Monday, January 14, 2008

Hurry up and wait.

It turns out that the last couple of weeks (one hopes) of pregnancy are much more stressful than the preceding months (in a healthy, normal pregnancy, of course), especially--and this is important--if you started nesting at, say, 36 weeks and you are now 38 weeks along. The reason for this? YOU ARE JUST WAITING AT THIS POINT. After two weeks of busy, busy getting things in order at work and at home, there just isn't that much left to do that really needs to get done. This means that you start to *worry*. Not so much about giving birth, in my case at least--I am steadfastly in denial about the whole actually having to go through labor thing, and I therefore have not gotten stressed out about it yet--but about LATER. Mater-Eater Lad is doing the same thing. You start to ask yourself unanswerable questions. What if you screw up your kid? What if you can't figure out how to care for your kid? What if it turns out that your kid is a horrible, evil brat? What if your kid *doesn't like you* (excluding the teenage years, of course, when no kid likes his or her parents)? This has been worse for Matter-Eater Lad, I think, because I am still working (not working would just stress me out more), but his semester hasn't started yet, which means that he has work to do (he always has insane amounts of work to do), but in a more amorphous fashion than normal.


I am just grateful that I am more or less still comfortable, since that would certainly add to the pressure of the wait. As it is, my aches and pains are minor enough that the idea of the experience of and recovery from labor doesn't seem like a good trade-off to get rid of them.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Dear Baby,

I am sure you will be cute and all, but I am unamused by the feet you are intent in sticking as far up under my rib cage as you can get them. Please stop. It hurts.

(Also? My understanding is that short women, who have shorter torsos, have months of this crap. You have my sympathies.)

Wednesday, January 02, 2008