An incredibly rare and beautiful moment is happening right now; I'm awake before Rowan is. It's a strange thing to be able to just sit here and think about the new little one that will be in my arms in a few weeks. She has the hiccups right now and is happily (I think?) rolling around in there. Quiet moments like this are likely not going to happen much over the coming months. Somedays I feel okay about that fact, others I feel panicky about the new chapter of life about to start.
I've become incredibly hormonal this week. This pregnancy has been so different emotionally than with Rowan. I've been pretty mellow without the intense ups and downs of last time. This week though, watch out.
I'm also so conflicted. One minute, all I want is for my water to break and get this show on the road. The next, I'm terrified and weepy at the idea that I'm so completely NOT ready for another baby.
It was so different with preparing for our first. We had an entire room that we set up specifically for him. We went to a birth class. We spent endless hours together talking about what he would look like and what it would be like to be a parent. This time around…Instead of spending hours sewing curtains, setting up a crib, buying wall decals and matching bedding, running my hands along the perfectly washed and hung baby boy outfits, I moved the rock'n'play into our room and called it good. Instead of registering for hundreds of baby things, we bought our solitary second baby item, a double stroller, two weeks ago. Instead of spending time having Sel feel the baby move or putting a flashlight on my belly and watching it shift around like crazy, we both look at one another with raised eyebrows during a middle of the night screaming toddler session and wonder how we are going to survive this coupled with a newborn who nurses constantly through the night. We just haven't had many things to check off of a magical "you're ready to have a baby" list this time around which makes me feel unprepared.
Physically, it's been a weird merry-go-round too. I feel great and completely like myself most of the time. I don't feel that intense "I'm SO done" feeling that tends to hit during pregnancy. I've been vomiting and having other digestion issues lately though that we originally thought was food poisoning. I ended up going to the ER one night a few weeks ago because I was having intense abominable cramping (aka contractions) that weren't progressive. I went home from the hospital confused and still feeling so awful. I immediately threw up for the first time since having Rowan in our sink and continued to throw up for the next 48 hours. This random striking of barf has happened two other times now accompanied by endless stomach cramping and back pain. It would be a little bearable if I knew it was helping my body dilate or progress, but it's not. It's just me and my finger-tip dilated cervix being inexplicably sick. Throwing up for me is such an odd thing. Like I mentioned, I've thrown up once over the last 22-months. Before that, I'm pretty sure it was high school that was the last time. I don't barf. Even when I have felt crazy nauseous and wanted to throw up, no amount of sticking my fingers down my throat can make anything happen. When I have been getting sick like this, all I want to do is get this girl out.
(The above was written before the appointment I just had)
I've been feeling bouts of being really down about my body. I had my OB appointment today and I'm still a fingertip dilated. My dear OB, who has been dangling induction dates in front of me like candy, let me know I wasn't a good candidate for induction until after 41 weeks. He somehow forgot that I didn't have Rowan until 42 weeks and that was after 3 days of being pumped full of drugs, having way too many things inserted downstairs, and being tethered to a marching band of machinery. It's hard not to feel like a failure again. The way some of the med staff talked to me in the hospital when I had Row couldn't have been clearer. I wasn't progressing. I was failing. I needed to "do better". Well meaning friends and family would excitedly ask if there was any news, movement, twinges that might indicate my body was actually doing something. Here we are again at that same point and I don't know if I can mentally handle it again.
Sure, something could magically change because every pregnancy is different, but it sure feels like we are on the same track here.
It hasn't helped that two disconcerting things have happened to me this week. At the gym, a kind woman who I had met the previous week told me she felt inspired by the spirit that the baby and I would have complications and she asked if she could pray for me. I was standing there in my sports bra and said, "Of course. Thank you!". She then sidled up to my bare belly, put her hand on there, closed her eyes and started praying that we would be healthy. I was so shaken by it and kept crying thinking maybe this crazy, kind lady actually had been inspired and something bad was going to happen to Lyra. This morning, Rowan randomly turned to my belly waved bye-bye then hugged it like he was saying goodbye. I asked him where baby sister was going and he just smiled and started watching baby signing time again.
Also, if you haven't had a baby at 42 weeks, you don't get to tell someone babies come when they are supposed to. It's actually a written law and I would hate to call the cops on you
I've been feeling bouts of being really down about my body. I had my OB appointment today and I'm still a fingertip dilated. My dear OB, who has been dangling induction dates in front of me like candy, let me know I wasn't a good candidate for induction until after 41 weeks. He somehow forgot that I didn't have Rowan until 42 weeks and that was after 3 days of being pumped full of drugs, having way too many things inserted downstairs, and being tethered to a marching band of machinery. It's hard not to feel like a failure again. The way some of the med staff talked to me in the hospital when I had Row couldn't have been clearer. I wasn't progressing. I was failing. I needed to "do better". Well meaning friends and family would excitedly ask if there was any news, movement, twinges that might indicate my body was actually doing something. Here we are again at that same point and I don't know if I can mentally handle it again.
Sure, something could magically change because every pregnancy is different, but it sure feels like we are on the same track here.
It hasn't helped that two disconcerting things have happened to me this week. At the gym, a kind woman who I had met the previous week told me she felt inspired by the spirit that the baby and I would have complications and she asked if she could pray for me. I was standing there in my sports bra and said, "Of course. Thank you!". She then sidled up to my bare belly, put her hand on there, closed her eyes and started praying that we would be healthy. I was so shaken by it and kept crying thinking maybe this crazy, kind lady actually had been inspired and something bad was going to happen to Lyra. This morning, Rowan randomly turned to my belly waved bye-bye then hugged it like he was saying goodbye. I asked him where baby sister was going and he just smiled and started watching baby signing time again.
Also, if you haven't had a baby at 42 weeks, you don't get to tell someone babies come when they are supposed to. It's actually a written law and I would hate to call the cops on you
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