it doesn't seem possible that we've reached "full term". today i am 37 full weeks pregnant. three weeks until my due date. if you passed me on the street you could still miss the fact that i am a human incubator. two moves in 2.5 months makes it pretty hard to gain excessive amounts of weight, and i carry small anyhow. you should see the looks on people's faces when they ask how far along i am. i'm convinced that most of them think i am either lying or exaggerating.
from the side
from the front-ish
as we're counting down days (and sometimes hours or minutes!) i find myself reflecting back to this point in my pregnancy with jp. the differences are so vast. there was so much anxiety with jp, and frustration. my pre-eclampsia was being all but dismissed by midwives who were so sure that their years of experience overrode my knowledge of my own body. i was bored and far too focused on the unknowns inside my tummy and the unknowns that surround a first time pregnancy and labor. i over-thought EVERYTHING. my hormones were wildly out of control (something i did not fully realize until a few months after jp was born. i apologized to e repeatedly). jp was a very strong baby who was not shy about letting me know that he had run out of what he considered adequate space. he bruised me from the inside more than once (that notion held true after delivery. we expected a typical newborn--always curled up, limbs tight. he began sprawling out in his sleep almost immediately). i was desperate to have him out, to hold him, to be his mommy and have our family. and 2 days from where i am right now, my wish came true through a nightmarish labor that was induced because my pre-eclampsia (you know, the thing i had been trying to warn the midwives about for weeks) had flared up to a level that a doctor considered "more hostile for your baby than life outside your womb". we began induction at 37w2d and he was born at 37w4d, measuring at about the size of a 36 week-er and not breathing at all. he spent the first 12 hours of his life under an oxygen hood. in recovery, after he was born, my blood pressure capped out in the 170s/120s. it was a bit traumatizing.
obviously entirely worth it though, don't get me wrong!!! and he was fine, just a bit traumatized from the birth as well. but it wasn't something i wanted to relive, ever.
so i've been nervous throughout this pregnancy, keeping an eye on anything that might have seemed strange or indicative of a rising problem. there were several things that caught my attention- uncharacteristically low blood pressure, high heart rate, dizzy spells. then i had the seizure and the glucose test and a simple diet change turned the whole pregnancy around. my blood pressure leveled out, as did my heart rate. the dizzy spells we all but gone. my mood seemed to even out as did my energy levels. the pregnancy itself, if isolated from all of the outside events of our lives this last month or so, has been absolutely amazing.
for the last 2 weeks i have complained about the discomfort (there's a lot!) but i have consistently said that i just want a little more time with him in my belly. not because i enjoy the feeling of being pregnant, but because i'm just not quite ready yet. a lot of that had to do with wanting to be sure we had internet set up before he came (i know that seems silly, but it's my easiest form of mass communication with everyone!). this week jp and i are both ill and that is my new reason for wanting some more time.
truth be told, i think what it really comes down to is this: may, june, and the first half of july were painful for us as a family. things were sort of falling apart at the seams. i felt as though i watched all of the dreams i've held on to for the last 3 years be stripped away from me, one by one. i turned into a monster, a person that i regret my husband having to live with and my child having to suffer through.
e will tell you it wasn't that bad. he's lying.
and then we had the "incident" and i went from being what i can only characterize as a royal bitch to nerve-wracked mess.
we have finally settled back into a peaceful, enjoyable routine. i feel creative again, and calm. i feel normal. jp has gone through a round of teething and now this cold, so he's been extra cuddly. i feel no need to change anything right now.
it's not that i don't want another baby, please don't misunderstand. i am so ready to welcome another sweet, precious boy into our lives, to join the leagues of extraordinary women surrounded by testosterone :) i'm curious to meet this little man and get to know him and his very distinct personality. i'm looking forward to pictures of all of "my boys" and watching jp with his little brother. i'm so looking forward to the bonding of breastfeeding again and the tender hold of a moby wrap. i can't wait to ogle over every developmental milestone.
but i can't lie: i'm enjoying every second of the life we have now with just the three of us. it's the love of this life that prompted us to have another child. we cherish being a family. i know my heart will swell and open wider than it is now and i will be even happier than i can imagine. but i'm in no rush for that expansion. it will come when it's supposed to, and no sooner. and i'm at peace with that. if it happens in the next few days i'll admittedly be upset- i don't want to be in labor with a cold!! but ultimately, this weekend or 3 weeks from now on my due date, it's really irrelevant to me.
which is good, because it's also not up to me!
what i've learned in this last trimester, amidst all the chaos, is that the best i can do is focus on my family in the here and now, giving them the best of myself daily and enjoying as much of them as possible before the sun sets. i will fail sometimes, but for the most part, this is a pretty easy goal. how could i want to give anything less than my best to people like this:
