It's November! So....where's that baby?

Well, the official due date is November 23rd or maybe the 24th, all of the sudden I'm starting to wonder if I've been a day off this whole time, I keep meaning to try to sneak a peak at my chart at the doctors office, but when I'm there, I forget. Oh well. As of today I'm closer to 38 weeks than I am to 37. Last week at my 36 week appointment I wasn't dilated at all. This week I was almost a 3! We'll have to wait and see what happens and when she makes her arrival, but I hope, hope, HOPE that it is long before Thanksgiving. Why? Well, Thanksgiving is closer to 41 weeks than any pregnant woman would ever want to be.

I'm trying my hardest to let this baby cook as long as she needs too. It's hard sometimes, for a few reasons. One would be the fact that my 2nd boy was born at 37 weeks (what a fabulous 6 pound 10 ounce little angel he was), that makes sitting here at 37 weeks and 5 days, feeling those stabbing pains that whisper "yes, little by little your dilating" and being very very tired because I can't seem to sleep past 4 AM just a little harder than I remember almost 38 weeks being with my first pregnancy. Another reason would be that I'm kind of falling apart. That's right, I knew there were lots of annoying and sometimes quite painful pains associated with pregnancy, and especially pregnancy after the age of 35, but I've discovered a new one that I haven't experienced before, the pain that comes when your pelvic bones decide to start separating. I kind of overdid it on Halloween, there was no real resting that day. Drop B off at Grandma's, get J to school, watch the costume parade, help the kids play "pin the nose and or eyes on the pumpkin" and "marshmallow drop" at the Halloween party, drop J off at Grandma's, go to the grocery store, pick up boys and return home, try to take a nap, go to the Halloween dinner party, come home,discover that I'm no longer able to walk because of an unbelievable pain which made me wonder if I had completely missed the fact that I was in labor and would need to start pushing soon........it hurt REALLY BAD, I couldn't move, I was stuck mid stride clutching a chair. When I eventually found myself able to walk again I laid down on the couch and rested the rest of the night and then questioned my OB via text the next morning. He said "Pelvic Laxity" which is perfectly normal and told me to continue to rest until the pain resolved. I've discovered that if I rest a lot during the day I don't feel much pain, but there are still days when I wonder if I'm going to fall completely apart, and especially I wonder if the pain will make natural labor just a little too hard.

The final reason why waiting for the baby is hard is just the time of year. Yesterday was 11/6, and on 11/6 last year I found out that we had lost our last pregnancy. It was a really, really bad day. I was kind of hoping that the baby would come before the anniversary of that day, so that I would be able to hold her and know that she is healthy and HERE!!!!!! But you know what? I made it through 11/6 just fine. The next bad day anniversary that is looming on the horizon is 11/15, the day we ended up going to the hospital for the d&c last year. Hopefully that day will come and go with no problems this year, but I will admit that if I show up to my Dr's appointment next week and he says "Kate, you are at a 4 (or a 5) and I feel that it would be best to break your water now and get this baby here!" I will probably agree. I've also told Ken that he should feel free to pray that this situation doesn't actually happen, (because he is still busy with work until the 18th) but if it did and she was born before 11/15 I'd really be fine with that.

As it is, babies come when they come, and I will do my best to be patient and try really hard to overcome my anxiety. I'm grateful for the Doppler that I have here at home (on loan from tinyheartbeats.org feel free to make a donation to them!) it has come in very handy in my most anxious of moments, yes even during the 37th week of this pregnancy. I will also tell you this, I broke through some anxiety yesterday and I washed the newborn clothes and put them (and all the other clothes 0-3,3-6 and 6-12 month) away in the babies dresser. I've been avoiding this chore, out of a little bit of fear that if I did get ready, something would go wrong. Well, so far, nothing has gone wrong. I did wake up this morning thinking "she's going to be over 8 pounds and she's not going to fit into ANY of those cute newborn sized clothes!" but that's really not such a horrible thing.

AND, for my final bit of pregnant lady ranting today (because I'm pretty sure I'll still be pregnant tomorrow) I would like to let you know how FABULOUS my husband is. I have apparently reached the point of pregnancy where I want to nest, but I'm too tired to nest and nesting sometimes involves doing things that aggravate the pelvic laxity that I've been experiencing. What does this mean? Well, it could mean several things, 1- a very tired hurting pregnant lady did way too much......2- a very tired pregnant lady dreamed about nesting and making changes around the house and nothing every came of that dream......or 3- a very tired pregnant lady drew up plans for rearranging a room and her best friend talked her down off the ledge before she got too far into rearranging it herself while he was at work, then he got home from work and did way more cleaning than any man ever dreams he will be doing (shall we say someone who is blond and about 6 foot 1 cleaned, swept and mopped quite a few rooms) AND helped his wife rearrange the front room exactly how she envisioned it. All his hard work this week has been enough to make me cry grateful tears. I love Ken Wheeler, his awesomeness truly is beyond words. Someday I hope to be as awesome as him :) I'm pretty sure this little baby girl we're about to welcome into our family will make all his hard work (and all that he's had to put up with over the last two years) completely worth it!

And that's it for today.