Savoring(?) the end

In case I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow after my midwife appointment (parents are arriving, so excited!!!), this is the 38 week update.

Yep, still pregnant!  Nope, labor is not imminent!

And...that’s about it.

After an absolutely abysmal Wednesday (including the worst yoga class of my life) during which the baby was so low that I felt like she was going to fall out of my vagina, baby shifted.  Upwards.  Which is the wrong direction.  Now I’m walking more comfortably than I have in weeks, but my entire upper right belly underneath my ribs - which is where her butt is sitting, as she has rolled to ROT - is now incredibly bruised and unhappy due to the increased pressure.  Sometimes I just lean way over to the left to give her some extra room there and walk around pitifully sideways...well, if no one’s looking.

Another sad note - the Epi-No training is sssssslllllloooooowwwww.  I had thought that I’d be a total champ at this, and the early days of training had me running around the house pants-less while triumphantly yelling “Power vagina!”  Now I just stare at the progress card and worry - it is most definitely not fast enough, and at this rate, I won’t come anywhere near 10cm even by 40 weeks.  We are bumping up to 2-a-days in an effort to increase said rate of progress.  (I will do a full review of the Epi-No after birth detailing how the training went and whether or not it made a damn bit of difference to the outcome of my lady bits.  Sorry for the vulgarity, but someone’s got to do it!)

Oh, and one other horribly deflating encounter - while walking to work on Friday, a woman came up beside me, smiling at my belly, and asked if I was due in March with a nice spring baby.  MARCH.  I smiled politely and was like, “No, actually I’m due in 2 weeks.”  Her shocked look and hurried, backtracking mumbling about “making small babies” simply reignited my unproductive mental worry loop about a growth restricted baby.  Awesome.

Other than that, I have nothing to report.  I’m trying my very best to savor the last few weeks of kicks and stretches and rolls, trying to focus on that instead of on my (otherwise ever present) impatience.  Husband is not sold on the idea of more than one child, so this could be the very last time I ever get to experience this.  I want to preserve the memory as best as I can.  All things considered, she is actually very cute and gentle in her movements, even though I can tell that she’s kind of uncomfortably cramped, and she’s still sleeping like a pro.  She has yet to wake me up at night even once - although I wake her up when I get up at night to pee - so really, I can’t ask for anything more from her!  She’s being the very best baby that a girl could ask for :)

Today, in an effort to *encourage* my body’s natural preparation for the big day, we are going for a long walk at a birding lake.  At just past 10am, it is currently 19°F (but weather.com says it “feels like” 8°F), so I will be wearing my snow pants and full cold weather getup.  Except for the problem of actually zipping my jackets, which is doable but difficult and kind of compresses my belly (in all fairness, maybe partially contributing to above woman’s incorrect due date estimate?), I am in my pre-preg winter gear.  I ordered a super cute “baby-wearing jacket” from Canada (where they know how to make ‘em right!), but it won’t arrive until Wednesday at the earliest - so I’m making do until then!

Love to all - here’s a little greeting from Abby, who has somehow gotten into the kefir and gotten it all over her face :)

Bad kitty!!