The Waiting Game

Up again with too little sleep, unable to quiet down my mind early enough and unable to lay in bed with sore hips and famished (feeling) tummy any longer than 1:30am – 6:30am. Luckily, I did take a short nap yesterday, and hope to do the same today.

I had a counseling session yesterday, followed by a midwife appointment. It was a lot to process and digest, some of which could take me a while, particularly the counseling stuff. I can say I am definitely grateful to the two women, for being a sounding board for my fears. It was necessary to peel back another layer of the “funk” I’ve been talking about. I found myself in the last few weeks going from totally calm, barely thinking about the upcoming birth, to worrying about what position the baby was in and whether or not I could even DO this without the support system I had of two amazing doula’s last time (in the form of my dad and step-mom, lol). Am I ready? Is Chris ready? Is our marriage ready? Is Ethan ready? With the worry, all I wanted to do was have it behind me so I wouldn’t have to prolong the time I spent thinking about it. I was allowing myself to sink into that miserly end-of-pregnancy thing, the season which my midwife theorizes is necessary because it’s the only thing uncomfortable enough for you to actually WANT labor to commence!

I’ve recently come to the hypothesis, based primarily on a hormonal cycle I have noticed the entire pregnancy, that my next “shift” or “surge” of hormones is due (no pun intended ) right around my due date (2.5 weeks – ish). Believing this, I was able to let go of some of the anxiety over being “early” and buck it up mentally for the next few weeks. This helped make room for me to see that each day I am given before Verity arrives is a gift to me, allowing me more insights, endurance, and preparation. Once I began to embrace that, I also realized (and was reminded again by the women I met with yesterday) that at this point, distraction is likely my best medicine. I have a few short weeks left, and there is much I could plan to do, like go for a swim with a friend, write my thank you cards for all the generous people who have helped me pay for the birth so far, knit Ethan’s easter bunny, celebrate Chris’ birthday the next day, get some work hours in, … do my laundry…

Yeah, these last weeks are exhausting ones. Weariness and fatigue are increasingly at your door, (and never more so than in subsequent births- when you have the older sibling(s) to tend to now!) But one of the quotes I’ve had bustling in my head lately is ol’ Charles Swindoll’s (boy, does that name bring ya back?!):

The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

While this little post is only the tip of the iceberg with regards to the things I am going through lately, it is really the most, and perhaps only, coherent topic I can share for now.

In conclusion, no more waiting game (spoken primarily to self). Don’t ask me when I think the baby will come or tell me what your best guess is or otherwise in any way ask me about the progress of my cervix (spoken primarily to every one else). When you get an email with a picture of me and a baby in it, you’ll know, lol. (No, seriously. We will not be making any phone calls until I’ve showered, eaten and taken a nap AFTER the birth. So might as well just hang tight, mkay?)

Phew, okay now I need to finish my tea and maybe even go back to sleep… we’ll see