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. :)

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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.

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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.