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.

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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.