38 Weeks

We are nearly there, friends! Today I am 38 weeks and 3 days. This photo was taken on Friday, and I'm convinced I've dropped another inch since then. No signs of imminent labor, but according to my doctor, it could happen any time. As she said on Thursday: "Your water could break when you walk out of this office, it could happen three weeks from now. You never know!"

I'm straying from my usual update format and will be freewheeling this post. Hope you don't mind!

As we get closer and closer to our due date (It's less than two weeks away!), I am happy to report that we have completed the entire pre-baby to-do list. A big thank you to my parents and brother for coming over to help me finish up all of my organizing and cleaning - and yard work, which would have been a spectacle had I attempted it.

So now we're just waiting on baby. I am enjoying some peace and calm before things get rolling, and we've been lucky to have some really beautiful weather that allows me to spend a lot of time outside. I (usually) don't feel impatient for labor, and if I do it's when I've stayed up too late and am too tired to manage my emotions. I've been good about reminding myself that a lot of women, especially first-time moms, go over their due dates and that it's okay if I do, too. I would be induced if I went to 42 weeks, so I put my mind on April 24: if I do go past my due date, at the latest we'll meet the baby on April 24. It helps keep me patient and reminds me that this baby will come at exactly the right time.

We did end up in the labor and delivery unit again on Tuesday evening. We were in Denver for an event related to Elliott's conference, and I had been having intense contractions since Friday. Finally on Tuesday they got very intense and very close together, to where I couldn't walk or talk through them and I had to breathe and focus - I don't like to jump the gun, but since we were so far from our hospital, I didn't want to take the chance. So I called triage, she advised us to come in, and we left the event with our friend Randy, who had ridden up with us, and drove down to the hospital. It turned out to be a false alarm, which was both a relief and sort of a disappointment - that feeling did surprise me. But I had a lot of encouragement from friends who reminded me that even though the contractions weren't necessarily the beginning of labor, they were doing something - moving the baby into position, getting my body ready for when the real thing does happen. And the triage nurse made a good point - I don't have much of a layer of fat between the muscles of my uterus and my skin, so I'm going to feel contractions more easily and possibly more intensely than a woman with a layer of fat will. So even though most women are having contractions at this point in their pregnancies, most don't feel them or feel them very mildly, whereas with no insulation, I feel them much more easily. So I think they're going to have to be very, very intense before I consider going back into L&D. Or my water will have to break.

So this is where we are, and where we will be until the baby comes. It's hard to believe we're already here, that when I see regulars in the coffee shop it's in the back of my mind that the next time I see them, I may not be pregnant anymore. It's both exciting and at the same time, a little sad. I love being pregnant and while I know that the baby is the ultimate prize at the end, I know there are pieces of this that I will miss. I read an article about how in English, there isn't a word for this feeling women get at the end of pregnancies - a sort of bated-breath nostalgic feeling, with something else thrown in that I can't quite name - other languages have words for it, and the author of the article compared it to the feeling of being between asleep and awake. I think I agree with that. The feeling of being not in two places, but in two states of being, at once. Knowing that our hard deadline is April 24, but that it could happen anytime between right now and then; both anticipating the baby's arrival and already missing the feeling of being the only one in the world that this little wonder is depending on right now.

As far as my feelings about labor, I feel as prepared for it as I can be. As someone who has never done this before, I know that if I try to imagine it I won't imagine it right - I'll either assume it's a lot more difficult and excruciating than it is, or I'll imagine it'll be a breeze and then be shocked and horrified when it hurts. So I'm trying not to picture or imagine the sensations as much as I visualize what I know will happen. And we practice labor positions and breathing techniques and all the other things that veteran moms either swear by or scoff at, there's no in between - and I sit on the yoga ball and wonder how I'm going to "breathe in deeply through the nose" when my seasonal allergies have me all stuffy.

All in all, the end of my pregnancy is occurring the way it has occurred for billions of women and I am experiencing it with eyes and ears as open as possible. There are days I feel beautiful and radiant, and there are days I feel like this:

and both kinds of days are equally valuable. Although I might not admit that on the cartoonishly-huge-pregnant-woman days.

Happy Monday, friends! Have a wonderful week, and unless I have a baby in my arms, the 39-week update will be forthcoming.