Monday, September 14, 2009
Monday, Monday
I finally got a set of poems ready for submission to journals! Suki helped. I will walk the envelopes to the mailbox later. Cross your fingers for me--and the waiting begins. (It can take up to 4 or 5 months to hear back from these journals.)
In other news, The Wiggle Baby has a new name. Besides Amelia, which we can't seem to call her yet. Really, we just call her "the baby." But also, she is now The Baby Wad.
This appealing name is due to her new move, which is to wad herself up in a ball on the upper right side of my uterus. She has limited space as it is, so I am not sure why she likes to curl up in one spot like that. Honestly, it is not comfortable for mama. Dean pointed out that curling up in a small ball IS called "the fetal position."
Despite the way it feels, anyway, she must be a bit more stretched out than she feels to me, because at my doctors appointment last week I learned that her head was "way down there." The doctor said this as he was checking my cervix for dilation, a super fun and comfortable process, let me tell you. He said my cervix felt "at least half effaced" but never actually said if I was dilated. I got distracted with his explanation of why it was good the baby's head was down: "It can wear away your cervix now and make labor shorter." Right on! I'm for it.
Sometimes I can FEEL that her head is "way down there," another interesting feeling. I've been having crampish feelings that may be digestion-related (there's not a lot of space for anything but baby), or maybe Braxton Hicks contractions? I really don't know. They're not debilitating or regular, or associated with any blood or fluid loss, so I assume I'm fine.
We did a few more baby prep errands yesterday. Dean installed the diaper sprayer in the downstairs bathroom and we made the harrowing trip to the NoVA (that's Northern Virginia) Target to pick up some odds and ends. I am still at a loss regarding cloth baby wipes, and we have to figure out how exactly we are going to handle the diaper pail. Other than that, I really think we are almost all the way ready. As ready as we can be, anyway.
Dean and I have both been feeling a little restless. It's strange to think that the baby could come SOON or that we could still have 3 or 4 weeks to go. I'm kind of impatient but don't want her to come TOO early. My due date is officially 3 weeks from today. My mom has predicted an early baby. Dean said today that he thinks she will come "at the end of next week." And from the beginning I thought that September 25 would be a good day to have a baby. (It rhymes with my birthday, November 25.) If you'd like to cast your bets, now is the time.
I have been feeling alternately brave and anxious about the delivery. I took a "birth plan" to my appointment on Friday and discussed some things with the doctor, which was reassuring. He is agreeable to all of my preferences except he says I have to wear the baby monitoring thing around my waist once I am 5 cm dilated because the nurses are too busy to come in and monitor with a Doppler as they could if you were at a birthing center. I suppose I can live with that. He says you can still move around with it on. And at the time I figure I can always make a fuss if I decide to. Surely you can wear it intermittently? Besides the mobility issue, I've read that the monitors can make doctors and nurses think something is wrong when there isn't. Who knows. I've cut myself off from reading any books written by midwives and doulas. They make me anxious about a hospital birth. Honestly, I should probably be going to a birthing center. It fits my personality and gut feeling about this whole process better. But I didn't find out about birthing centers till too late in the game to get into one. By the time I called there was a waiting list for October births. I was seventh. At this point I am just trying to go with the flow. I know that if I WAS going to the birth center I would probably be anxious about not being at a hospital. IF I have a second baby--and that's a big IF--maybe I'll try the doula/midwife/home birth route.
As for the delivery itself, I had an idea that maybe giving birth is like teaching a class. In SOME ways--stay with me. It's just that I get nervous before every single class I teach. I vaguely dread walking into the room and getting started, and I worry about the little details. You just can't plan every single moment of a class and you have to think and act on your feet, and as a planner that fact makes me nervous. But then as soon as I start teaching, I have fun. I am always able to come up with stuff to say, and to think of examples and stories in the moment itself, and to handle what arises as it comes. So I was thinking maybe giving birth will be like that. You can't possibly plan or know exactly what is going to happen, but when the time comes, you will be able to go with it. That's my hope, anyway! We shall see.
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1 comment:
Good analogy. I would not call it fun, but you will definitely know what to do if you just go with it. Good luck! My mom's birthday is September 23rd, but I like the rhyming birthday.
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