it continues

the waiting, I mean. No baby yet. I am so overdue that the pregnancy countdown thing on the right is now counting backwards, telling me just how overdue I am. 16 days. 17 days. 18 days. How much further can it go?

If you go by my latest due date, though, I'm only 6 days overdue. Isn't pregnancy supposed to be a little shorter when you've have a bunch of kids? I guess I just figured I wouldn't go this late. I thought I'd be a little early.

The midwife leaves for vacation on Saturday. The baby must be born in the next six days or I will not get the homebirth I have been planning for. Well, no, actually. If the baby is not born in the next six days I will rearrange my plans and have an unassisted birth. I will not give my body up to a hospital again. And if people think that's foolish, I understand, but the thing is, the doctors and hospitals are the ones who caused this, not me. If they had treated me with a modicum of respect on any of the opportunities they had, I wouldn't be planning a homebirth at all.

Anyway.

Lots of prodromal labor. Blah. I can literally think myself into a contraction. Just rub my hands over my belly and think "Oh, I wish I would have a contraction," and voila. Contraction. But even when I keep that up, labor doesn't kick in.

Today I planned out where my chicken coop and pig pen will be, come spring. Hopefully tromping all over the property got something moving.

Nope.

No, I have not had the baby yet.

Five says maybe there isn't a baby in there at all. She says it's just a watermelon. Beastie says it's not a baby, it's a donkey. And EJ just wants to know when it's coming out so she can show the baby to all her friends at school.

I've been nursing The Babe as frequently as possible, to hopefully get something going, but it isn't working. I did lose my mucus plug yesterday, but further research says that was just the result of my exam on Tuesday and doesn't mean a thing.

I'm eager to meet the baby. I'm eager to have my body back. But mostly, the reason I am so anxious to go into labor, is because I hate the not knowing. I hate not knowing when it will happen, or if it will happen. What if there is something wrong with me and I can't have babies without artificial induction? What if there's nothing wrong with me at all, and it happens so quickly that no one can get here?

The Hub can't have his cell phone on the floor at work, and they just got rid of their security company, so there's no main number I can call. He works in a factory so it's not easy to get ahold of him. What if, by the time I realize what's going on, it's too late for him to get home? What if he gets home and I've already had the baby?

Another thing that's bothering me is the phone calls. They're constant. Starting around 8:30 every morning, my entire family starts calling, wanting to know if the baby has been born. If it's not "Did you have the baby?", it's "Are you in labor?"

I feel like a watched pot that'll never boil.

Progress .... ?

Midwife appointment this morning. 4 centimeters dilated, 80% effaced. Baby is head down and in the pelvis but ballotable - not engaged. Yolanda predicts baby will be born Thursday....

Not Here.

Baby is not here. Baby is in there, kicking around and probably laughing at all the commotion it's causing out here.

Early in this pregnancy, I was given three due dates. The firs,t based on last menstrual period, was October 7th. We have obviously blown right by October 7th.
The next due date I was given was October 13th, by ultrasound. October 13th has been and gone for almost a week now.
The latest due date they gave me, also by ultrasound, was October 19th.
That's today, and there are no signs that baby is at all interested in joining the world of the breathing.

I read somewhere that, 24 to 48 hours before labor begins, babies stop making fetal breathing movements, thanks to large amounts of prostaglandins. This makes perfect sense, because if they were still practice breathing close to birth, they could aspirate a lot of fluid and mucus.

Fetal breathing movements feel like hiccups most of the time. I am now far enough along though that sometimes I can place my hand gently on my belly and feel the baby "breathe" in there. Once I felt the heartbeat and that was amazing. It lasted for maybe 30 seconds and then moved away - I think the baby had kind of smooshed it's cord against the uterine wall, so I was able to feel it.

Anyway, the baby gets hiccups every day at exactly the same time. I love feeling them, but these days they're just a reminder that labor has not yet begun, and is still at least 24 to 48 hours away.

Saturday night, the baby didn't get hiccups. I was ecstatic. I was sure labor would be starting soon.

Then yesterday I spent some quiet time sewing baby's quilt, reflecting on the end of pregnancy. I was actually feeling a little wistful about the hiccups thing. I almost cried, sitting there thinking that that had been the very last time I would ever feel a baby bumping away in there.

And then... thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. The little booger started hiccuping, almost on cue.

Patience.

"Patience is a virtue,
Possess it if you can;
Seldom found in woman,
Never found in man."

My mom used to say this all.the.time and it drove me completely batty. Looking back, I think she said it out of desperation, because I was not exactly the easiest child to raise, and though she was saying it to me, I think she was, in actuality, talking to herself.

Anyway. I am trying very, very hard to be virtuous. Having a baby is a huge life change, and while I'm completely sick of being pregnant and ready to be done, I know that the minute this child is born, I will regret spending the last weeks of my last pregnancy agonizing over the end.

So I'm telling myself that the baby will be born when the time is right. The baby knows it's birthday and is waiting for that day. The baby will not come one minute sooner than it's supposed to, whether that means it's born in the next 12 hours or the next 12 days.

Patience.

Waiting.

I had my Blessingway. The baby clothes are clean and folded. There are tiny little diapers stacked on the changing table. My birth kit is assembled. Everything is ready for a new little person.... but the new little person is still snug and warm and showing no signs of wanting to leave it's current home.

I'm kind of at my wit's end with being pregnant. I hurt. I feel like a Barbie doll - like you could just pull my legs right off. Sideways. My back is sore and I have trouble moving, especially if I've been sitting for awhile. I'm crabby and irritable. I'm sick of having to pee every thirty four seconds.

So... we wait. Baby will come when baby is ready. The midwife says the baby feels term and currently 8 or 9 pounds. The baby is posterior but has lots of room to move around still, and it really could be any day. I just hope it's sooner than later.

What the hell was THAT!?

This morning I woke up at 4, hurting. My stomach - like, the actual stomach part, where food goes - felt like it was full of lava. It hurt so, so bad. It made my back hurt, and it took my breath away.

I went into the bathroom on the other side of the house so I wouldn't wake anyone up, and laid in the bathtub and cried. (Laying in the bathtub and crying is good for whatever ails you.) It didn't help.

I had to go potty, but it was weird. Instead of getting those awful cramps you normally get when you have that problem, I felt nothing at all. Just "holy shit, I have to go now!"

After about an hour of laying in the tub, crying, getting out to go potty, and getting back in and crying, I found the pepto, drank some water, and tried to go to sleep.

You aren't supposed to take pepto during pregnancy because it contains aspirin, but I was desperate. It didn't help.

I laid in bed, shivering under the electric blanket, for hours. I couldn't go to sleep because my stomach hurt so bad.

Finally The Hub got up and, bless his heart, got EJ on the bus and all of that so I could lay in bed and cry. At some point I fell asleep and finally woke up around 10am. This is ridiculously late for me, and I feel really bad because I didn't get to hug and kiss EJ before she left for school.

Now my stomach feels a little better. I am starving but afraid to eat, because it seems like I felt worse after putting anything in my stomach.

I don't know what the hell that was all about but I hope I never feel that way again. Totally sucked.