Still pregnant.
Good/Bad:
Good: On Thursday I received these from my mother, and all of the sudden I can put on my shoes all by myself! And breathe at the same time! All pregnant women should own these in their third trimester. I have the ‘cool gal’ design, white with silver stripes. Never has a product so changed my daily life.
Bad: My due date has been changed from the 22nd to the 28th. I knew all along that this would be the case, and really, it is wonderful to have a doctor who BELIEVES me when I tell her that I know when I conceived and that I have long cycles. She’s actually going by the first ultrasound–why no one else bothered I don’t know–but that she’s taking my word for it until she gets the official record pleases me. AND it means that I run less of a risk of being induced too early because I’m not really overdue. So it’s a good thing, ultimately, but it means that I’ll be waiting a week longer. Maybe. The Snapper will come when he’s good and ready.
Good: The house is clean-ish most of the time.
Bad: We have a mouse. A mouse that probably climbs up onto the counters at night and is going to give my baby a horrible disease. This is NOT good for nesting. It is, however, quite entertaining for the canine among us.
Good: I’m good and focused and making progress on my first chapter.
Bad: Haven’t written a blessed word, am not done reading, found out that I am NOT getting interlibrary loan privileges here as I had originally thought (grrr), and am still trying to finish a chapter and apply for fellowships by the end of the year. And have a baby. Ha. I had planned to take a maternity leave, but having to work for two months when we arrived sucked all that time up and I have no choice. All I can do is ignore conventional wisdom and get it done while establishing nursing, trying to be a good mother in the middle of a midwestern winter despite being prone to cabin fever, and losing Attic Man’s help for two weeks of training and a trip to PA to defend his Masters thesis in December. Please don’t tell me I’m crazy. I already know that. Tell me I can do this. Especially if you have done it.
Good: Kohana had her beautiful, beautiful little baby girl this week!
Bad: Her son is going to outgrow that box someday soon. All of our babies grow up. I’m sad about that already.
Emotional B.H.
I haven’t had ONE blessed contraction this whole pregnancy. While I love that this means my doctor keeps letting me go without yucky internals, it also means that I am nowhere near giving birth.
But Attic Man insists that I have been having what he terms “Emotional Braxton-Hicks” contractions this whole trimester. Through the Bradley Method we have been learning about the three emotional signposts of labor. First, excitement. In labor this means your first contractions are coming. You are looking forward to the baby coming soon. In my world that means you look at the calendar and say “only two weeks! four at the most! that’s nothing!” Next you get serious. In labor you start doing the really hard work. You are deep into your contractions and must concentrate on them. Here at Chez Boomerific, you clean the goo under the refrigerator (AWJP: the Dobie sponge is my best friend) and vaccum under the couch cushions. You are convinced that these activities must be done or your baby won’t come. Last is transition, and this is when you are convinced you can’t go on. The baby is never going to come and you can’t do it anymore. This stage is identical, as far as I can tell, to its counterpart in not-labor. I had a hard-core case of simulated transition on Thursday, until my Y-ties came. Unfortunately, unlike in real labor, simulated transition does not signal the imminent birth of your child. It just means you get to go through the cycle again.
The Snapper is currently doing chin-ups using my pelvis for leverage. It feels just about as pleasant as it sounds.
You’re going to go into post-turkey dinner labor, and have the baby on the Friday after Thanksgiving. He will thenceforth be known as your “turkey” or your “pumpkin pie,” depending on his personality.
Really.
So you have a week to finish your chapter. You can do that, right? If not, there’s all that time overnight — you’ll be up anyway listening to him breath, making sure he’s still breathing, panicking when his breathing slows down, or speeds up, or anything else.
Do those emotional phases of labor apply to dissertating too?
You can do it! Seriously, the first two months of having Small Son home I was asking my friends with kids “what did you do at this stage?” They just looked at me like I was insane and wouldn’t even believe that my question was sincere, they were so in the throws of busy mothering. But those early weeks/ months, all the baby does is eat and sleep. And you can do a ton of reading and writing while they’re doing both of those things. Sure you’ll be tired and your tits will be sore, but you can still pick up a book (between heaving bouts of tears that your husband ate the last cookie…). So don’t worry. Having something you’re trying to accomplish will probably be great for you.
And about transition, there were a couple times where I felt too tired to keep going (I will post my birth story soon but sum it up to say a grand total of, like, 28 hours of labor. They say it’s not all “real” labor but that doesn’t keep it from wearing you out.) but with the Captain’s steady calm coaching I never got hysterical or freaked out. You can do it. You can do it all!