Past Due

It's April 18 and I'm officially two days past due. It's a very strange feeling to be waiting around with very little to do. I'm trying to keep myself from falling into the grumpiness and weepiness that seems to afflict many pregnant women at this point. I've been reading Anna Karenina, sitting in coffee houses with Jeff, swimming occasionally, catching up on Sex & the City, trying to make myself feel pretty, seeing friends, and doing prenatal yoga when I feel up to it. It's very uncomfortable to walk. We've been getting 3-4 calls a day from people wondering what's up. I was born two weeks late, so I hope that I'm not in for that long of a wait myself... At this point I think I'm more excited about not being pregnant than about actually having the baby, which makes me feel guilty and makes me wonder if the baby is staying inside on purpose!

The Waiting Game

Last Thursday (April 7) was my last day at work, and I've now entered a strange twilight waiting period where I can't plan to do anything (at least not without saying "if I don't pop first.") I can't do anything very active, but I know the world is about to change dramatically and get very loud, demanding and entertaining. It's very strange. I'm kind of bored, but I feel like I should be appreciating these last quiet moments before the baby comes. It would be a good time to go on some sort of spiritual retreat, or start writing the Great American Novel. Instead, I've been cleaning - I've tackled the laundry room (made hardly a dent), the freezer, my closet, etc. etc.

I'm feeling pretty good, although my stomach really feels like it's about to burst into a fireworks show of strech marks because there's just no room left. I had a very painful displaced rib, or something like that, last week that made it hard to breathe in all the way. Luckily, that's gone. I've been sleeping OK, taking lots of naps, and absorbing novel after novel (including Anna Karenina, a murder mystery set in Rome, and Operating Instructions by Annie Lamott. The baby seems to be dropping gradually - I'm still feeling lots of kicks, though not as strong as they used to be, because there isn't much room in there anymore. I'm definitely ready to have my body back so I can get some exercise and start moving again. On the other hand I have a hard time believing I could go into labor at any time. I'm trying not to think about the pain that I will probably have to endure!

The house is about as ready as it's gonna get. We don't have a separate room for the baby at this point, so nothing to paint. (Eventually the kid will move downstairs to the current guest room). At the top of our stairs there's a large landing that has become the baby's space. We have a bureau filled with tiny clothes and a desk that I've converted to a changing area, which a huge supply of cloth diapers (one weeks' worth, which is SEVENTY diapers) all stacked in a neat wicker basket. We also have a bassinet that will attach to the bed for co-sleeping. It all seems so surreal right now, though!

So, that's the scoop here. Just waiting in a kind of surreal, bored, low-energy state for the Great Excitement to come. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if this baby is two weeks late. I may drive myself to the hospital and demand a C-section! I think the waiting would really begin to drive me crazy. And I'm not sure how much more my stomach can stretch out.