39 Weeks and Waiting

After spending a few weeks on bed rest, I got to resume normal activity at 36 weeks at which time I had my baby shower. My mom hosted a lovely open house shower at my apartment with an impressive spread of food and desserts. We had a nice time even though we had a terrible turnout. Baby showers have a way of showing you who your true friends are.

So, I have been spending my time since then waiting for the baby to be born. I celebrated when I made it to full-term, then celebrated again when I made it all the way to May (the month of her due date), but now that I'm 39 weeks I am done celebrating and ready to have this baby! Keira was born at 39 weeks, so I don't expect to go past my due date, but apparently Clovis Community Hospital is so busy that they set an appointment for your induction just in case you need one. So I have an appointment for the 17th, if for some reason I don't go into labor on my own by my due date which is the 15th. So far the most consistent contractions I have had were 6 minutes apart for 3 hours, but then they went away. It was just enough to keep me up all night and on edge wondering if I should grab my hospital bag and call my mom in the middle of the night.

My mood has varied over the past few weeks, starting with a week-long burst of energy around 37 weeks, then back to exhaustion and irritability at 38 weeks, now at 39 weeks I am still exhausted but trying to make an effort to keep my house in order knowing that any day I could be leaving and coming back home with a newborn baby. Physically, I am having a tough time. Could be worse, but I am definitely having a hard time getting around. My feet and hands are super swollen. It seriously looks like my feet have a good half inch of playdough underneath the skin. You can push on them and indent them like playdough. It feels like I'm walking on someone else's feet and even my loosest flip-flops leave indentations across the top of my feet. It's been all I can do to keep up with Keira, so I am glad that I did all of the baby preparations in my second trimester.

Me at 38 weeks and my Sister-in-Law Sophia at 34 weeks.

Baby girl cousins in the making.

I had a checkup with my doctor on Tuesday at which time he checked my cervix and at first had trouble "finding it" then after a series of "Wow.... oh wow.... wow"s he told me that my cervix was REALLY soft, which is a good thing. Not very dilated at just over a centimeter, but soft is good, and definitely effacing. He doesn't expect me to have a long labor, and I am hoping he is right since I plan to not have an epidural and probably not stadol either since when I had Keira the stadol made me throw up and the epidural both didn't work and stopped my labor. I think I would have easily had her out in 4 hours instead of 7.5. The thought of having a baby without the pain relief is frightening, but I feel like the benefits are lesser than the ill effects they caused when I had Keira.

Keira was born on a Sunday morning and I had a constant stream of visitors in and out of my room from about 2 hours after she was born. I didn't get any time to rest, and was having a difficult time getting Keira to breastfeed which was further hindered by the constant guests coming and wanting to hold her. Then after we got home from the hospital, they called us back to put her on light therapy for 24 hours because she was jaundiced. So, I really didn't get to hold her for the first 3 days of her life and I feel like that seriously delayed our bonding and contributed to some postpartum depression. I decided back then that when I have another baby I am going to make the hospital experience totally different than it was, so I made the decision to only allow my mom and Art's mom to visit at the hospital- mostly for my support. Then after I get home from the hospital, I will allow other family members to start visiting as I feel comfortable, though I will not be passing around the baby to be held. Art, Keira, Art's mom, my mom, and I will be doing the holding. This is certainly nothing personal against any of my friends and family, but Art and I both feel like we need to take a little more time for our family to bond quietly and for me to recover from giving birth. Most of my friends and family have been supportive of my decision, which I have been very grateful for, but some people are less than thrilled about the idea. To them, I would just say IF YOU LOVE ME- SUPPORT ME. You will get to see my precious baby, just not the moment she emerges from my womb.

Well, I better get back to what I was doing... waiting. It's hard work, you know?