I was less ruthless than normal in my weeding out process, in part because I’m short on time and in part because… well, what the heck. He’s a beautiful kid and so is his big brother!
(Note that you can click on the image to see a higher resolution/larger version of the picture.)
http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pictures/ThaneBorn/index.html
We’re home now and doing really, really well. At least, until I have to pull a second night like last night!
A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
According to this definition, I really will be pregnant forever.
I’ve had lots and lots of contractions this pregnancy. I swear the contractions started before I started feeling fetal movement. I get contractions nearly every time I stand up. Walking up or down stairs (and I live in a 3 stairway house) is almost guaranteed to initiate contractions. Pretty much every afternoon I start getting contractions, and they are worst while I’m getting dinner on the table. By the time I sit down for dinner (nearly every day this week) I’m mentally packing my hospital bag.
Then they go away. I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning, still very very pregnant and feeling slightly foolish about the night before.
You see where I’m going with this?
SOMETIME in the next, uh, 18 days those contractions will actually be for real. And they will be going somewhere. And I just know that by then I’ll have subconsciously learned my lesson and completely stopped paying attention to the damn things. By the time labor pains get truly unambiguous, it’s really pretty late in the process. With Grey, labor was only for-darn-sure maybe 3 – 4 hours before he was actually born. And second babies come sooner. And this time around, we have to get someone to be with Grey while we’re gallavanting off to the hospital, so we NEED the time more.
So every night, when I get the contractions, I think of saying, “Oh, here we go again.” And then I think, “But what if this IS the night?”
Insanity.
In other pressing, important, critically interesting news, I decided yesterday that something had to give. Something simply HAD to change.
My hair was pregnancy-thick and just past shoulder length. It was heavy enough to laugh off most barrettes and hair bands, but too short to braid.
Now, it is much shorter and rather more layered. I don’t think this is my Platonic Ideal of a haircut. I dare say it looks a touch too mommyish. (What? Just because I have a 3 year old and am 18 months pregnant doesn’t mean I have to THINK of myself as mommyish.) But it is also a vast improvement over what came before.
And yes. I am still pregnant. Yes. Still.
I once again got through an exam ungroped. Next exam will make up for it.
My belly has apparently gotten smaller — I measure 34 cm. So basically, I look 7 months pregnant, not nearly 10. This seems true — I really don’t look nearly as pregnant as I am, and not as pregnant as I did a few weeks ago. I think this is because my son is SO LOW that he’s not actually all the way IN my belly. I would be more worried if we didn’t have a recent ultrasound pointing to a very reasonable size.
His heartbeat was 160. This is high for him (he likes 144) and the high end of normal. I would be more worried if I hadn’t eaten 3 cookies on my way to the doctor’s office.
He’s moving less than he used to. I’m pretty sure this is because he’s so low/engaged (his head is stuck, so he can’t do the wild gyrations he was doing a few weeks ago). Also, moving LESS than he used to still more than meets the criteria for moving several times an hour. It’s just less vigorous. And he still loves his 11 pm workout.
As far as future planning goes, at my next appointment on Monday I’ll be officially post-due. We’re planning on having her strip my membranes then. (No, still not going to explain what that is. You can look it up.) She is operating on the assumption that it’s likely to work. I’m operating on the assumption that I’ll be going nuts and happy to try relatively non-interventionist methods of inducing labor. (See also: lobster bisque, chocolate, marital relations, raspberry tea). I’ll probably go in for a non-stress test on Monday too, just to make sure everything’s ok.
Turns out she’s going on vacation November 4th. ARGH! NO PRESSURE!
I also negotiated ahead of time for getting to wait until the 10th before being induced (instead of the 7th). She says that as long as the non-stress tests are ok, and given the family history I’ve harped on constantly (she complains about their computer systems, I never pass up an opportunity to point out how late I’m likely to go), that should be ok. (But she won’t be here so I’ll have to argue with her OB.)
Yeah, so I guess I should actually write out my birth preferences.
What the heck, you’re all fascinated, right?
I would like:
I would not like:
I am ok with:
Am I missing anything?
So last night I was experiencing pain, as though all my muscles had knotted up and I was short of breath and a little panicky, and the pain seemed to be coming on a regular basis. Yeah, the first 7 innings or so of the Red Sox game downright hurt.
Oh, and I was having strong contractions that seemed, at least for a while, to be coming in five minute intervals.
When I was pregnant the first time around, this wouldn’t have caused much angst. I was in labor or I wasn’t. Time would tell. Maybe we’d have gone for a walk to see if exercise would solidify the contractions or diminish them. Maybe I’d just take a hot shower, pack the bag and go to bed, and see what I felt like in the morning.
But the second time around, there’s an additional complication. Yes, the product of the FIRST pregnancy needs to have a grownup around at all times. (Funny how that works.) So the question of whether I was in labor or not took on added importance. Did we need to call backup or not? I texted a friend in the middle of a date to let him know that he was on call. I watched Dice-K give up another homer. I attempted to watch the baseball game, gchat with my mom, text message with my friend, read some blogs, check the contents of my hospital bag and have my husband read to me about the difference between false labor and real labor simultaneously.
I felt slightly distracted and as though I had difficult focusing. Clearly, it was labor.
My frenetecism was rewarded. My mom told me that my baby brother was actually on his was New Englandward a day earlier than I thought he was going to be. I called him and asked him to please come spend the night in our house just in case. The great thing about family is that you can inconvenience them and only feel a little badly about it. A few more contractions while I showered, two more runs given up by Papelbon, and I was ready for bed. I figured that the Sox season was over, and that even if my labor progressed while I slept my son would be taken care of.
That was, of course, just the wrong time to turn off the Sox game. But it wasn’t labor. It was just practice. I’m really, really, really hoping that I don’t have too many more ambiguous labor-like periods, or my friends’ love-lives may seriously suffer from ill-timed text messages. But hey, at least I’ll have one more Sox game this season.
On another note, I uploaded all my latest pictures a week or two ago, and got stymied at a near-final step and never got around to, you know, letting people know. So here, a few weeks late, are some pictures, including my birthday, my husband’s surprise concert for me, some apple picking, and Grey playing with Jefferson.
So I had my 38 week checkup today. Of course, I’m at the point in the pregnancy where I’m like, “I’m 38 weeks and TWO DAYS” as if those two days were critically important to understanding just how damn LONG I’ve been PREGNANT ALREADY.
I swear that the first time around I had weekly pelvic exams starting at about 32 weeks and every week I’d find out that I was exactly the same as last week and I got sort of in the habit of getting nekkid etc. I can’t say I’m disappointed, but apparently my memory sucks or things have changed. Not only did I get to keep my clothes on again this week, but apparently I don’t have to doff them until 40 weeks. Oh, and we rescheduled my 41 week appointment so that it happens on a day where she’s on call that evening.
I think she is wildly optimistic. She stripped my membranes (and no, I’m not going to explain what that means, but yes it’s just as much fun as it sounds) TWICE last time to NO AVAIL. But hey. It’s not like I have other big plans for that Monday. Except Linens ‘n Things is apparently going out of business and they’re totally right across the street. So this might all work out in my favor.
I confess — I’m not really sure why they want to see me so often when all they do is take my weight (don’t wanna talk about it), check my pee, take my blood pressure and measure my fundus. (I think that’s the right word. But it seems like the sort of word that it would be _BAD_ if I was close but not quite on in my usage.) Pretty much all of that could be done from the comfort of my own home, if I got someone else to look at the scale because I can’t see it because my belly is too big but I’m not sure this is a bad thing.
Ahem.
On the “my memory sucks” part of the argument, I was attempting to reassure a friend last night that although I am a figurative ticking time bomb, the “ticks” go on for long enough to run for cover. He brought up the quintessential scene of water breaking and I said that while that was a valid fear, I didn’t actually remember my water breaking with Grey.
At this point my husband pipes up to tell me that my water was broken while I was in labor. I totally and completely remember absolutely NONE of this. I mean, I thought I remembered labor pretty well: refusing to take the elevator to labor and delivery because I’d always taken the stairs, the skeptical look on the nurses face when a first time mom claims she’s in transition, the stuff they were storing in the tub where I wanted to labor, the unfair period where they wanted to take a “strip” to measure how the baby was doing, how they couldn’t get the remote monitors to work, how I fell asleep between contractions in the tub, how one simple request on my part clued them in that I was ready to push, the jokes I made between pushing, how my midwife appeared at the nick of time, the very unreasonable things I was asked to do at that point, the bit where my husband kept TOUCHING ME, both of us refusing to look at what was going on, Grey’s actual birth, the part where I had to bully A. into taking pictures of his newborn son which he didn’t want to do it was all “gross”, and the rather unpleasant few minutes that followed. I remember all of this. I do not remember anyone at any point breaking my water. Did they ask me? Did they need to? Don’t you think that’s the sort of thing that would, you know, make an impression? How long between when they broke my water and when I gave birth? It HAS to have been after I got out of the tub, but I was like pushing at that point. Doesn’t your water sort of need to break before you push?
The mind boggles.
I’ve thought of having some sort of countdown, but it’s rather too depressing. It’s not so bad with my due date — B minus 12 days! But then when you add in the 14 days I’ll agitate to go past due, well… let’s just say that I’m not sure I can maintain my sang froid (or my permanent wave — only family members will get that allusion) for another 26 days. TWENTY SIX DAYS. That’s like, forever. That’s like as many days as there are between December 1st and Boxing Day. People write novels in less time.
My husband said to me last night, as he worked the levers on the crane to lower me into bed, “I’m really looking forward to when you’re not pregnant anymore.” I shot him the look of doom and he hurried on, “I mean, I feel badly for your discomfort and how you hurt all the time and how difficult it seems.” I looked skeptical. “Also, I really hate your belly pillow and want to sleep on my right side again.” Light was shed. See, people? It’s not just me who’s sick of it all. Think of A. and how much of the bed the body pillow takes up. It’s all just unfair. Should he really be asked to put up with the bed interloper for 26 more days?
My Truant Pen 