The good news is that the baby is head down and the doctor said she is not likely to move. The kid has good instincts and is inching her way to the light. I like that in a baby. They estimate her weight to be about 6lbs 14oz, but there is a 25% range either way. In other words, that measurement means next to nothing about the size of the Peppermint. The doctor also checked my cervix, which was not comfortable one bit, and also informed us that nothing is happening to indicate that birth is imminent. I am not dialated or effacted. There's been no thinning or contracting or signs that this baby is making her southernly exit any time soon. Mostly that is ok with me. I am still 2 weeks and 5 days from the due date, so it's too early to panic and start posting entries about how I think this baby will never leave.
But. But.
It's a little nervewracking to be waiting. Next week I will on official maternity leave and then it will be my full-time job to wait. Oh, and to worry. WORRY WORRY WORRY. I can't explain the hell that the worrying creates. I can't stop it. I just read a post about a woman whose son didn't make it through delivery because the cord was around his next. WHY DID I READ THAT POST? It's too late now. Now, I have a newly minted worry. I actually already asked my doctor about the danger of the cord being around the baby's neck, and I was assured that it's very rare and the doctors know how to deal with it. Today the doctor emphasized that I need to keep doing my kick counts: three times per day I should feel 5 to 10 kicks in an hour. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THESE KICK COUNTS ARE DOING TO ME? They are freaking me out. I can't concentrate because I just want my baby to kick all the time until she's born. She can relax when she's born.
I know. It's unnatural for me to wish that upon my daughter who should be allowed to gestate in peace while I take care of her. But the terror. The terror. When I get up to pee at 3:30 a.m. and get back into bed, I can't fall asleep until I feel her kick or move 6 times. Guess what? Sometimes my baby is actually sleeping at that hour, which for most "normal" mothers is a good thing. A very good thing. Not me. Nope. I lack the gene for trust so I need the external proof. And that's why these freaking kick counts are making me insane. I will be happy when they are over, which is the only reason I want the pregnancy to end. I am hoping it takes some of this paralyzing worry with it.
So, deep breaths and biscotti and distractions from my job and my beloved band of friends are helping. In my spare time, I enjoy feeling guilty about being pregnant with my little miracle when I have friends who are struggling to get and stay pregnant. I feel like I have to apologize to them everyday for loving my body, my baby, her nursery, and the promise of this new miraculous life growing inside me. I wish for anyone who wants a pregnancy that she or he can have it. It's extraordinary and if I was in charge it would be a free gift for anyone, like air or water or freedom. But, I am not in charge and bad things happen and reproduction is startlingly complex and it's probably somewhat codependent for me to think it's my job to apologize for it or that it has anything to do with me. Perhaps a better course is for me to remain grateful and to use my own gifts to connect with others, most importantly, with my daughter and my husband. To celebrate the coming days that will usher a whole new life into my house and into the world. There is joy to be had and me apologizing for someone else's route to joy is no way to honor the Pepps or my marriage or my own gorgeous and flawed journey to get to where I am right now.
Jeff and I talk often about what "fair" means. Is it fair that I am pregnant when people who have been trying for years aren't yet? Is it fair that I still have a job in this economy? Is it fair that I was born into a family that really valued education and encouraged me to use that as a route to self-actualization and personal growth. During the summers my mom would pay us $1.00 for every book we read. What a great idea. I made a lot of money during summer. I used to tell my mom I wanted to work in a diner like Alice, Flo, and Vera who worked for Mel at Mel's Diner. My mom would say to me, "I think you want own the diner." That's an amazing thing to tell a little girl in the 1970's. Was it fair that I got that message and had the inner belief that I could be a lawyer at a big law firm and be a capital P professional?
Then again, it's not my favorite fact in the world that I grew up in an alcoholic home. That doesn't seem like the most fair thing I have ever heard of. And, the alcoholic in my home got into recovery and got sober and stayed sober, so what about the people who grew up with active alcoholism and had to watch parents, siblings and loved ones perish to a disease that ravages the liver and destroys the spirit? It also wasn't fun being bulimic in college, but I too found recovery. Which part of that is fair? That I ever had to suffer through active eating disorder or that I found recovery at the tender age of 19?
It depends on how you look at it.
Life is grossly unfair. And, in some respects, it's staggeringly fair. I don't yet know if the unfairness outweighs the fairness in my life. Does it all balance out? I have no idea and I am ok with the fact I may never know. Thinking about it reminds me of an M.C. Esher drawing-- are the stairs going up or down?
I do know that I would like to believe that maybe there are more important things for me to focus on right now, letting other people fight their battles for themselves. My job is to hydrate in this ridiculous Chicago humidity and to show up for my final days of work before my leave and to pay attention when Jeff asks me what color grout I want for our tiles. That's my business right now. To participate in my life and my partnerships. I can leave the notion of fairness to the philosophers and theologians. I am a lawyer-about-to-be-mother and, while I am willing to work for fairness in my corner of the world, I only have one uterus (actually I have two if you count Peppermints) that is mine to mind, so perhaps a little less focus on everyone else and a little more focus on my own gifts. Isn't that what everyone is striving for in the first place? The grace to relish and cherish the gifts we do have while waiting patiently for those not yet in our grasp?
But. But.
It's a little nervewracking to be waiting. Next week I will on official maternity leave and then it will be my full-time job to wait. Oh, and to worry. WORRY WORRY WORRY. I can't explain the hell that the worrying creates. I can't stop it. I just read a post about a woman whose son didn't make it through delivery because the cord was around his next. WHY DID I READ THAT POST? It's too late now. Now, I have a newly minted worry. I actually already asked my doctor about the danger of the cord being around the baby's neck, and I was assured that it's very rare and the doctors know how to deal with it. Today the doctor emphasized that I need to keep doing my kick counts: three times per day I should feel 5 to 10 kicks in an hour. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THESE KICK COUNTS ARE DOING TO ME? They are freaking me out. I can't concentrate because I just want my baby to kick all the time until she's born. She can relax when she's born.
I know. It's unnatural for me to wish that upon my daughter who should be allowed to gestate in peace while I take care of her. But the terror. The terror. When I get up to pee at 3:30 a.m. and get back into bed, I can't fall asleep until I feel her kick or move 6 times. Guess what? Sometimes my baby is actually sleeping at that hour, which for most "normal" mothers is a good thing. A very good thing. Not me. Nope. I lack the gene for trust so I need the external proof. And that's why these freaking kick counts are making me insane. I will be happy when they are over, which is the only reason I want the pregnancy to end. I am hoping it takes some of this paralyzing worry with it.
So, deep breaths and biscotti and distractions from my job and my beloved band of friends are helping. In my spare time, I enjoy feeling guilty about being pregnant with my little miracle when I have friends who are struggling to get and stay pregnant. I feel like I have to apologize to them everyday for loving my body, my baby, her nursery, and the promise of this new miraculous life growing inside me. I wish for anyone who wants a pregnancy that she or he can have it. It's extraordinary and if I was in charge it would be a free gift for anyone, like air or water or freedom. But, I am not in charge and bad things happen and reproduction is startlingly complex and it's probably somewhat codependent for me to think it's my job to apologize for it or that it has anything to do with me. Perhaps a better course is for me to remain grateful and to use my own gifts to connect with others, most importantly, with my daughter and my husband. To celebrate the coming days that will usher a whole new life into my house and into the world. There is joy to be had and me apologizing for someone else's route to joy is no way to honor the Pepps or my marriage or my own gorgeous and flawed journey to get to where I am right now.
Jeff and I talk often about what "fair" means. Is it fair that I am pregnant when people who have been trying for years aren't yet? Is it fair that I still have a job in this economy? Is it fair that I was born into a family that really valued education and encouraged me to use that as a route to self-actualization and personal growth. During the summers my mom would pay us $1.00 for every book we read. What a great idea. I made a lot of money during summer. I used to tell my mom I wanted to work in a diner like Alice, Flo, and Vera who worked for Mel at Mel's Diner. My mom would say to me, "I think you want own the diner." That's an amazing thing to tell a little girl in the 1970's. Was it fair that I got that message and had the inner belief that I could be a lawyer at a big law firm and be a capital P professional?
Then again, it's not my favorite fact in the world that I grew up in an alcoholic home. That doesn't seem like the most fair thing I have ever heard of. And, the alcoholic in my home got into recovery and got sober and stayed sober, so what about the people who grew up with active alcoholism and had to watch parents, siblings and loved ones perish to a disease that ravages the liver and destroys the spirit? It also wasn't fun being bulimic in college, but I too found recovery. Which part of that is fair? That I ever had to suffer through active eating disorder or that I found recovery at the tender age of 19?
It depends on how you look at it.
Life is grossly unfair. And, in some respects, it's staggeringly fair. I don't yet know if the unfairness outweighs the fairness in my life. Does it all balance out? I have no idea and I am ok with the fact I may never know. Thinking about it reminds me of an M.C. Esher drawing-- are the stairs going up or down?
I do know that I would like to believe that maybe there are more important things for me to focus on right now, letting other people fight their battles for themselves. My job is to hydrate in this ridiculous Chicago humidity and to show up for my final days of work before my leave and to pay attention when Jeff asks me what color grout I want for our tiles. That's my business right now. To participate in my life and my partnerships. I can leave the notion of fairness to the philosophers and theologians. I am a lawyer-about-to-be-mother and, while I am willing to work for fairness in my corner of the world, I only have one uterus (actually I have two if you count Peppermints) that is mine to mind, so perhaps a little less focus on everyone else and a little more focus on my own gifts. Isn't that what everyone is striving for in the first place? The grace to relish and cherish the gifts we do have while waiting patiently for those not yet in our grasp?
No comments:
Post a Comment