38 Weeks

I am still here, and this time with an attitude adjustment. Life with lots of contractions throughout the day is becoming the norm. It has been a week and a half since all that started. I have stopped keeping count of how many in a day. They just come and go, and I let them. I don’t fight it, or stress out. I know that this is all part of it. Sunday at about 3pm I started to really not feel well. When I was up on my feet, I would get dizzy and nauseous, so I lay down and relaxed the rest of the day. As long as I stayed horizontal, I felt ok. It was when I got up that I would feel bad. I felt a lot of pressure down low through all of it. Even though it was inconvenient as I had a lot of things I wanted to get done, I had a really nice afternoon with Aaron. He was quite active, and I played with his feet through my belly as we watched movies. Chris and I are really going to have to find some activity for him to work his energy out. Maybe he will be a runner? Maybe a cyclist like Chris? We will need something for those feet to do! I went to bed that night wondering if all this activity was going to be it, and if I would wake up in labor. Instead, I woke up feeling fine again, but he had clearly dropped quite a bit through all of it. He is sitting pretty low in my pelvis now.

All of the fear and anxiety I felt that I wrote about in my previous post I have had the chance to work on, and I am feeling better and better about it all. It still scares me, thinking about life after he comes, but I am feeling more confident in my ability to face it. What has been hard since is all the commentary from everyone around me, calling, sending emails, facebooking me and the like saying “you’re STILL pregnant?!” I have felt frustration and anger as well, both at having all this pre-labor activity, yet not the real deal yet, as well as everyone’s good natured exasperation layered on top of it all. This seems to be the way it goes for all pregnant women when you get down to the last part of it. Everyone is so excited and has such good intentions, and can’t help but openly put the cart before the horse in their expectations as to when things should happen. I remember it from last time and how I felt about it all. What is different about this time is that I hear people saying these things to me, and I feel like they are looking at me and Aaron and implying that there is something wrong. I am really sensitive to anything being wrong with Aaron after what I have been through, and so it strikes me a little closer to my core and makes me so anxious in a way that I know that no one intends. It has therefore been a hard week.

I had a really good day of being around all of my “hippie-earth-mama” cheerleaders yesterday. I saw the acupuncturist in the morning, the midwife in the afternoon, talked to my childbirth doula for a while after that on the phone, and then I had prenatal yoga in the evening. All were so kind and encouraging and the midwife in particular gave me the pep-talk that I have so badly needed (lord that woman is worth every penny!). She did her usual super-thorough evaluation of Aaron. He is measuring 40.5 weeks right now, and she estimates that he is comfortably in the 8 pound range (all is a guess of course!). He looks great, and perfectly healthy. I told her about the frustration that he hasn’t come sooner. Noah came at 37 weeks on the nose. Why hasn’t Aaron? Her opinion is that the human body is an intelligent being that inherently knows when something isn’t right, and Noah was very sick. We will never know for certain, but that he came so early could be tied to that. She told me to consider every day that Aaron stays in as confirmation that he is healthy. She really doesn’t think that I will go to my due date, and that this will happen soon. However in the meantime, I need to take advantage of my last bits of freedom to do whatever is fun. Go out to dinner with Chris. Go treat myself to a pedicure. Go see a movie. Go shopping. Take naps. Above all, insulate myself from whatever negative comments are around me in whatever way that I can, and just focus on these things. Today I have had a much better day. Maybe he really is holding out for my birthday? The midwife’s measurements have said all along that October 10th or 12th is far more realistic. That isn’t that far away. I really do need to live it up before I am tied to home for quite a while. I am also loving that he is further into October. The excitement and anticipation of seeing Halloween decorations come out, and being able to tie that to his birthday is really going to be fun as he grows up. He must really want it too since he is holding out on being born. So, I am learning to be more patient and to trust what is going on. Off to go put my feet up and see what’s on the TiVo!