Nine weeks. Nine. I keep saying that to myself over and over, like some kind of temporary mantra. The more I say it, the scarier it becomes. Sometimes you say words over and over in your head and they end up sounding like nonsense. They lose their meaning. Not this. I keep saying "nine weeks" and feeling like I might throw up.
I know I've told people that my pregnancy almost didn't seem real until I started feeling the baby move. But I'm taking that back. It hasn't seemed all that real until now. In fact, the reality of the situation is all of the sudden crashing down on me, and I'm really really trying to keep my shit together, but I'm becoming a little unraveled inside, and it's increasingly challenging to hide that. As if I wasn't freaking out unnecessarily about little things before, now I really am. I know I seem like a crazy person sometimes, but at this point all I can do is say "I know, and I'm sorry". Because there will be nine more weeks of it. Give or take.
I've been a procrastinator my entire life. I can't say if I've been procrastinating about the things I need to get done before the baby arrives, because this is my first time, and I'm kind of feeling lost. I don't really know if I've been keeping on a good timeline or not. What I can say, is I feel totally and utterly disorganized. I may put things off for longer than I should, but I always have a game plan. I can be a little OCD about the order in which I carry out a process to make sure it's right. But I'm in unfamiliar territory here, and I feel like there are 10,000 balls in the air, and I can't even pretend that I'm going to be able to catch even half of them. As I'm trying the best I can to make some sort of sense and coherent list of projects that I need to focus on, I keep freaking out about the fact that I don't and can't really know when I'll actually go into labor either. What if it's early? What if I go in the middle of February, and I have absolutely NOTHING prepared? This is just one of the hundreds of things working in close partnership with my increasing hip pain to keep me up all night long. Every night. Because just in the rare and unlikely case that my baby ends up being an awesome sleeper, we need to make sure that I have to combat some period of sleep deprivation. It's the law of mothers, right?
Sometimes I feel like I'm an oven burn. You know when you reach into the oven to pull out your casserole dish, and your hand hits the top, and you get super angry? Well, then for the next couple of days, even the air rushing over top of that burn feels like sandpaper being raked across it. Every little tiny thing that would normally just make me roll my eyes or shrug my shoulders is sending me into a tizzy. Sometimes I go in the bathroom and cry for a few minutes over the stupidest things. This combination of hormones, stress, and 1,000 fears has turned me into a metaphorical oven burn.
I am looking forward to getting the labor and delivery over with, however, because the following things I've taken for granted for so long are like little nuggets of Heaven encrusted in diamonds and motivating me past my terror of pushing an 8 pound baby out of my vag, because I know they await me shortly-ish thereafter:
1. Sleeping on my stomach
2. Being able to walk for more than 10 minutes without feeling like one of my old Barbies whose leg would pop off randomly at the hip.
3. Maybe even taking a jog! At least starting the slow process of getting my body into good condition again and feeling strong.
4. Vigorous and exciting sex in positions all the colors of the rainbow, and maybe even putting on a corset once in a while again, for god's sake.
5. Wine. More wine. Sharing bottles of wine with my husband over dinner. Also, my boyfriend on the side, Samuel Adams.
6. Bending over to pick something up or moving something heavier than a piece of paper without everyone around me looking on in horror as if I'm committing suicide/murder right in front of them and screeching at me.
7. Not feeling crazy.
