I think that 33 weeks was about my magic mark, me starting to hit that wall. Oh I haven’t hit it yet, but I can tell I’m getting closer. The whole past week I’ve been feeling increasingly pregnant: my lower back, and the exhaustion.

I slowed down. It’s obvious my ligaments are really loosening up, as my lower back keeps popping back into place. Last week it was every once in a while; this week it’s every time I stand up at work. Sometimes I have to squeeze my butt muscles and lean back a little to get it to audibly pop back. I even went to the chiropractor after 2 weeks (instead of my routine 4) in the hopes that would fix it. Days when I sit too long at a stretch, like during longer drives, I start getting an achy tingle down my left leg – definitely something pressing on a nerve. Well it helped, but it didn’t fix it. Things are just shifting and I’m going to have to stay on top of it. I’m going to have to start doing some pelvic rocks and other gentle stretches to make sure everything stays in alignment.

And the exhaustion… well, there’s two reasons for that. One is that I’m pregnant, working, and then coming home to help Den with the small house fix-ups we are trying to get done. All I do is hold things steady for him, get the screwdriver, sweep up the mess… but I feel like I just lifted everything myself. I was sitting down on the floor to watch him and every time I’d have to stand up again felt like I was lifting a bowling ball. Which, okay, is close to the truth – I’m carrying an extra 24lbs on my body and it’s not exactly evenly distributed. It’s not like I get stuck on the floor or anything, but it’s taking some extra effort to push myself up, if you know what I mean.

The other reason is the crappy-ass sleep I’ve been getting the last few nights. And it’s not because I’m sore or uncomfortable – after adjusting the position/type/number of pillows around me I’ve stopped getting that hip pain at night. But instead I’m suffering from plentiful, restless dreams, frequent night-wakings, and insomnia. The combination really sucks. It’s like I’m just not sinking deep enough into sleep anymore, I wake up all the time and then I can’t fall back asleep. Why I’m not tired at 3am is really a puzzle to me because I am exhausted during the day! I really wish I could curl up and take a nap, but unfortunately I have to work. I know this sleep thing is a very common problem and I’m lucky to have been having no problems up until this point.

Beyond that there’s really not many complaints I can make. I feel like at this point with Devin I was more uncomfortable – I remember crying one day because my legs ached so bad. I keep thinking about reading my journal to see, but I still haven’t done so. Especially that last week before we found out he died, it hurts me to read it, knowing what comes next. And right now I really don’t want to dwell on the loss – I’ll get myself too freaked out about this pregnancy. It’s one of those things that was fine with before, and I’ll deal with again later, but right now I just really need to block it out. In conversation Den and I both kind of slide around the topic of Devin’s death out of some unspoken understanding between us. We talk a lot about his pregnancy, we make comparisons, we remember fondly… but the moment something comes up about how he died, why he died, what it was like when he died… we both fall silent, memories rushing back, and I put my hand on my belly to reassure myself that all is okay this time.

There are many reasons I look forward to the next month. Up until now my experience of pregnancy stopped at 35 weeks 5 days. I was days away from being able to say, “4 weeks left!” I never got to find out what it was like to count down to the end, to really get miserable, to actually reach the end. My pregnancy just got… cut off. I wasn’t done yet. So now… now I eagerly look forward. This is a gift, a second chance. And even though it means I’m going to get very sore, very tired, and possibly very miserable… I look forward to every day of it.

This whole sleep thing? I could really use more of it. I have several things working against me:

* Heartburn. Oh good god, the heartburn. Some nights it’s minor. Some, like tonight, I feel like my throat is going to burn to a crispy pile of AGGHHH. Every time I roll over I get another wave of acid reflux that chokes me. And I need to roll over many times.

* Dreams and REM sleep. So one of the books I was reading mentioned how pregnant women dream more vividly and more often because their sleep patterns change – more REM sleep, less deep, sound sleep. So I’m waking frequently, which is so not like me. The dreaming started long ago, but this waking every hour thing is new. I’m not a fan.

* Peeing and contractions. Yes, these actually do go hand-in-hand. When I contract I need to pee really bad. And when my bladder is full I contract more. So there is a lot of middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom. It’s a pain in the ass. I dislike having my bladder be constantly squeezed like a lemon.

* The dogs. We have yet to buy them a new dog bed for the bedroom and the price we pay is a huge german shepherd on our bed. Despite Den’s planning and cajoling, he still prefers to sleep on my side of the bed, since I take up much less space than my sprawled-out husband. Unfortunately I NEED that space to be able to shift around and turn over 100 times a night – it is taking more effort to turn the belly over than ever. Zeeke does not understand this. So every half an hour (or so it seems) I have to wake up, kick the dog, hiss, “MOVE!,” he jumps down, I roll over, he jumps back up, we fall back asleep. This is not fun for either of us. I think he’s started rolling his eyes at me.

I am getting slightly cranky at night.

I can definitely feel my anxiety rising. I don’t even feel like I want to say anything too loudly, I just want to fade into the floor for this entire coming week. Everything is going so well, we’re both so healthy… I just want to say shhhh, don’t jinx it. Don’t say a word. Just hold my breath until I get to 36 weeks.

::

I think the anxiety is putting more on edge than usual – more on edge than even hormones can really explain (although hormones explain an awful lot).

Yesterday was a fantastic example. I worked a crazy, busy morning until noon. My lower back was aching, but I knew I had very little food left in the fridge. So I went grocery shopping. Of course I forgot stuff, but I got the basics. I get home and was very relieved that Denis was home, he could bring in the groceries so I could put them away.

Now by this point – end of the week, busy day, not sleeping well – I was nearly falling over tired. It was all I could do to keep one foot in front of the other and I knew damn well that if I sat down I was done for, that was it for the day. And I needed to get the damn groceries put away before I could collapse. So I walk in and ask Den to bring in the groceries. He was watching something on TV so said, “Sure, just let me finish watching this.” Which NORMALLY is fine. NORMALLY doesn’t bother me (much). But, as I said, I was swaying on my feet and the thought of staying awake for another 15 minutes was upsetting me.

In the kitchen there was dishes in the sink, so I cleaned those. The floor was dirty, so I swept. Then I thought, fuck this, and laid down on the bed. But my back was aching. All I wanted to do was take a nap, and I couldn’t even do that! I went to take a bath… and the bathroom had a couple things out of place – okay, so I lost my temper and totally chucked a book into the hallway with a thump. By then Den had noticed that something wasn’t quite right with me. He got the groceries in, then came to check on me – and found me sitting naked in the bathtub, eyes red, nose running, sobbing pathetically as I slumped over my big belly in the water. Oh, yes, it was most certainly pathetic. And even as I sat there I was thinking, There is no good reason for this! But I felt like an overtired two year old who skipped a nap: I’m tired physically, I’m tired emotionally, and I just need to have a tantrum for no good reason.

I didn’t even end up taking a nap. I had my bath, and then chilled in my recliner for a couple of hours in silence (the recliner was working far better for my back than laying on my side). After that I felt much, much better and even found the energy to do a little bit more nesting. I apparently just needed a meltdown and then some downtime to recharge my batteries.

::

For the most part I marvel at the similarities in my two pregnancies, in how familiar this feels. I’m carrying pretty much the same; they both were head down well before 30 weeks; they both liked the right side of my ribs with their little feetsies; my boobs did not grow to insane proportions… and so on. But there are certain ailments that I am getting this time that I did not have last time, such as the horrific heartburn keeping me up all night. And now…. cankles.

I guess it was just one of those things that I figured other people get that I don’t. Maybe I’d get some swelling right near my due date, I thought…. maybe. But naively, I kept telling myself that it wasn’t going to happen to me. So yesterday morning when I woke up and was trying to swing myself out of bed I happened to catch a glance at my ankle and frowned at it. Didn’t I use to have more actual ankle? Wasn’t I bonier before? It looks… puffy. Shit.

Last night while I was having my sob-fest in the bathtub I lifted my leg out of the water and decided: yes, they are definitely turning into cankles. While Den was kneeling beside me, listening to me sob about nothing of any consequence, I ended by lifting that leg back out of the water and whining in the most childish voice ever, “And I have cankles!” He looked down at my foot, then back up at my face. “Oh honey, they’re just swollen.” I moaned, “That’s what cankles ARE!” And then he started laughing, which started me laughing, and suddenly it all just seemed funny as hell.

Note that my feet aren’t swollen – just from the ankle up to my knee. The whole calf area, basically. Not helping, I’m sure, is my sock addiction. I like funky, colorful socks, and I’m also a wee bit obsessive about where they fall on my leg: my socks must be pulled up as far as they will go, typically hitting mid-calf. They are not allowed to sag down either, which means they’re pretty tight. Yeah, so tonight when I pulled off my socks for bed I gasped at the deep indent they left in my calf. They have always left a small mark from the elastic, but this was something else entirely. Yikes. I’m not sure what to do about this, because like I said, I cannot stand slouchy socks, and I can’t wear sandals to work. Other than drinking more water and attempting to put my feet up a little bit more, of course.

The exhaustion that I knew was lurking right around the corner has finally hit. Unfortunately it has not diminished my need for nesting, which is putting me in awkward position. I am, quite simply, tired. I am still working 6 days a week. Granted Mondays and Saturdays are half-days and Tuesdays I have my appointments in the middle of the day, but I’m starting to realize that this just isn’t working for me anymore. Every day having to get up and be somewhere is just taking its toll… and unfortunately that toll is generally taken out on Denis, as evidenced by Saturday’s end-of-the-week meltdown tantrum. By the time I come home on Saturday I just feel like I’m running on the last dregs of my energy, fighting to keep my eyes open and get done what needs to be done.

Stupidly it took me a while to realize that if I enter labor and new parenthood already at the end of my reserves it’s going to get nasty. Now I’m trying to figure out when I should stop working, and how I can cut back now.

The thing is I’m really struggling with a superwoman complex about it all – which is a little ridiculous, considering my personality type (read: LAZY). But I see other people working until they go into labor, I saw my coworkers all do it, so I feel like I’m failing or taking the easy way out. But then I remind myself that most women don’t have a choice in the matter, they only get 6 weeks maternity leave and it starts when they stop working. I have the huge luxury of being a SAHM when this baby comes and whether or not I stop 2 weeks before my date it doesn’t change anything – although of course I don’t get paid for those 2 weeks. (And yes, there’s a part of me that says It’s not that bad, work for a few more days just to get that money.)

The other thing I’m concerned about is being home waiting to go into labor. I worry that it will make time slow down and I’ll have too much time to over-think things and get impatient. One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed working 6 days a week through all of IVF and pregnancy is that at least the time flies by pretty quickly.

But in the end it comes down to what will be best for me and baby girl, and I think taking some time to decompress and unwind before she arrives would be a very good thing for us all. My constant contractions and swelling ankles are just little reminders that I need to slow down a little bit. So right now what I’m looking at is working up until May 14th (at which time I’ll be 38w3d), and then be done. And for the next four weeks I think I’m going to ask for Wednesdays off – at least that gives me one day mid-week to recoup myself, sleep, and get things done… and maybe that will help carry me through Saturdays. In a year it won’t matter what day I stopped working… but giving birth with a rested body will make a difference.

::

Today I had another NST and appointment. I technically wasn’t supposed to have an appointment with the Midwife today, but it never got changed from when that other midwife muddled up all my appointments. I don’t have to push any buttons or anything during a NST, just lay back in the bed, and so I basically just closed my eyes and nearly fell asleep… I probably would have, had the speakers not been so loud, her heartbeat is distracting (because I keep wanting to crane my head to see what the number is!).

First of all – and most importantly – baby Kate’s heartrate strip looked great. The contraction monitor, on the other hand, is showing even more than last week’s – though I’m still not feeling the majority of them, the little ones. The big ones, yeah, I feel those. The nurse and Midwife both basically said, “We’ll just pretend we didn’t see those,” because they know it’s been going on for a week and a half now and I haven’t gone into labor or anything. It’s just what my uterus is doing this time around. Fun.

The appointment schedule I had said that my appointment was to be with new-Midwife-who-didn’t-read-my-chart, so imagine my surprize when I’m laying back in the little room during my NST and Favorite-Midwife walks in with my chart in hand. I have written in my chart “prefers Favorite-Midwife,” and she knows it, so I’m wondering if she switched so she could see me.

The topic of this appointment was indeed labor and delivery. I handed over my birth plan, she read it over and said that nothing in it is a problem at all. The only reason I’d need an IV is if I test positive for GBS (group B strep), in which case I’d have the IV put in for the antibiotics, then they’d disconnect me and just leave the hep lock in. Which is fine with me. And since I want the option to use the labor tub I have to remember to request that when I’m checking in (there’s only one – apparently it’s not used much).

Midwife mentioned that while my contractions aren’t labor, they may very well be softening and preparing my cervix – so when real labor does hit, it could go even quicker. She asked how my last one went, I told her induction and 6 hours from start to finish. I also told her that I’ll probably be heading in a little early this time, just in case it does go faster, and she just nodded and said that was not unreasonable! She also later said when we were booking future appointments that the chance of me still being pregnant by the end of May is “pretty slim.” She decided to do the GBS swab this week instead of next, just in case.

I just really feel like I’m entering an out-of-body experience with all this getting ready for labor to deliver a live baby. (Of course delivering a dead baby really was a fully out-of-body experience in the worst way… this is different.) It all feels so… normal. Here I am, ready to have this baby. Packing my hospital bag – packing her clothes. Getting a carseat installed, setting up the cosleeper. It’s all just so… surreal.

I made a mistake last week. All this time I have avoided reading anything in this blog back from the time I was pregnant with Devin, but I keep wondering how accurate my memory really is. When I start thinking, “Devin never did this!” and “I think Devin was positioned in this way…” I wish I had something easy to refer back to. So one night I just wanted to see. So I flipped back to February 2008 – far enough, I thought, to avoid that first week of March, to avoid any mention of the strange things that week before he died. Well I was wrong. I landed smack dab on a post about how much his movements had changed, how big he must be getting. So clueless, so naive. I stopped reading. I can’t go there right now. And it’s not out of concern for Kate – it’s guilt. Guilt that I should have gone in, guilt that I should have known better, guilt that somehow I should have figured out that he wasn’t okay in there. No matter what I rationally know, no matter what people tell me that it wouldn’t have made a difference, I will never get away from that guilt.

Kate is clearly demonstrating that babies do not suddenly stop moving at 35 weeks. In fact she has me completely amazed every night that she can be that active in there. Every night she does her octopus dance, legs kicking in rapid succession on one side of my belly while her fists punch me down below. I’m trying to spend more time sitting at my desk leaning forward, rather than in bed leaning back, because I’m pretty certain she’s anterior right now (sunny side up) judging by how her feet move all over my belly. Well she doesn’t like me slouching in the least – she never has, but now she pushes against my ribs when I do it. She’s not under my ribs – my uterus is still just below my ribcage, for the most part – but when she kicks upward she likes to push her foot out on the outside of my ribs, a big lump sticking out. At least I can put my hand there and hold her down so it’s not too uncomfortable!

::

I interviewed a Pediatric practice today. They are a larger practice with long hours and available sick appointments, even walk-in hours every morning. They are also very close by, which is great. Their attitude is very pro-breastfeeding, though they don’t have a Lactation Consultant on staff yet (they recommend the LCs at the hospital and LLL of course). I told him I plan to breastfeed for at least a year and he said, “Great!” The downside – which I expected – was of course they are very pro-vaccination. Which would be a huge problem if I wasn’t planning to vaccinate at all, but for the most part all I want to do is delay some and space them out, which he said they would certainly work with us about. It just bothered me that when I mentioned it he kind of gave me a, “Oh… what have you been reading?” Just the attitude of… sigh, another one of those. But I get that attitude from our vets all the time so I’m used to it. At least I have one more thing checked off my list.

::

I’ve been reading through all the books I have about pregnancy, labor and birth, and for the most part I’m not very excited by any of them. All of my pregnancy books are basically summaries of everything I already know. The birth sections are basic and short. Not helpful. So far the one that seems to be the most helpful is The Birth Partner, which is meant for, yes, the labor coach/doula. But I’m finding that it has a lot of very helpful information in it, such as how to recognize different stages of labor, what can be helpful in terms of position and support, information about when labor doesn’t follow the traditional model (like a slow labor, really fast labor, some minor complications, etc). I read a few pieces to Den, but mostly I’m just trying to take in the knowledge myself. I’ve marked out some charts and info sections in case I feel like I need to look something up when I’m in labor (or if I feel that Den needs to look something up, lol). I’m going to bring it with me as well as a breastfeeding book.

::

Den set up the cosleeper. It was a project that looked very simple – I mean, it’s mostly already assembled, right? Just need to pop it open, attach some liners and stuff? – and yet so was not. It may have been the most annoying one so far. The instructions had little tiny diagrams of some parts, with mostly written instructions such as, “Lift lower bar.” What is the lower bar? How the fuck do you lift it? DETAILS, PEOPLE! So there was an awful lot of puzzlement and banging on things until the “ah-ha” moment when you find the right thing and suddenly NOW the instructions make sense. Now that we’ve done it once we could probably do it again in about one-third of the time. So now we have a cosleeper sitting in our bedroom – in the corner, I didn’t feel the need to attach it to the bed yet making it even harder for me to get in and out, Den can attach it while I’m in the hospital with Kate. It’s bigger than we expected. And, it looks really fucking cool sitting in our bedroom like some normal thing for a couple expecting to actually bring home a baby in a few weeks.

“I hope the dogs don’t try to sleep in it,” Den said as we stared at it with a sense of accomplishment and contentment. One side is down, ready to sidecar to the bed – the same height as the bed. “Errr,” I said. It did rather look like a couch – or very expensive dog bed. But the dogs sniffed it with minor interest – we’ve been moving things around and setting up new fancy objects for the last few weeks, what’s one more says they. Both dogs climbed up onto our bed and fell asleep. But 3am I was half-awake after having rolled over, stuck between asleep and awake, unable to drop right back off (this is normal for me, lately). And I heard a sound, a sound of paws. “GET OFF!!!” I roared, sitting bolt upright. Zeeke froze where he was, still on the ground but with his two front paws in the cosleeper. “Where, what, huh??” Denis jumped out of bed and flicked on the light. Sooooo the cosleeper is now turned the other way, dropped side facing the wall. (Note that were all 4 sides up there’s no way he’d be able to even attempt it, and once it’s attached to the bed to the bed he’d have to go through me and that aint happening. Dogs will not be allowed on the bed once Kate is here. It’s just that it was sitting there in the corner, accessible and unused, and who can blame him for looking for a nice place to sleep? But now he knows it isn’t his!)

Well Mommy needed to practice, and I was an appropriate-sized fill-in. She wanted to try this cloth diapering thing out.

That’s it for now! Maybe mommy will have more to show off another day.

Trying to dramatically stomp through a room is rather difficult when you have both a bad foot cramp and a contraction. It looks more like a very drawn-out, disgruntled waddle. It did, however, give me plenty of time to let loose a muttered, incomprehensible rant that sounded something along the lines of, “fucking laptop…. foot cramp…. burping up bananas!!” (He wisely just watched me, wide-eyed, and didn’t say anything.)

::

The time seems so short now. The days creep closer to May and everything just feels more real… more immediate. The other day Den said out loud what I have been thinking all week: last time at this same point in the pregnancy everything still felt so far away, but this time it feels right around the corner. Maybe because last time we were absolutely convinced I was going to go overdue, we had nothing really prepared. This pregnancy, well, this is when it all slammed to a halt last time, so we’re all too aware of how things can change in an instant. Plus all these nice little “practice contractions” are making us aware that it really could be any time now. It’s probably a good thing to have little reminders knocking on the door.

I have 3 weeks left of working. And, realistically, she could come a little before or a little after that. 3 weeks. Holy crap. I feel excited and totally pumped up to tackle labor and bring this baby home… but then I’m scared of the unknowns and struggling with the worries of becoming a new parent. I know people do it all the time – but I’ve never done it. I’ve never had to change diapers, get up five times a night to breastfeed. I’ve never felt personally and directly responsible for a human being’s entire life. It’s a little terrifying.

At least I’ve been through labor before – but I am still a little nervous about that, too. I’m doing what I can to prepare myself for the possibility that labor will not be at all the same as last time. In some ways it feels scarier than last time because last time I had the kind of confidence that only someone who has never actually experienced something can have: I took the class, I read the books, I knew what to do. Now I read those books and snort at how pat and simple things sound in a book. “May become confused and scared during transition,” does not quite do justice to how it felt to struggle with the pain of changing contractions, my body shaking uncontrollably, as I thought for sure I had completely lost control. I’m not scared of doing it again – I’m scared that I’ll be expecting one thing and my body will take a totally different path. I spend my time reading books and trying to prepare myself for all eventualities.

As eager as I am to experience it all, I am not getting cervical checks, and I am not going to be doing anything to try to get labor started (sex, walking, evening primrose oil). I guess I just feel like my labor will start when my body is ready, and I don’t want to do anything to try to force it. I feel very peaceful about it, really.

I really feel myself drawing away from the world. I am introverted to begin with, even more so when pregnant and tired; all pregnancy I have had a limited amount of energy for being around other people. But now I feel like my entire focus is shifting inward, downward. I have an ever-growing pile of books beside my bed, every one of them about babies, labor and pregnancy. I feel far less concerned about anything outside my little bubble. Situations at work that would at one point have caused me stress barely register anymore. It’s hard to even maintain my focus at work – all I can think about is how is this isn’t going to matter a month from now. But I am also far more irritable than ever before – I have a short temper, and emotional outbursts – including tears – are not at all uncommon. While extraneous things do not bother me much at all, anything that even remotely concerns the baby is A Big Deal.

We decided it’s time to ban the dogs from the bed. I am thrilled – I need my entire half of the bed to sleep and his presence was causing me to wake up more frequently than I already am. (Pregnant ladies need their sleep, trust me!) Zeeke is not taking it well. I don’t know which is worse, him stealing half of my side of the bed every night or the pacing back and forth he’s been doing for the last hour. (He’s spent most of his years NOT being allowed on the bed, this was a recent privilege granted in the past year. He’ll figure it out after a few nights of this whining and pacing. If we survive it.)

::

After we crawled into bed for our evening talk-and-cuddle Denis says to me, “You did really well today! You didn’t even bite my head off for anything!” I guess that’s a pretty good sign that pregnancy hormones are in full swing. (I told him my good mood was entirely because he emptied the sink of dirty dishes before I got home from work. If he believes it maybe he’ll do it again!)

::

There has been a thread of anxiety winding through me this week, most strongly today – and I imagine tomorrow as well. Tomorrow will be 35 weeks 5 days, the exact gestation when Devin was stillborn. Logically I know that the chance of something terrible happening on the exact same day is pretty much infinitesimal. My head knows that. My heart, however, is extremely jumpy. Every time I notice that the baby’s not moving right at this very second I feel a little hitch in my breathing. Logic is overridden; I poke around until I feel her little foot move. I feel bad that I’m harassing her, but hopefully this is a temporary thing. Hopefully once I get past this weekend I can breathe a little easier.

But still, the anxiety is not consuming. In fact it is still far easier than the first trimester ever was, simply because I do have the ability to check in with her, to feel movement any time of day, to provoke a response. The first trimester was before movement, before dopplers could pick up a heartbeat, and I had to wait weeks between ultrasounds. Those weeks felt like entire lifetimes. So I am encouraged that I am not nearly as scared or panicky as I was then.

I stop and think about how this was as far as I got with Devin. This was it, the end of the pregnancy, the end of the journey. I can’t quite wrap my brain around the fact that I am that far – even though we have bags packed, baby gear set up, birth plan in place. I still don’t feel done. I wonder if I ever will. I hold my belly at night, feeling her kick and move inside me, and wish I could freeze this feeling like a photograph memorializes a vision. I want this memory preserved in a box forever. It’s hard – and a little sad – because in order to move forward I am going to have to let go. Motherhood will be its own amazing experience. But this, this is unique, precious.

I have a professional photographer coming to take my maternity pictures on Wednesday afternoon. I am hopeful that she will find a way to give me a piece of what I am searching for, a way to keep forever a piece of this pregnancy, a reminder of its beauty and love.

The other day I ran across a homebirth blinkie that proudly stated, “Baby will be born where baby was conceived!” I stopped for a moment and then bust out laughing. All I could think was, So will mine be! – in the hospital!

Ahhh, the joys of an IVF baby. :)

::

Yesterday was a hard day. Of all days, 35w5d had to fall on a Sunday. Every other day of the week I get up, I get showered, I go to work. I am occupied, I am busy – and when I come home and finally relax, Kate has a happy little dance inside. We have a routine, and it’s predictable and reassuring.

Sundays I don’t go to work. It’s my day off, my day to catch up on sleep, housework, and just take a much-needed break. I napped, I watched TV, I poked around online, I read. And Kate? Well, she slept a lot. I did not take that well.

It was apparent from the start of the day that my anxiety was strung pretty tight, much higher than usual. No need to ask why. No breakdowns, no tears, no temper fits… just a shadow of paranoia that hung over me all day long. It was a day where all of those paranoid thoughts hung around a little too long, rather than passing on through like usual. I couldn’t let them go. And the thing was, Kate was moving, she was reactive. But every hour I would realize she wasn’t at that very moment kicking me and suddenly my hands would get clammy and I’d have to jostle her awake again. Then of course, since I just woke her up for the tenth time, she’d boot me hard twice and fall back asleep. And that’s pretty much how it went all day, me trying to get her moving, and her trying to sleep.

By the end of the evening my paranoia had progressed past the “is she alive?” state. She was moving consistently, I did my kick counts (which were fine), but then I started thinking, her movement is all low today… what if she turned breech? Then I worried about that the rest of the night.

It was all very silly, I mean I knew where the anxiety was coming from. But yet I still couldn’t stop the thoughts from whittling in. It was a very frustrating, uptight day.

::

Today was back to work and Kate is back to her schedule – and seems to be well rested, judging by how active she’s been this evening. I love it. I don’t know if anyone can appreciate a foot jab to the ribs quite like I do. I jump and wince and people look at my sympathetically and I want to say, You have no idea how awesome this is! As long as she’s alive. (And feet to the ribs also means she’s definitely not breech.)

Thankfully I felt my anxiety drain away today, back to how it was earlier last week. I’m still a little uptight about things, but good kick counts are very reassuring. I also have a NST and ultrasound tomorrow, which should settle me further.

It’s past midnight, so I am officially 36 weeks now. Welcome to the last 4 weeks.

One problem with a May baby: road construction. They have decided to do highway construction right at the exits we need to take to get to the hospital. The lanes are all messed up and split and you HAVE to be in the correct lane or whoosh, there goes the exit to the hospital and you can’t get to it. What a pain in the ass. I don’t even see what the hell they’re doing, anyways, it was fine how it was. Don’t they know I’m having a baby?!

::

This has not been a good week for a multitude of reasons, none of which involve the baby, some of which I may talk about later. My appointment in the middle of Tuesday was hectic as hell – Denis busted ass to get there for the ultrasound, but happily was able to make it – but in the end everything is good with the baby. And as shitty as the rest of the week can get – and it can get very shitty, just for the record – at least the baby is okay. It’s my little mantra in life now: As long as the baby is okay. The rest I can deal with. I can laugh at the stupid shit, I can try to get a grip on the really bad shit, but it’s fine, I’ll deal with it.

The appointment started off with a NST like usual, and as usual her heartbeat was right where it always is and beating merrily in the 150’s. I spend my time in my NST jotting down notes in my notebook about questions to ask the Midwife, to-do lists, and other such things. Favorite Midwife poked her head into my little curtained room and asked, “Anything happening today??” She was the Midwife-on-call apparently and wanted to see if maybe she’d end up with me. But alas, no. But it did make me smile.

Then Not-So-Favorite Midwife came in with my chart. And, funny enough, now that she knows my full history and situation she was far more pleasant and less irritating. We talked mainly about my birth plan, confirming that my requests are fully reasonable and actually most of them are standard practice at this hospital. They even allow drink and food during labor (unless they are suspecting you are going to have a c-section soon). They don’t do episiotomies except in the very very rare emergency situation. They’re very supportive of breastfeeding, rooming-in, bonding immediately after birth (baby on my chest immediately, delayed procedures), delayed cord cutting. They don’t get a lot of women looking for a natural birth so I’ll have to remind them that I don’t want pain meds, but they are totally fine with that and have a multitude of other things available (birth ball, squat bar, labor tub). They do intermittent baby monitoring every half-hour, and even if I was in a situation where baby needs constant monitoring they have telemetry monitors available so I can stay mobile. All in all I am extremely happy with this hospital – which I expected, after Devin’s birth.

So the NST results were good, I’m measuring right on target, my weight was on target and my blood pressure good and normal. My Group-B Strep swab (which was done last week) came back negative so there is no reason I need an IV! And off I got shuffled to my Ultrasound.

I have to say, Ultrasounds are getting less and less reassuring for me. It used to be so so good to see a live baby on the screen, and the chance of getting some good pictures was exciting. Now I already know the baby is alive and well (especially when I come directly from a NST), the chance of getting a good picture is slim to none (she’s smooshed in there), and all that’s left is me worrying that they’re going to find something scary. All those internal organs, I don’t know what they are. Are they supposed to be there? Are they all in the right places? What the hell are we looking at here? Is everything measuring well? Well I still don’t know what all those black spots in her are, but everything is measuring just fine. Kate was doing a lot of practice breathing, her belly moving in and out, which was causing the u/s tech to smile and have to re-measure four times. So even more than usual, her weight estimate of 5lb 11oz is very much just an estimate – but it’s enough to show she’s growing well and is still smack in the middle of average. I like average.

Unfortunately (for me) the ultrasound confirmed what I’ve been thinking all along: this baby is very happily posterior. Which means her spine is up against my spine, her feet and hands are all facing my belly – which is why I feel SO much all the time. And also why I can’t really feel any large body parts most days – here I was thinking I was going insane because I couldn’t figure out how she was laying in there, all I could find were legs and feet and hands! Well duh, that WAS the answer… that’s all that’s up front, her torso is deep down. Why is this an issue? Well because if I happen to go into labor with her still posterior it’s definitely not ideal – you want the baby’s back up against your belly, with baby facing your spine, for her to fit neatly and easily into your pelvis for birth. A posterior baby – often referred to as “sunny side up” is going to mean a longer labor, and more painful. For someone who is planning an unmedicated birth this is not exactly happy news. Certainly not end-of-the-world news, but it makes me grimace. So to try to get her to flip over I am no longer going to be reclining happily in bed with my laptop (my most favorite thing to do in the whole world), or reclining in my recliner watching TV. I’m stuck at my desk (ugh, how mundane), leaning forward. The Midwife suggested washing all the floors in the house on my hands and knees – frequently. I’m going to be doing the stretches listed on the Spinning Babies website. Basically I need to be leaning forward as much as possible, letting gravity pull her body forward instead of back. Of course I know that there’s a chance she’ll spin on her own before labor starts (I’m pretty sure Devin was posterior until that last week when he suddenly felt far more forward and heavy)… but I’m going to try what I can to encourage her. I’m also wondering if my placenta’s position (in the front) has an effect… I read somewhere about babies preferring to face the placenta. I know she has always preferred it.

::

All in all I’m feeling very good for having only 4 weeks left. I have no pubic pain; very very little hip pain; some lower back tightness but the chiropractor is really helping keep that in control. My biggest problem this week is my upper back and neck, and I think that’s stress (and posture) related – I made an appointment to get a massage on Saturday. My description of “cankles” was a bit of an exaggeration – most people looking at my feet wouldn’t see anything wrong at all, I’m just used to my ankles being very bony and they’re not so much anymore (and my socks do leave bigger indents). The heartburn is thankfully taking the week off, except for the one night I had lasagna for dinner. I’m still waking up frequently at night, both for pee breaks and for no reason at all, but I sleep well in between the waking. That hip pain at night has not returned, for which I am very thankful!

I am busy, I do push myself, but I’m also trying really hard to respect my body and treat it well. I go to the chiropractor, I get massages (though this is the first one I’ve needed in months), I stretch, I sleep with pillows. I try to eat well (but fail sometimes, like today). I am so so thankful that my body does this pregnancy thing well. I am lucky, and I know it. I’m still waiting to see what the next few weeks hold for me. Could be full of fun surprises.