last check of the checklist

It’s 7 am on a Tuesday morning in early November. I’m awake and tired of playing the waiting game. I can only imagine what women who don’t have a scheduled induction date circled on their calendar must go through, each night going to bed thinking that it will be their last with a prodtruding stomach and flutters inside…I can’t believe that the day is finally here…or nearly here.

We’ll be leaving to head to the doctor’s office in about 15 minutes. There, my OB will let us know if I should come back to the hospital later tonight in order to prep my cervix, or if everything is progressing nicely and to just be back at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow for my induction to begin. I would’ve preferred unassisted childbirth, but in a lot of ways, taking the uncertainty out of the equation is relieving. I have very little doubt that this birth won’t be able to happen normally, as in avoiding surgery/c-section, and I’m just ready to get the next part over and done with so I don’t have to sit home on the couch for another day, watching Birth Stories on TLC and psyching myself out…

Tomorrow I give birth to our first born child. Tomorrow we get to meet the newest member of our family. I can’t wait.

best if used by 11/9/09

Today marks 40 weeks of pregnancy.

36 weeks ago I peed on a stick and got a plus sign, indicating that my urine was pregnant.

5% of all pregnancies end on their due date, which is not an exact science. I have a rather strong feeling that mine will end on Wednesday, 11/11…the date of my scheduled induction. Most things in my life seem to fall into place that way, the way they were planned by myself or someone else…scheduled events, rather than pleasant surprises. Although, this will most likely qualify as a pleasant scheduled event, or at least I’d like to think so.

My brain is unable to function at full capacity today, not because I’m preoccupied with what’s next, but because it just doesn’t want to work at all…good thing I don’t have much on my plate other than continued tidying of my house, consuming of consumables, drinking of water, reading of books. The waiting game really does suck, you know. I think a tiny part of me thought this kid would come out today or yesterday or at some point in the past week…just a little tiny part.

This morning the baby’s feet were so far up in my ribs I thought it was trying to stretch out like I do in bed in the morning…lengthen from head to toe, to test the limits of its confines. My thoughts on that is if you want more room, you’re pointing toward the exit door…feel free to come on out and you can have all the room you want to stretch and flail and yawn and breathe.

And that’s about all I have to say about this. Hoping I can keep up with writing over the next few days, but won’t make any promises. Breakfast beckons from the other room and I’m starving.

 

ideal sunday matchup

I don’t think I could ask for a better opponent for my football team today…On the Sunday before the birth of our first child, the last Sunday we’ll have to indulge in our all-day football binge, the Falcons host the Redskins. My team against his. The only thing that would make this all the more appropriate would be if I went into labor in the middle of the game:)

In any other year the two of us would have most likely made the trip to Atlanta for the game as we did back in 2003…but being nearly 40 weeks pregnant puts a bit of a damper on that…something tells me that the excitement of a game like that in person would probably send me into labor.

It’s interesting how time is measured for me these days. For nine months, i’ve measured my life in weeks…as in weeks of pregnancy. Now, I think of time in terms of days and hours left of this part of my life and days and hours left until I can hold this baby in my arms…still so unsure of how that will feel to me, how it will all make me feel. I don’t expect some sort of magical transformation into motherhood. Far from it… But still, I wonder what it will all be like.

For now, I count the hours until kickoff…nervous as I usually am before a game, silly as that may sound to many…hoping that it’s my team that’s victorious come 4pm when 4 quarters of football have been played. Happy Sunday. Go Falcons.