks. I thought for sure I would be greeting you with a baby in my arms instead of in my uterus, but apparently not so much.

The last few days have been... tumultuous. To say the least. I made it 22 hours of Kyle's birthday being a good, un-irritating, scarce wife... but then I had a complete, sobbing on the bathroom floor nervous breakdown, obviously. I can't even really recount it now, since once you get out of these episodes it's really hard to remember where your head was when you were in them. But some combination of being totally tired of being pregnant, feeling like my body wasn't working right, total terror at the unknown of (dun dun dun) INTERVENTIONS that I hadn't really thought about because I was sure I wouldn't need them, something something hormones, emotional crier, yadda yadda.  Even though I can't (and have no desire to) get back into that headspace, I can tell you that it was a scary, dark place that was as bad as I had ever been, where my only coping mechanisms are really breaking things and hurting myself. I managed to refrain from both of these things, but yeah.

Kyle says it's like I'm going through the stages of grieving. Yes, except for that once I reach the acceptance stage I can't seem to stay there and head back through the cycle all over again.

Today I feel pretty good, not least of all because I lost my mucous plug/had some bloody show this morning. I know it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it at least goes to show that my body hasn't completely abandoned that baby-birthing project, as was my fear. Also, TMI, but SO. MUCH. MUCOUS. Really, I had no idea. I've also been having seemingly more significant contractions for the last two days, but they haven't really seemed organized enough to matter, so I'm mostly just giving my belly the side-eye and waiting for things to be more definite.

Today also marked my very last day at work. Possibly FOREVER, but at least for the next 12 weeks. Very strange. Tomorrow morning is my midwife appointment omg scary times, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it, what with recent developments. I feel pretty confident, at least for the moment, that things are not going to end all scary scary doctor hospital needle scalpel DEATH. Whee positive attitude! I try.

At least today is somebody's birthday!

Today will be an experiment in how to not completely irritate your husband on his 28th birthday when you are also 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant. It might be tricky. Plan so far is to get the fuck out of the house and get a pedicure, because I am sure I am far less annoying when I am not here. We'll see how it goes after that.

I love you, Kyle.

Another day

Today is a better day. Yesterday was pretty okay, too, actually. I haven't cried since Friday, but I cried way a lot on Friday, so I guess it all evens out. But at least a little bit I think I'm learning how to live at this new pace that is the end of pregnancy. Living slower is making me feel like I'm not doing quite so much impossible waiting. I'm sleeping in and taking leisurely showers and generally not clock-watching and probably moving half as slow as the rest of the world, but I think that's for the best. The only hard part is that no one else is on my new schedule, so it can get kind of lonely. Everyone else also has lives and jobs and things, and I think are reserving their time for later, because it's much more exciting to hang out with a newborn baby than a bitchy term pregnant woman.

However. Kyle and I wandered and ate our way around the Bite of Seattle yesterday, which is pretty much the perfect event for a pregnant woman, and today BFF and I did some mall-walking, Frappuccino -drinking, and nursing-apparel shopping. I am a much happier person if I get out of the house and do something, anything, at least once a day. Tomorrow the only thing I have planned so far is a pedicure, but that is something at least. And beyond that, who knows. I'm having a hard time thinking more than one day ahead at this point. Everything seems far too uncertain.

I am starting to feel like I'm living in some sort of dream world. The longer things go, the less real anything feels. Kind of like the early weeks of my pregnancy where in between bouts of nausea I wouldn't have any symptoms and my body hadn't started changing yet and I would feel like I had imagined it all. Obviously, I am huge and clearly pregnant, but the reality of getting a baby sometime in the next week and a half seems to recede further and further into the distance. A week ago I felt like labor was imminent and I was ready, and now... it all just seems impossible. I feel like I am sitting in a nursery decorated for no one, and that I'm going to turn into a crazy lady pushing around an empty stroller. It is very strange and surreal.

But I guess it will all be over soon. This is the last month I will be pregnant. I will have a baby in the next couple weeks. This will end, and I will have my new reality and it will be good. I just need to remain calm and patient. I'm doing okay at that today.

Overdue

I've been putting off writing this post,  as it feels a bit like admitting defeat, but here I am. Still no baby. My due date has come and gone and nothing really has changed much. Baby boy shows no signs of being ready or willing to come out ever.

40 weeks, this past Wednesday

I am.... barely holding it together. There are lots of tears. LOTS. I think I am dehydrating myself from crying so much, actually. I have a wicked headache this morning. I'm trying to rein it in and get more fluids in me, you know, in case I have the occasion to need to buttload of energy in the near future, but I'm really no match for my hormones and emotions right now. Yesterday Kyle decided that an hour of hysterical wife sobbing was a reasonable excuse not to go into the office and took me to lunch instead. And before he went out in the evening for baseball-related activities, he had me invite myself over for dinner at my parents. They thought it was hilarious that he was having them "babysit" me, but it was probably for the best, since I likely would have otherwise sat at home in the dark crying. Yes, I know I am pathetic.

I also got myself a Frappaccino yesterday afternoon and walked around the lake listening to my labor playlist, and it was very nice. 2.8 miles and it only took me an hour and twenty minutes. It was actually lovely, even though it started raining a couple times. The headphones means that no one talked to me and I got to get some alone time without it making me feel depressed and isolated and helpless. And you know, the walking thing, that's supposed to help, right? I think it's going to be a regular afternoon activity for me until baby boy decides to show up.

My sister is also back from France now. She got in Wednesday night. I'm happy she's here, of course, but I was really hoping to have a baby before she got here, so I haven't been as joyful about it as I perhaps should be. I love my sister, but she can be somewhat emotionally draining for me, and I'm spread thin already as it is. And she doesn't understand why I am so short and so angry and so quick to fly off the handle, that I'm not really ready to spend a lot of time with her quite yet. Unfortunate.

I really want to have a baby soon. If I make it to my next appointment on Thursday I have to have a non-stress test and we'll sweep my membranes and schedule an ultrasound and I really want no part of any of it. Please please please please please let me have a baby first.

Still here.

Oh hey I am still pregnant. I guess that's not super surprising, since my due date isn't even til Wednesday, but I feel like I've had this baby inside me for pretty much forever, and there's only so long you can go without completely losing your mind.

I think this would all be a lot easier if I could really give into just living in the moment and not worrying about how much longer I have and what plans I have for this week and whatever, but unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't exactly work like that, so it's really hard to just let everything else go. I still have to worry about when I am scheduled at work, and who I have to call to make sure the world doesn't end if I can't come in and that my sister is coming back to Seattle in a few days and that Kyle has a baseball game later, and good lord everything is so damn inconvenient when you are a term pregnant woman working with an even that can happen anytime in a five week stretch. Although I guess at this point I only have to worry about two and a half.

Once labor truly begins, though, time really can stop mattering for a while, and I am so looking forward to that. Once we get there, the only thing that will really matter is what is currently happening, and I no longer have to worry about the rest of the world's schedule. It will just be me and my body and my husband and my baby and our family going at the speed that works for us, and while the world is obviously not going to be stopping also, we can for the most part happily ignore the artificial scheduling of everything. I can't wait for that.

The Waiting Game

I can't make coherent posts when i am distracted by the possibility of pregnancy, apparently.

I've been obsessing over The Preconceptionist's list of early pregnancy symptoms. Maybe my mild constipation these days is related? Every little wave of queasiness I wonder if it's because I am pregnant, or its just the regular waves of queasiness I get anyway, and have been getting for the last ten years. And then I think that if its not worse than normal then there's no way I could be pregnant, and if I was I'd be cowering over the toilet bowl. I am psyching myself out. But I still have exceedingly tender breasts, and the nausea is there, even if it is all too familiar.

I'm not even really sure what I want to turn up on my imminent pregnancy test. All of the negatives I've received so far have be disappointing, but I was always pretty sure that I wasn't pregnant, so I never really had to face the reality of what those two pink lines really mean. But now that I am more sure than not, I am kind of terrified of that positive. Don't get me wrong, I want this, but it's scary to me that if I am in fact pregnant, there's no backing out now.  We can't decide to wait another month or year or three. And that somehow at the end of many month of discomfort that I signed myself up for I have to remove a human being through my body via my vagina, holy crap, am I really ready for this? Well, it may be too late. And that's okay. But frightening, none the less.

On Wednesday night, as my mom an I were eating enchiladas, as we do after yoga class every week, I told her that I think that this time might really be it.  I realized I don't really know much about how my sister or I were born, so we talked. Mom said that she knew right away with both pregnancies. She delivered us both without medication, so that's a relief to hear, but she ended up with an episiotomy with my sister. (P.S. Chrome does not recognize episiotomy as a word.) Her labors were both very short, with mine lasting about twelve hours from waters breaking to delivery, and my sister's was even shorter. My sister breastfed easily, but I was lactose intolerant, so she pumped and added lactaid to her breastmilk for me.  We were both weaned to formula after her three month maternity leave, but this was 25 years ago, when pumping at work just wasn't an option for my career minded mother.

Hearing all of this makes me feel really confident about my own pregnancy and birth, whether that comes now, or further off in the future. I am really lucky to be so close to her and to have her nearby to go through all of this with me when and if I do find myself pregnant.

I am also looking forward to sharing pregnancy with my mother in law. I know she is itching for grandkids. She won't come out and say it, of course, because she's much too polite for that, but the hints have been coming hard. Kyle's parents just put an offer on a house, and she mentioned to me in an email that she is excited to move because she can imagine playing with her grandchildren in her (hopefully) new neighborhood. Sigh. At least I know that when the time comes my news will be good news.


All right, that's all I've got for tonight. Think pregnant thoughts for me. I think.

Patience

I am absolutely no good at waiting. I want to be pregnant NOOWWW. Which is especially stupid since we aren't even officially trying yet.

Today is cycle day 29. No sign of period. Negative test yesterday.  My theoretical ovulation (based on cervical fluidity, because I'm not temping) was in the middle of happy vacation sex fest, but I'm thinking that perhaps it was delayed based on travel and travel and rollercoasters and alcohol and travel. Since underpants are getting all slimy again. (Sorry.)  But still. Ugh.

I think if I don't end up pregnant this go-round I'm going to try and start temping. I'm not sure if it will actually be at all enlightening since my waking times vary between 3:30 am, and, uh... a lot later than that.  So we'll see. But hopefully it won't come to that and I'll be pregnant and everything will be rainbows and unicorns.



In other news we signed the lease on our new place yesterday, and we'll be moving in some time next week. I'm relieved that its out of the way, but now... packing. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

Oh, disappointment...

So far, two negative pregnancy tests. I don't know that this really means anything, as I am only 12 days past ovulation, that is, if I actually ovulated at all. Who knows. Since I haven't had a regular cycle in oh, seven years or so, I don't know how long mine is, or when I should be expecting my period, so I suppose I will just keep testing everyday until I get a positive or start bleeding.

For the couple days before I started testing I was so sure that I would be, and now... I'm thinking no way. Logically I know that nothing has changed and I still could be and its so early and I could wake up tomorrow and get a positive... but I'm not feeling optimistic.



I would really like to know something in the next two days, though. Good news or bad. I'm going down with my parents and BFF to sister's college graduation, and I really don't want to be in this limbo while I'm on vacation. For one, I wouldn't have to abstain from all the fun (read: alcohol), or at least I would have a good reason to do so. It will come in to question, I am sure, and I don't want to have to tell my family that I could be pregnant and it is too early to tell, because that is a can of worms that just doesn't need to be explored.

I'm not sure what the plan is for the weekend if I don't find anything out before I leave. I'd like to keep testing throughout, but I'm not sure how I feel about the logistics of this in sister's tiny apartment. And if I get good news, well... do I wait to tell husband in person and then maybe he isn't the first to know? Do I call him? Do I try to keep it a secret? (Clearly, no, since I am terrible at secrets.) I don't know. I asked husband what he wanted me to do and he said he doesn't mind if I have to call him or if someone else finds out first, but I have this romantic vision of it all. I'll probably bring a ton of tests with me and decide when I get there. Or maybe I will find out tomorrow. God, I hope so.



Honestly, it surprises me how badly I feel about possibly not being pregnant. We certainly weren't "trying," and really, the timing for me is less than ideal. I thought I knew how badly I wanted this, but even I am shocked by my longing. Earlier I was looking at Facebook pictures of husband's friend's month-old twins and just... I can't even put it into words.

Please please please please please.

Maybe? Maybe! Maybe.

Still waiting. Oh, God, I am so bad at waiting. Everything is a possible symptom, and every moment I don't feel like barfing makes me doubt myself. I am not very good at this game. I think half the reason I want to be pregnant right now is so that I don't have to go through this again next cycle. And we're not even "trying" yet. Although I may be incapable of not trying, as I can't ignore my fertility signs and I can't not think about the possibility...

Husband is being really great. I told him that I thought I might be, and now he asks me all the time "if I am still pregnant." Cute. Answer range from "probably" and "I think so" to "I don't know" and "no way!".  Even though he hasn't actually said as much, I think he really wants me to be pregnant. Why else would he ask me about it twice a day? Never before has he ever brought up pregnancy or babies with me, and usually tries to change the subject when I do. Exciting.

I think I am going to start testing tomorrow.

Waiting Sucks.

So early pregnancy symptoms are my bread and butter. Today I woke up with really bad nausea. I have had my own variety of "morning sickness" (which actually tends to occur in the mornings, instead of possibly all day like in pregnancy) since my teen years. I can smell EVERYTHING, and sometimes things that probably aren't there. I crave weird ass foods. I am highly emotional and cry at episodes of Gilmore Girls. I have to pee all the time. Especially today. But it is too early for these things to be symptoms of an actual pregnancy, and seem to exist just to make me crazy. If waiting wasn't already hard enough.


In other news, a couple of nights ago I had a dream that I had a baby, but it didn't have a name or a gender or anything, and I kept forgetting to feed my featureless baby and then I would realize that it had been nine hours since the baby had eaten and I would freak out and feed it and vow never to lapse again, and then I would get caught up in reality tv or wake up from a nap and another nine hours had gone by... and I guess that sums up my fears about parenthood pretty nicely.