Monday, March 7, 2011

Due Date i.e. Pot Still Not Boiling

Happy Due Date to Me....well technically to Nugget! We made it dude! 40 whole weeks. I know technically the milestone was 37 weeks, but there is something additionally relieving about getting to this point (probably has something to do with the fact that I am not uncomfortable....this statement would surely be different if I were). With all the talk of inaccurate measurements in first time moms, even though 37 weeks was the main goal, there was still a part of me that worried a little if he came early he would be underweight or his lungs wouldn't be fully developed. I wish I had more information on my mom's pregnancy with my brother. All my dad can tell me was that she was late. He didn't know how late. But in my mind me going past today isn't a bad thing, it is a good thing. It means I am doing what my mom did...even if I don't know exactly what that is.
My midwife and I were chatting on Friday about the empending 42 week mark. Legally if I go past 42 weeks we are supposed to go into a hospital to get checked out. Obviously this is something we will do, to be safe, but she was telling me that Americans are so strange about setting due dates. In France your due date would be set at 42 weeks. They don't start talking about induction at 40 weeks and 3 days; they understand babies come in their own time. They also know how inaccurate the measurements can be and that due dates can be off by a week or more. I still don't understand how America can be so stubborn in our practices when the numbers show these other countries have lower infant and mother mortality rates and drastically fewer "emergency" situations.
We went out to dinner with Emmicakes and Pickles on Saturday night. Emmicake's sister is 11 weeks preggo and her doctor has already told her he would be on board with scheduling a c-section if that was the way she wanted to go. There is something that really grates my nerves about this. I don't want to crawl up on a soap box and I know it would be absolutely stupid of me to talk about the merits of intervention-free birth considering I haven't had an intervention-free birth yet....hopefully I will, but I am a firm believer in not acting like an expert if you have no claim to it. But to me there is something a little sad about scheduling a c-section....obviously I am only meaning this in the case of an otherwise healthy single-occupant pregnancy. I get that advances in medicine have allowed for certain conveniences. We can now go in and clean out arteries instead of waiting around for them to kill us. This I understand. But scheduling the birth of your baby just really speaks to me at how unwilling society has become to being patient. Don't get me wrong, I am a planner to a fault. I schedule EVERYTHING.....but birth seems like a different animal. It isn't about me and my convenience, it is about the little one inside and when he is ready. A doctor/midwife can guess when this will be, but they have no real way of knowing when everything is fully formed. Anyway, I have obviously stepped up onto that soap box I swore I wouldn't. Getting back down.
We had a great weekend. I slept a ton....I told Andy I think I have baby mono because even after I wake up I am pretty certain I could go back to sleep with no issue. I decided not to get "checked" at my appointment. I have pretty much embraced this whole "on Nugget's Schedule" thing. So even though I wrote this post about my "plan", in reality I have actually gotten used to this idea that I have no control and what is weirder? I am embracing it. The midwife would like to check me this Friday if I still haven't gone into labor just to see where we are at and I thought that was a good idea. Probably by Friday I will be wondering if I am making any progress too. Honestly I don't know where this crazy sense of patience is coming from. Maybe it is because Andy's mom is flying in on Friday night and Bret is flying in on Saturday and I don't feel a real need to have him before they get here. But I'll let you know if my tune starts changing in the next few days.
Yesterday we ran errands. Andy and I went out to brunch and decided it should become a Sunday morning tradition. We stocked up on dog food and groceries.....apparently we are going to have to make a consorted effort to not let our fridge and cabinets run dry. I realize there are no major holidays or blizzards (knock on wood) that threaten to close the grocery stores and there will be plenty of people willing to go grab things we might need to make it through the birth, but I am trying to be prepared all the same. I was planning on making a chicken pot pie to freeze yesterday, but the closest I got to this accomplishment was to buy a container at the grocery store to put it in......I am writing it off as a half victory.
But in the most exciting weekend news! drum roll please..... We went out to dinner with the neighbors last night and I don't want to count my chickens or anything, but I think it is safe to say that they think we are awesome and we will be best friends forever! I caught Lindsey (or Lindsay, spelling yet to be determined) on her way back in the house on Saturday and asked her if they would like to go out sometime. She was like 'yeah how about tomorrow?'. I love people who are like that....I am like that, but I have encountered many a person who would respond 'yeah definitely, let me get back to you' and then months would go by. Not the case here. We agreed to meet at the restaurant, which was kind of hilarious because we walked out of our doors at the same time, and then we followed behind them all the way there. But it makes sense when you think about the fact that we'd either have to pile into their civic or relocate their kid seat to the hummer (and since you know I am an overachiever, this would involved taking out the carseat base that we installed in there 3 weeks ago).
It turned out to be a good thing Andy and I followed behind them. He spotted their Jesus fish, which clued us in to not say things like 'isn't Satan worship the bees knees?'. FYI, this isn't something we would say, but I have been known to stick my foot in my mouth a time or two.
So yeah, not that we make an effort to say things about religion, but it was good to know that we should proceed with some caution. We shouldn't bring up gay marriage or abortion unless they started the conversation......man would that be a weird first-neighbor-date. I have to say my nerves waivered a little when they pulled their little boy out of the back seat and I said 'oh look at you in your cute little argyle sweater' and Lindsey said 'yeah this is his church outfit'. Okay seriously I have a ton of religious friends and I love them all. I don't judge them and their beliefs and I hope they don't judge me and mine (pretty sure they don't), but that is because we all seem to proceed through our friendships with a sort of "don't ask don't tell" policy. We both probably have a good idea what the other believes but we also know that we're to the point in our lives where we probably aren't going to change the other's mind so it's better to just be buds. So while I have no issue with people who go to church, there was a part of me that wondered what level of church-goers they might be and if we would have anything in common with them. Then we got inside and she ordered a margarita and he ordered a beer, so then I knew things would be just fine.
We drove home from dinner excited how well we had hit it off. Dustin came over a little later with another box of clothes and said Lindsey wanted me to come over and show me Nolan's nursery. Dustin and Andy began the "show me your toys" dance and I went next door. Lindsey sent me home with her Bumbo and also listed off a million other things that we could borrow that she found useful. It was so sweet, but I couldn't help but worry that if we borrowed everything she suggested that we might have way more stuff than we would ever actually need. Dustin stayed for a good hour and a half until Lindsey texted him 'are you coming home?'. I have this hunch, mostly because Lindsey works evenings and Dustin gets home earlier, that I might start finding Andy and Dustin hanging out when I get home from work. Andy and I debriefed the evening and agreed that we had a great time, were excited to hang out more, that Lindsey is super hot, but that it might be too soon to suggest a foursome.....just kidding. 
I crawled into bed and started feeling some warm-up contractions. I contemplated timing them, but then decided I would rather go to sleep. So I turned on my hypnobirthing CD and passed out into a pile of drool.
This morning I woke up and Andy asked 'are you in labor? because I would rather stay here in bed and sleep...I mean support you in your labor'. I laughed at him and told him no, I was not in labor and I was going to work and he responded 'can you go into labor tomorrow because I want to get more sleep this week'. I then informed him that his logic was full of holes. That labor would surely not mean more sleep for him. So as of now, pot is still not boiling.

11 comments:

  1. LOL, a logic full of holes indeed.

    Next door neighbor BFFs would be pretty awesome to have!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've been wondering about you. I'm so glad you made some friends (and by friends I mean babysitters when you need to run out for a bit). No seriously, I would exploit the hell out of that situation. :) I am getting so excited for you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My doctor not only had me scheduled for a c-section when we got pregnant but also a tummy tuck just to wrap things up. WTF, dude, I'm with you on the confusion on that front.

    Loving your patience, keep up the solid work. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yay, happy due date!! Any day now, momma - that is so cool!! The situation with your neighbors sound just like how things were with JJ and the neighbor we just lost. It's so nice to have cool neighbors like that, and even more cool that you have someone to go to for baby things/advice that close!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm so glad you had a blast with your neighbors! I hope Hubs and I have that some day....maybe after the epic move this summer! :-) As for your due date, CONGRATS... At my first appt, the Nurse Midwife I met with (my clinic has you meet with ALL the partners so you know everyone who might possibly deliver your baby) told me that if it looked like I'd deliver on a weekend they'd induce me since their office shares on-call weekends with another practice. Hold the phone....did she just tell me, who's been in the Navy and worked over SEVERAL weekends, that in order to preserve her 49-hours of freedom she'd SCHEDULE an induction for me?! I don't think so!! I'm with you...unless I hit that it's-really-just-too-late point, I'm doing this according to nature's plan!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Happy Due Date to you...Happy Due Date to you...Happy Due Date Dear Nugget...Happy Due Date to you! Love you :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Its fo funny when you 'meet' people on the blogosphere, and you follow their blogs, and enjoy them, and then realize that its because they write exactly the way you think. This post is that epiphany post for me, I figured it out. I'm going on 2 hours of sleep here so forgive me for babbling, but really, you're awesome, Not just because I think you're like me, thats just narcissistic and not what I meant.. Oh hell, I give up. Happy Due Date!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hahahaha happy due date! I love how patient you are - I'm feeling a lot LESS patient... I never went all the way to 40... 39 weeks with my first and I thought I was going to hit an asylum. Good luck - keeping you in my thoughts!!!! And yes, your watermelon will be 4 one day... and that day will take forever to get there but show up like, tomorrow. Trust me. It's like some freaky space/time wrinkle that happens to only moms. Like a wormhole. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is so awesome that you made it past your due date! Our little one is still negative two weeks! As much as I love her being here i. Wish I could have kept her in longer.

    Enjoy these last few days and sleep as much as you can. People are NOT kidding when they say that you get no sleep once the baby comes...but it is sooooo worth it!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Happy Due Date Day!! :) Good for you for sticking it out! I tend to get on my soapbox about the same thing - C sections and getting induced. It bothers me so much that women hit 39 weeks and they just can't take it (or 37 weeks) and they want to be induced. There's a reason 50% of inductions (for non medical reasons) end in C-section . . . anyway - I'm totally with you on that one. And what you said completely nails it - people are impatient.

    Yeah, my husband thought he would get more sleep after our first one was born too . . . he got a big surprise!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm with you on the scheduled C-Section thing - kinda weirds me out too.

    Also? No that you asked, but here's a super easy pot pie recipe: Get some cooked chicken and a bag of balsamic veggies (I get all of this stuff at Trader Joe's). Dump it into that container you bought. Put a puff pastry sheet on top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown and...puffy. Or throw it together, freeze and wait to bake it until you're ready to eat it.

    Hopefully that helps with the other half of that victory!

    ReplyDelete