Waiting some more...

Thought we might be starting again last night, but this morning, all I've got is a sore hip from an awkward sleep position. I know there's a limit to my waiting now. My nurse practitioner thinks I'll go on my own this week, but also said that if she sees me next Friday, we'll be able to pick a date and induce, because my Bishop's score is already high enough that induction would only have a 10% chance of failing. By then, it should be in the near-certainty range.

Today's plan: walking, ironing (which involves standing and walking), maybe building a shelving unit for the closet, vacuuming (more walking). I want to be positive - though that's hard when I've discovered that the line from the Sound of Music ("the sun has gone to bed and so must I") apparently applies to me in the reverse.

6 AM should not be seen by someone who saw 1:30...

Better day?

Apparently I'm flat exhausted. It's not surprising - I'm only sleeping about 2 hours at a stretch, which means even what sleep I get isn't that good. (It's something when you get up and the dogs don't even show interest in going outside because it hasn't been that long.) When I went to the doc today, I admitted that I'm feeling depressed. Don't think I need meds - there's not that much pregnancy left, and I'm not feeling like I'm a danger to myself or others - but I'm just so tired that I'm really struggling with everything else going on. And the disappointment of being sent home from the hospital just capped it off.

Things are continuing to progress, though, which is good, and David looked wonderful on the ultrasound today, even if we couldn't get him to cooperate enough for a good picture. I saw chubby cheeks, and he was trying to grasp his foot (which was up in front of his face - Jill, I keep telling you, he's doing the yoga, too!). Today was a growth profile, and all his bits and pieces looked good. Estimated current weight was 7 lbs. 7 oz., which is bigger than any of my siblings and I at birth - but we were all predictably tiny.

Took a nap when I got home, planning a long walk later before we get dinner. Today is a better day, and the really good day should be coming soon.

Back on the Horse

I wanted to have a good reason to skip a day. Maybe I could have written about being in labor, but then I'd have had to write the mea culpa today that I only thought I was in labor. Apparently I wasn't. Or not in active labor, anyway. These contractions could continue for the remaining weeks of my term. Not something I pictured.

I guess I have at least identified one variety of "not it." Though things were getting regular and even somewhat frequent yesterday, they only sort of got stronger. There was plenty of discomfort, but no real pain. Even my issues with the exams at the hospital were more about the positional awkwardness and my growing realization that I was wrong about whether it was TIME.

I don't like it. I want to get on with things now and see my son instead of just feeling his hiccups. As I said (in the face of another platitude "baby will get here when HE's ready") earlier today, easy to understand, hard to live through.

Discovering the Rest of the World

For the past eight years or so, we haven't had television. Not that we didn't have A TV, we just didn't have cable or satellite, and you really can't get a decent signal around here. But with baby on the way, we know we're not really going to be doing as much out and about as we have in the past.

Today, we got a new satellite system. During setup, the installer had it on NFL Network, and as he tried to show me how some of the menus and such worked, I told him to put it back there - it was better than the daytime dreck on elsewhere. When he left, I had ESPNU running college softball from OKC. Tonight I'm watching the Cardinals (and loving the fact that I can skip the commercials, since we took a walk).

I'll figure out what's on TV later. I've missed live sports, so apparently I'm going to binge. And anyway, to mutilate some George R. R. Martin, Football is Coming...

Rocky Road

No, it's not the ice cream flavor I'm currently consuming. (That would be Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream.)

I'm not particularly good with the whole "patience" thing. I may take a while to make up my mind on something, but once it's made up, I want results yesterday. So the whole gestation thing is frustration #1 at this point. I'm ready, the house is ready, and he's past the arbitrary "safe" line on the calendar. Let's do this thing! But it will probably be a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks where I could easily spend half my time each night sleeping (or trying to) in my recliner because it hurts less than lying on my side in bed. Where I can't even take the shortened version of my walk - I'm down to less than half a mile, I think (I don't really want to recalibrate my pedometer just to confirm something depressing).

The decision from my big meeting today is probably also coming down in "a couple of weeks." That could be some awkward timing, to be sure. Wait and see is apparently THE order of business right now, and it's got me chomping at the bit.

Why the sudden burst of writing?

So, yeah, I probably should have posted this one yesterday, and saved yesterday's for today, but meh.

A friend of mine from grad school and I reconnected on facebook a couple of years ago. We met in a creative writing class - a class which convinced me that I'm not much of a writer, at least not in the genres I prefer to read for pleasure. He's now back in Kansas City (where I grew up) and blogging about roller derby, among other things. And a few years ago he challenged himself (and others) to blog every day for the 30 days of June.

It's like NaNoWriMo on a less frighteningly ambitious scale. No specific goals beyond just writing and posting something every day.

This year, I decided to give it a shot, even though I've got a lot going on that would give me an easy out. That's just the thing - it would be an easy out, but precisely because I've got a lot going on, I think writing about it will help me process all the changes. I want to get back into the habit of writing and develop my voice. I have some things that I have grown passionate about over the last decade-plus, and I think they are ideas which deserve to be heard. So this month is a chance to start fleshing them out.

Impending

Enormous changes are on the horizon. Today is June 1st, and some time this month, I will go from "childless" to "mom."

The word "impending" keeps coming to mind, which seems unfortunate, since it frequently precedes "doom". I don't mean it that way, but that sense of looming about-to-happen-ness, the inevitability combined with lack of control over timing, combined with the amount of my brain this is taking up.... impending is the only word that seems to fit.

There's a lot going on this weekend and early next week, and they are good and necessary things: barbecuing with friends, preparing for an important meeting on Monday. I really want to see my child, (and I'd be lying if I didn't note that having him would mean the beginning of recovery rather than the prolongation of discomfort) but ultimately, I'd like him to hold off at least a few more days. Tuesday would be fine. Probably until another something gets close enough on my schedule to break through and impend all on its own.