Tuesday, September 17, 2013

37w2d: Full Term

Full Term. This means that if I were to go into labor from this point on, no doctor would try to stop it, and my baby would be born, thriving.

Full Term.

This also means that literally 37 weeks ago, I was wondering if I would finally have the opportunity to be a mom. I wondered if my body would finally get pregnant, and if after that, it would actually be able to grow a baby.

And now, I am simply waiting to meet my son.

I can't describe the feelings that have been building up inside of me. Am I afraid? Yes. Am I nervous? Yes. Am I excited? Yes. Am I happy? Yes. Am I sad? Yes. And why would I be sad? I'm both sad that this beautiful experience of pregnancy will soon be over, and I am sad that when it is over, my whole life won't ever be the same again. Don't get me wrong, I am also elated that my whole life won't ever be the same again...but it is natural for a first time mom to stand on this precipice and realize that there won't ever be a time when I can just drop everything I am doing and go out with my friends again. Soon, very soon, my whole life will revolve around this little man. This beautiful little man.

I can't wait to meet him. I convinced my midwife to let me have one more ultrasound last week. My appointment was on Friday morning, and it wasn't very exciting. It was on a really crappy machine, and I didn't even have a monitor I could watch, I had to share the monitor the tech was using, so I only got some skewed perspectives of what my son was up to in there.

I am pretty sure he was sleeping, since he was being very quiet. Actually, this is his MO lately, to be very quiet and freak me out. Anyway, I believe everything is okay in there, since the radiologist and my midwife didn't give me any frantic phone calls on Friday or  yesterday. It was hard to see his face, since he's dropped so far down in my pelvis. The tech really struggled to get a good shot to measure his head, but she was able to get him to turn his face at one point, and I got to see his squishy little nose and cheeks. He was sucking on his hand -- his whole hand -- and the tech said she was pretty sure he was sleeping because of how rhythmically he was sucking and practice breathing.

She printed out some pretty shitty pictures, but I'll share the best one anyway. It's a really bad side profile (since he is so low). So, you can see his nose, then a big lump where his mouth should be. This is because he has his whole hand in his mouth, and he didn't care one bit that we were trying to get a good picture of him. That's my son for you...



I have been feeling pretty slow and groggy lately. Yesterday, I was very uncomfortable. There was just so much pressure that it made walking or standing nearly impossible. I had cramping-type contractions in the morning, and then they went away all together. I have been pushing on pressure points that are supposed to induce labor/start contractions, but I only get a little bit of cramping that doesn't last, so I guess my body isn't quite ready yet. I am certainly ready for this pregnancy to be over, though. Trust everyone when they say that the last month is the most frustrating and uncomfortable...because it is. I have told myself this whole pregnancy that I would take all of the negatives gracefully and gratefully...but I'm running out of patience now. Haha. It's hard to be graceful and grateful when you are wondering if you peed yourself or not. Yeah. I went there.

Thursday is the full moon, though. My doula warned me about the full moon, since last night, three or four of her mothers went into labor on the full moon, and it was a doula catastrophe! So, maybe the tides will change (literally), and my little man will finally come out to meet us. Hopefully. :)

My next appointment is tomorrow. Will update with more when I know more. Hopefully, I'm dilated, if only just a little bit, but I sort of doubt it, since I've not been having any real contractions to move anything along. We'll see!

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