It's no secret that I'm not a fan of this whole pregnancy thing. I endure it for the kid, but if spontaneous reproduction were an option I'd totally be signing up for that approach to life.
The irony of it all is that this has been a relatively beyond perfect pregnancy. I've gained somewhere between 0 and 5 pounds. My ankles, at their most swollen, don't even command the attention of my doctor. I've gotten one SLIGHTLY elevated blood pressure reading through all of my appointments - turns out that was likely due to the nurse taking the reading over my shirt sleeve rather than pulling the sleeve up. So I do well realize that in the grand scheme of pregnancy I've got nothing to complain about. But still, it's no fun.
So you'd think I'd be excited about the fact that the end is near. We're 9 days from the due date. Which means it's been 5 days since the magical "2 weeks until the due date" day on the calendar. "2 weeks until the due date" is a magical day in pregnancy land because 80% of babies are born within 2 weeks of their due date on either side. And, unless you've got an anomalous caretaker (or no caretaker, or you ignore your caretaker) the odds of you going more than 2 weeks over your due date in this country are darn near impossible. Which means that if your kid is not born when you hit that magical "2 weeks until the due date" date you can rest assured that you will have yourself a brand-spanking-new kid sometime within the next 4 weeks.
Let me tell you, 4 weeks can be a very, Very, VERY long time. And beyond giving you that 4 week window of opportunity - and the statistic that only 5% of babies are born ON their due date, and the anecdata that most first-time moms go late- you get NOTHING to clue you in to when the kid will be coming.
I am, as of Thursday, 1-2 cm dialated, 50% effaced, and at +2 station. This means the kid acknowledges they are going to be born at some point, but it could be hours or it could be weeks.
Do you know how hard it is to organize your life when you are working on these sorts of timetables?
Part of me wants to have everything ready and in perfect shape so that when the kid arrives to make the transition as seamless as possible. And part of me realizes that once everything is ready there's nothing left to do but wait and without any preparations to do during the waiting I would darn near go insane.
So, we've got to strike a balance.
This weekend is dedicated to making sure that we've got everything we need to function with a baby in the house and get caught up on laundry and dishes. After that it's getting the hospital bag packed and finding homes for all the baby stuff. From there I think I start creating iPod playlists for the birth and the child's life.
I can't even resort to picking lint out from my belly button or between my toes, because my belly button is all but gone (I swear I'm a Butterball turkey and it will pop out the moment labor officially starts) and I can't reach my toes.
It's going to be a long...... well, whatever period of time it is until the child arrives.
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