November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving!
Under a week, now, until my due date. Six days.
Just for fun on a forum I’m on, I started a poll: “When the heck am I going to give birth?” Sadly, the option of “Never. You will, in fact, be pregnant forever.” is winning by a slight margin. One of the guys is offering Vegas odds on one of the days that a couple of the women predicted. (In all honesty, I really hope it’s not that day.)
Yesterday, which has come and gone, had 12.5% of the votes.
Today has 6.25% of the votes.
Tomorrow (Black Friday) has 18.75% of the votes
November 27 - Jesse’s Grandma’s birthday - has 6.25% of the votes. (This would actually affect what we name The Jelly.) We have since found, in reviewing his family tree, that her birthday is actually the 25th, not the 27th.
November 28 - My actual due date - has absolutely ZERO votes, which I think is hilarious.
November 29 - my next dr’s. appointment - has 6.25% of votes.
December 1 - one of the other board member’s birthdays - has 6.25% of the votes.
December 8 - ten days after my due date and the date on which they start threatening induction - has 6.25% of the votes.
And as mentioned, “Never. You will, in fact, be pregnant forever.” has 25% of the votes.
12.5% goes to “Some other random date”, which is the date that has the Vegas odds.
Oh, and one of the sarcastic guys said “March 4″. Gads, I hope not. Heh.
*******
I keep trying to apply all of this logic to when I’ll go into labor. Things like:
“Well, the bags are as packed as they can be.”
“I’ve finished all of the announcements.”
“The garage is cleaned out.”
“We have the co-sleeper set up.”
And yesterday’s: “Well, we have a ton of stuff planned for today, so of course, this will be the day she is born.”
I know it’s ridiculous to try to apply any sort of reasoning to this process. I am well aware that I’ll actually go into labor when The Jelly is danged good and ready to be born. Due to the stress of the holidays, back-ups being out of town, special days on which I wanted her to be born and the like, it has been really difficult for me to actually respect the fact that she’s going to be born when she’s good and ready.
I talk myself down every day. I tell myself to relax and just take the extra time to get things done and relax while I can, but I’m not actually getting a whole hell of a lot of relaxing done (two days ago we raked our huge yard of leaves!) and by the end of the day when I’m just so uncomfortable and in so much pain that climbing into bed becomes literal, it is really difficult for me to not take those few moments before sleep and allow myself to wallow just a little bit.
Throughout the day, there’s usually no problems. Yeah, I’m 9 months pregnant, but I am feeling pretty good, despite that fact. The raking yesterday was the most activity I’ve gotten in … well, since I walked around for three hours a couple of weeks ago, but it still felt awesome and energized me for the rest of the day. Which is why I think it’s worse when I just lay around and “relax”. It makes me feel too stagnant and gives me time to dwell on the discomfort.
Of course, today, when we have nothing planned but dinner at my Grandmother’s, there’s probably no chance of going into labor (which, might actually be better, as who knows who would be delivering, given that it’s a holiday).
And the To Do list continues with my working on the envelopes for the announcements and I told The Girlie I would help her download her pictures from her camera. I could stand to clean up the house a little bit too. So, yep. Enough to keep me busy to hopefully either spur on labor or make me forget that I’m still pregnant. One day at a time at this point.
Despite the talk above of attempting to relax and respect that I’m going to go into labor when the baby is ready to spur it on, I woke up pretty depressed this morning. I am really bummed that it wasn’t yesterday. Waking up to Jesse asking “How’s the baby?” didn’t help much.
And I think that part of my upset at this point is the fact that even though on that silly poll I put the option of “December 8″ (10 days after my due date - when they will start threatening induction), I don’t actually think that is going to be an option.
At my last appointment, on the 14th, I was surprised that my next appointment wasn’t until the day after I was due. Kind of glad, given the lack of medical intervention that I prefer in all parts of my life, but given my high-risk, the probable large size of this baby too (”You’re not going to go from having a large baby to having a small baby, this is going to be a large kid, also”) and history of emergency C-section, due to position, I was surprised that they wanted to wait two weeks in between appointments. I am thinking it had more to do with the holiday week, this week, than anything else.
But whatever, it is how it is and I brought it up to the Nurse Practitioner I saw on my last appointment: “I’m not supposed to see anyone until the 29th, which is after my due date, is that right?” and she said yeah, and at that point it would go to every week: “If the Dr. doesn’t talk about induction at that point. They may not let you go over again this time, due to your history.”
And really, I haven’t been thinking about that, becuase again, I just had that feeling all along that I was going to go before my due date. But now, as I sit here breaking down because I’m still damn pregnant and frustrated with so many aspects of this, I am starting to worry about the fact that I may go overdue again and I’m not prepared to fight my doctors every day after my due date. I don’t want to be induced. I really don’t want to have a scheduled C-section. I went far overdue with The Girlie - more so than the doctor’s even realize. I play it down when I tell people how far overdue I was because no one can believe that doctors would let you go that far overdue.
But if I do the math, which is fuzzy, I admit - as it’s been almost 8 years, I think that I was a good month and a half, possibly two months over due. I had told the doctor that the first day of my last period was June 8, which would have had me due on March 14, which means that I was only a week overdue with The Girlie. But that date was a complete guess. Back then I didn’t keep good track of my periods and was still on the pill and really messing that up - which, honestly, is probably how I got pregnant in the first place, being that I was under the impression that we were being safe, but I’d probably caused myself to double ovulate at some point with the irresponsible way I would lose track of when I had taken my pill and when I hadn’t.
A couple of years ago, I actually found a journal in which I was talking about being sick. I wish I could find it now, but I mentioned In May feeling sick “but not knowing why”. In reading it, six years after the fact with another pregnancy (that never came to be) under my belt and being more knowledgable of my body, I realized that I was actually already pregnant in MAY. If I was feeling it then, my last period was actually in APRIL. When I stick an arbitrary middle of the month date into the pregnancy calculator on BabyC3nter, it shows that I was due on January 21, which would have been a full two months before The Girlie was born. Again, people don’t believe that doctors let patients go that far, and I am sure that they don’t, but it seems obvious that I did. It definitely explains her size.
And the funniest thing about her size at this stage is the fact that, at birth, she was the largest baby in her class, obviously. She weight 11 pounds. The closest was a boy who weight 10 something. But right now? She is the SMALLEST in her class, except for one girl.
So, knowing that I can go that far overdue and have a perfectly healthy baby, I’m not opposed to doing it again; but I’m not prepared to fight the doctors to be able to go that far overdue and I think that is the underlying aspect of all of this that I haven’t really confronted yet. Despite when we “want” her to be born, there are actual medical concerns and stressors that would be eliminated should she choose to be born sooner, rather than later.
I just don’t know that it’s going to happen.
*******
Edited to add: Having Jesse come in and ask me: “If we’re going to be gone for a bit today, should we pack the car?” Did not really help my state of mind at all.
ME: “I honestly don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
I’m going to be a fucking JOY at Thanksgiving dinner today.
(Actually, despite the shitty shitty mood I have been in every single day, I’ve been hiding it really well when I’m out in public. I have actually impressed myself with the deception.)