Keeping My Head Up

39-week appointment today. After a week of feeling like someone had pounded on my vagina with a baseball bat and not feeling any more kicks in my lungs, I was hopeful that baby boy had dropped at least a bit and I'd have some exciting progress. Not confident . . . but hopeful.

Last week I was at 1 cm and 30%. This week I am at ( . . . drumroll . . . ) a whopping 1.5 cm and 40%.

I know.

I know where I am means jack as far as predicting labor.

I know there's still plenty of time for me to go into labor on my own.

I know that my body is doing what it's supposed to do--slowly and gradually getting ready to give birth rather than suddenly and chaotically.

I also know that I kind of felt like kicking things just a little bit on my way out.

Kicking the full moon. Stupid full moon. Why aren't you doing more??

Kicking my cervix. STUPID CERVIX. WHAT THE EFFFF?? LET MY CHILDREN OUT OF ME. It must be all those kegels I've done. I over-strengthened it. Damn.

Kicking the door to the waiting room. Just 'cause it's there.

TH asked me last night during our evening walk what kind of progress I was hoping for today. I told him I didn't want to make a prediction so that I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't get the answer I was hoping for, but that I'd be fine with whatever unless I had suffered through a week of pain and discomfort and not sleeping only to be at like, a 1.5 and 35%.

When the doc announced where I was, I immediately felt my husband's hand on my arm. When I sat up, he rubbed the small of my back while we sat there and talked about next week with my doctor (you know, because he said his best bet is that he'll see me next Monday at my 40-wk appt. Resume kicking things.). While we talked about "how far we'd let things go."

You see, they won't induce me. All the risk factors for a VBAC increase with the introduction of labor-inducing or labor-augmenting drugs. And they really won't induce me if I'm overdue (apparently the risk goes up with each overdue day that ticks by). And they REALLY REALLY won't induce me if I'm overdue with a cervix that isn't doing shit.

So either I go into labor--on my own--in the next week, or we start talking about when I go under the knife again. And to be honest, I'm pretty over having major surgeries. Two in the last four years is plenty, thankyouverymuch.

I was really hoping I'd just go early with Dos and totally avoid the whole issue. Of having to worry about IF it was going to happen. Of going late and having to weigh everything all over again. Of not even being given the shot at all.

So anyways, as soon as we heard my "progress" my husband's hand didn't leave me. Sweet man. Damn if he doesn't know me so well. I'm sure he was looking around for things to clear out of my kicking zone.

The doc and nurse left the room and TH moved to wrap me in a huge hug . . . and I stopped him. I know myself well enough to know that sympathy at this point will only make me feel like there's something wrong, like there's something happening to me that I need sympathy for, and the truth is . . . there's really not.

I'm pregnant. (YAY!) With a healthy son. (YAY!) I'm due soon but not yet. (YAY!) I had a little progress over the last week. (YAY!) I am actually ahead of where I was with baby girl at 39 weeks and I went into labor on my own with her. (YAY!) In the meantime, I get a few last days of one-on-one time with my sweet baby girl. (YAY YAY YAY!) I get a few last days of feeling a baby move inside me, of having sweet Dos all to myself, all the time, safe and sound and well taken care of in there, without me having to worry about feedings and sleep deprivation and all the things that go along with a newborn. (YAYYYYYY!)

Yeah, my vagina hurt last week. It's in the process of separating. It's gonna hurt. I was being naive to think that the relatively minor discomfort I was feeling meant that something big was happening. If something big is going to happen, I'm going to feel it in a big way. I need to stop expecting this to be easy.

So yeah, I felt like kicking things. But it passed. I'm focusing instead on all the good things about where I am right now, today.

Keeping my head up, folks. That's pretty much all I can do.