Due dates mess with your head. They should also be kept a big bloody secret, especially from the pregnant woman concerned.
Months and months ago, when you find out you are pregnant and the doctors spin their paper wheel before proudly announcing that perfectly-calculated date, it takes on some magical significance.
Of course it does. That is the day your new baby will arrive. (The “Or thereabouts” part is often lost in the excitement, anticipation fogging your rational vision.)
Then, as the big day approaches, the one you put in your calendar and in your phone and the one you tell people over and over again when they ask “so, when are you due?”...as it gets closer, you attach more and more importance to that particular day.
Sure you know that it’s an estimate, a guide, and that women rarely actually give birth on that day, but you expect to be holding your little one close to that day.
Well that day has come and gone and it’s now a whole 24 hours later. I know that’s not much, but god dammit I was expecting Everest, my close-up, show time, something, anything, go! yesterday.
The week had been wonderful – my first full one without work. I walked on the beach, I swam laps, I did my stretches/pretend yoga/focused breathing practice thingo and threw in a few squats to ensure a feeling of supreme piousness. I read, I relaxed, I dusted, I wiped down kitchen cupboards and cleaned behind the microwave. I baked, I cooked soups and sauces for the freezer stores and I napped like a newborn.
Sure I hardly slept overnight, but I caught up during the day and even managed to indulge in some quite ordinary daytime TV. Bliss.
On the morning of my due date (Feb. 20) I shaved my legs and underarms, moisturised, plucked my eyebrows and re-painted my toenails in readiness.
It was like I was getting ready for a night out...and had I actually been able to fit into anything other than a sheet-sized singlet shirt and leggings, I would most certainly have been all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Talk about anti-climax.
I am drinking raspberry leaf tea and either swimming or taking short walks, as well as chasing after our little boy. Well, my version of waddle-chasing a four-year-old who has the speed of a whippet. That game of chasey could really go on forever if there was sufficient stamina and/or time.
So I saw my obstetrician today and he said “college guidelines” recommend letting women go no more than 14 days past their due date.
Last week he said I had a 50% chance of going past my due date this week...now I have a 20% chance of doing the same for another week. Beyond that – NOT THAT I WILL GET THERE – it’s down to 5%.
This is, of course, as long as my blood pressure stays fine and as long as all is well with our baby in there.
We talked about induction and I explained that I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. First of all, they can bring on quite intense labours and it all seems unnatural and interventionary, if that is a word (don’t think it is). And secondly, the last induction I had was horrific. I know the outcome this time will be vastly different, but this is what is in my head.
He is also taking next week off – inconsiderate bastard! – so there is extra incentive to pop this baby girl out THIS WEEK, so he can be there and some random colleague of his, who I met for the first time today, isn’t the one scoring all the credit!
I switch from fearful to psyched, worried to excited, desperately impatient to desperately wishing I had more time to prepare.
The labour is all I think about. Especially when I am trying to tell myself to think about something else. Even when I tell myself there is no point anticipating what might happen or how it might go. You just don’t know until it happens.
There is nothing in life like this.
A job interview you can prepare for, an exam you can study for...everything else seems to have rehearsals, dry runs, drills, practice, trials, run-throughs.
Not this time. I must surrender to that. Maybe I need to grasp that concept – really have it properly seep into my soul – before my labour can start?
Who the hell knows?
Soon, soon. Hopefully soon. I just wish I could define exactly what that meant.
So let me raise my raspberry leaf tea in a toast: “here’s to my next post being all about the textbook, incident-free birth of our baby girl”.
Showing posts with label due date. Show all posts
Showing posts with label due date. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Present and accounted for
Where on earth did that time go?
My due date has been and gone since we last spoke, so that may go some way to explain the intermittency of my posting.
Hell, that was a bad weekend. March 5 fell on a Saturday and it was horrific, and not only for the trip to a shopping centre.
Ha. I don’t know what we had to buy there, looking back now, but we had arranged my relatives to take Jay from lunchtime Saturday until Sunday morning...just because of the day it was.
So, whenever we manage to extricate ourselves from toddler-ville, thoughts automatically turn to what toddler-free activities we need to get accomplished. Somehow in the course of a busy life, carefree whimsical things of such wicked abandon like sleeping in, watching what we want on TV, reading entire book chapters or a newspaper uninterrupted, going out for dinner and not wolfing down our meal because we are already 45 minutes past young master’s bedtime ... disappear from our thought possibilities. Such naughty spontanaeity will never do. In fact, there, I have spelled the word incorrectly and will not check it to prove my very sad point. You know that will kill me, but I am as steadfast in my martyrdom as I am in my, er, point-making. Instead, we are ever-practical in the knowledge we have but a few precious hours to get absolutely the highest priority things done first. And somehow that always ends up being a trip to a shopping centre, where we can browse (impossible concept with a toddler) and inevitably purchase some book or toy or shoes or clothes for the young master who should be the furthest thing from our minds, but is often the opposite...cause we are missing him so much, to be honest.
Do those swords really need two edges and how come the grass on my side can't be verdantly Photoshopped?
Shopping centre errands are a nightmare at the best of times (although not sure when they are), but with a toddler, you are essentially saying to the world “kill me, kill me now – and play me the Muzak version of Ebony and Ivory as I lay on the too-shiny tiles being slowly trampled by the bargain hunters, but can you get me a cake donut from Donut King first and oh look Best & Less actually have an item of clothing that is A) more expensive than $5.99 and B) vaguely acceptable in public and oh look another stroller to dodge and oh look there’s a posse, not a family, but a bogan posse with two trolleys, three strollers, a bad attitude and 73 chicken nuggets between their 10 kids”
I guess I digress, yes?
We got home from shopping, too buggered to see a movie (another impossible toddler-inclusive activity), so went home to consume some of the stash leftover still from T's 40th: a nice bottle of champers and about 18 million spring rolls, samosas etc
Party food. But no party.
To tell the truth, that entire week had been a bloody shocker. Suddenly I was snapping at people, my fuse was shorter than it had been in a while and I was downright exhausted, often going to bed and going to sleep sooner than our three year old.
Saturday it all hit. When night fell, I felt more able to descend into tears and sobs, as if I could hide in the dark somehow...just like I had been in the thick of the worst of it last September.
It ached, it hurt my head, it made me thirsty and so so tired. I felt black and heavy. One part of me felt as if I was hovering above myself, looking on with T, worried. The other part just felt lost, really.
But after a little while, I took a few deep breaths and acknowledged that while I felt September...it was a new feeling, one I hadn't felt in months.
Progress, I had made some. I had gotten a bit better, or better enough to realise when I had momentarily lost sight of the very same stars I had somehow managed to see quite clearly in recent months.
I was driving to collect J from day care this week. Thinking I should update my blog. And this random thought popped into my head: we were grieving for the idea of a baby more so than the actual baby. And the in-between-ness of it all made it all the more difficult and messy.
That sounds quite wrong and callous now that I have written it down. But I was honestly struck by that...because I have so struggled with how to grieve properly for something I didn't see or touch or smell...someone who had only engaged us on an almost ethereal, dreamy level. Yes of course there was desire to meet him, expectation about him, excitement at the thought of what magnificent things he might bring to our family. But the connection was imaginary, while the loss of that connection was so intensely real.
It doesn't mean the grief is any less or more, it is most certainly there, let me tell you. But looking back, I feel it is on a strange, other level...like in a different time zone.
Hmm, hard to articulate...but gee, I see I've again given it a good crack here!
Got to go do some work. Love to you all.
My due date has been and gone since we last spoke, so that may go some way to explain the intermittency of my posting.
Hell, that was a bad weekend. March 5 fell on a Saturday and it was horrific, and not only for the trip to a shopping centre.
Ha. I don’t know what we had to buy there, looking back now, but we had arranged my relatives to take Jay from lunchtime Saturday until Sunday morning...just because of the day it was.
So, whenever we manage to extricate ourselves from toddler-ville, thoughts automatically turn to what toddler-free activities we need to get accomplished. Somehow in the course of a busy life, carefree whimsical things of such wicked abandon like sleeping in, watching what we want on TV, reading entire book chapters or a newspaper uninterrupted, going out for dinner and not wolfing down our meal because we are already 45 minutes past young master’s bedtime ... disappear from our thought possibilities. Such naughty spontanaeity will never do. In fact, there, I have spelled the word incorrectly and will not check it to prove my very sad point. You know that will kill me, but I am as steadfast in my martyrdom as I am in my, er, point-making. Instead, we are ever-practical in the knowledge we have but a few precious hours to get absolutely the highest priority things done first. And somehow that always ends up being a trip to a shopping centre, where we can browse (impossible concept with a toddler) and inevitably purchase some book or toy or shoes or clothes for the young master who should be the furthest thing from our minds, but is often the opposite...cause we are missing him so much, to be honest.
Do those swords really need two edges and how come the grass on my side can't be verdantly Photoshopped?
Shopping centre errands are a nightmare at the best of times (although not sure when they are), but with a toddler, you are essentially saying to the world “kill me, kill me now – and play me the Muzak version of Ebony and Ivory as I lay on the too-shiny tiles being slowly trampled by the bargain hunters, but can you get me a cake donut from Donut King first and oh look Best & Less actually have an item of clothing that is A) more expensive than $5.99 and B) vaguely acceptable in public and oh look another stroller to dodge and oh look there’s a posse, not a family, but a bogan posse with two trolleys, three strollers, a bad attitude and 73 chicken nuggets between their 10 kids”
I guess I digress, yes?
We got home from shopping, too buggered to see a movie (another impossible toddler-inclusive activity), so went home to consume some of the stash leftover still from T's 40th: a nice bottle of champers and about 18 million spring rolls, samosas etc
Party food. But no party.
To tell the truth, that entire week had been a bloody shocker. Suddenly I was snapping at people, my fuse was shorter than it had been in a while and I was downright exhausted, often going to bed and going to sleep sooner than our three year old.
Saturday it all hit. When night fell, I felt more able to descend into tears and sobs, as if I could hide in the dark somehow...just like I had been in the thick of the worst of it last September.
It ached, it hurt my head, it made me thirsty and so so tired. I felt black and heavy. One part of me felt as if I was hovering above myself, looking on with T, worried. The other part just felt lost, really.
But after a little while, I took a few deep breaths and acknowledged that while I felt September...it was a new feeling, one I hadn't felt in months.
Progress, I had made some. I had gotten a bit better, or better enough to realise when I had momentarily lost sight of the very same stars I had somehow managed to see quite clearly in recent months.
I was driving to collect J from day care this week. Thinking I should update my blog. And this random thought popped into my head: we were grieving for the idea of a baby more so than the actual baby. And the in-between-ness of it all made it all the more difficult and messy.
That sounds quite wrong and callous now that I have written it down. But I was honestly struck by that...because I have so struggled with how to grieve properly for something I didn't see or touch or smell...someone who had only engaged us on an almost ethereal, dreamy level. Yes of course there was desire to meet him, expectation about him, excitement at the thought of what magnificent things he might bring to our family. But the connection was imaginary, while the loss of that connection was so intensely real.
It doesn't mean the grief is any less or more, it is most certainly there, let me tell you. But looking back, I feel it is on a strange, other level...like in a different time zone.
Hmm, hard to articulate...but gee, I see I've again given it a good crack here!
Got to go do some work. Love to you all.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Icy and sugar free
It's an icy lemon squash kind of day here in Queensland today. And I found one that is sugar free and actually does not taste like aspartame's ass.
What is it about the term sugar free that induces instant piousness? Like the fat chick who orders a supersized Whopper meal - with extra cheese and an ice-cream sundae...and then orders loud-voicely "just a small diet coke also please". Good girl, watching your calories like that.
Thing is, give it 10 years and Lancet will be printing studies about the various dangers of all the other shit they put in these sugar-free drinks to make them taste, uh, sugary. You know the ones, they end in -alanine and -oxydotol.
But if they contain all those acids and preservatives, won't we live longer? They are essentially pickling us, after all.
Anyway, sugar-free lemon squash is my beverage of choice while blogging this afternoon. Just thought you'd like to know.
Yesterday's beverage du jour was beer, Stella in fact. Just one schooner, as I was driving, but goodness I could have had at least four more.
And that is saying something as just six days before I was doing the "I'm never drinking again" thing, hungover as shit after my partner's 40th. (Happy birthday darling.) All it took was eight Asahis and I was a bed-ridden cactus that threw up twice the next day. Trust me, that is not a cactus you want in your garden.
Flaming Mojave Desert, I was sick.
It was buggeringly hot last weekend and I swear I ate a dodgy Ho Mai concoction (although that is unfair to Ho Mai, makers of the finest fake supermarket yum cha selections in history, so I take that back - but I am lying to myself and to you: there was no dodgy food poisoning here. I am simply soft and unable to hold my liquor.) There I said it - and yes alright I will admit it outside the comfort of those brackets back there. I. Am. Soft.
But a schooner here or there is ok. The occasion yesterday was a wonderful catch-up with two gorgeous friends, former workmates - the ones who have seen the light. Haha.
I have blogged about one of them previously. We were pregnant at almost exactly the same time until I lost the baby.
She is mere weeks away from giving birth so her girth is cause of much mirth. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Well it was generally mirthful until she started reacting to the baby moving, causing our other friend to put his hand on her belly. I was sitting on the other side of the table and thought for a split-second about reaching over for a feel, but withdrew.
Why?
Well, at that moment, it was confronting. I could see her top shifting a little as the baby's limbs moved under her skin, causing the slightest slide up and then down, casting a miniscule shadow to break across the fabric of her top before disappearing.
I felt the tiniest tear well up at that point and stayed silent. I think...maybe I talked about something else, or looked at the boats on the water nearby. I can't remember, but a sudden, gripping feeling of..."I want that" just choked me.
And I am sorry to write this down, because I suspect these two amazing people will most likely read this and feel bad. Don't. Please.
So you didn't give that a second thought at the time? You didn't notice anything at all afterwards? Good. I don't want you to.
As I have explained before, that is no sort of friendship if one party feels they have to censor themselves.
Stuff has been building for me this past fortnight. And again, like the weeks after we lost the baby where I would see baby-related things literally EVERYWHERE I turned, and so it is happening again now: near to my due date.
I came to work on Monday last week to hear three people I knew had had babies over the weekend. Then a high-profile contact at work announced she was pregnant, someone else got a positive pregnancy test, heavily pregnant women seem to cross my path with unnerving regularity and just this morning as I walked through the markets my nan pointed out a random sign on a stall warning about the dangers of mobile phones when you are pregnant.
Now I absolutely rationally know that nan, like my friends, would in no way have thought a completely innocuous gesture like that would make me feel terrible. So I cannot rationally A) make them aware of that (except via this blog, um?) or B) be angry with them about it.
And I am not suggesting that I take away from my friend that amazing experience of having her baby move inside her, and wanting to share it with her friends. That's what pregnant people do.
The thing is, it's all so fleeting. Maybe on another day, I would have reached over to feel her belly and been completely fine about it. And as I have explained before, whatever "bad" stuff I might feel is not something I hang onto.
So the tears started for a nanosecond there yesterday...but they were gone in a flash. Alright part of that is self-preservation, but part of it is trying to stay healthy mentally...and of course continue to honour the fantastic relationships I have with friends and family. I know I would absolutely hate it if people I liked to have around me felt they were on egg shells whenever we met.
Maybe I am stupid for writing it down here...and I am probably selfish for doing so. Because, like last year, Blogger is better than any therapist I've ever known. So, sorry, but don't take it on board or make it alter your behaviour around me.
This is a glimpse into how I felt for a fleeting moment one Saturday afternoon. Know what? Next Saturday, I am sure it will be very different.
Hmm, I am clearly formulating my application letter for Ramblers Anonymous here, but I hope some of this makes sense.
The next few weeks will be tough. March 5 will be tougher. But it is a mere moment in time. I'll be right.
What is it about the term sugar free that induces instant piousness? Like the fat chick who orders a supersized Whopper meal - with extra cheese and an ice-cream sundae...and then orders loud-voicely "just a small diet coke also please". Good girl, watching your calories like that.
Thing is, give it 10 years and Lancet will be printing studies about the various dangers of all the other shit they put in these sugar-free drinks to make them taste, uh, sugary. You know the ones, they end in -alanine and -oxydotol.
But if they contain all those acids and preservatives, won't we live longer? They are essentially pickling us, after all.
Anyway, sugar-free lemon squash is my beverage of choice while blogging this afternoon. Just thought you'd like to know.
Yesterday's beverage du jour was beer, Stella in fact. Just one schooner, as I was driving, but goodness I could have had at least four more.
And that is saying something as just six days before I was doing the "I'm never drinking again" thing, hungover as shit after my partner's 40th. (Happy birthday darling.) All it took was eight Asahis and I was a bed-ridden cactus that threw up twice the next day. Trust me, that is not a cactus you want in your garden.
Flaming Mojave Desert, I was sick.
It was buggeringly hot last weekend and I swear I ate a dodgy Ho Mai concoction (although that is unfair to Ho Mai, makers of the finest fake supermarket yum cha selections in history, so I take that back - but I am lying to myself and to you: there was no dodgy food poisoning here. I am simply soft and unable to hold my liquor.) There I said it - and yes alright I will admit it outside the comfort of those brackets back there. I. Am. Soft.
But a schooner here or there is ok. The occasion yesterday was a wonderful catch-up with two gorgeous friends, former workmates - the ones who have seen the light. Haha.
I have blogged about one of them previously. We were pregnant at almost exactly the same time until I lost the baby.
She is mere weeks away from giving birth so her girth is cause of much mirth. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Well it was generally mirthful until she started reacting to the baby moving, causing our other friend to put his hand on her belly. I was sitting on the other side of the table and thought for a split-second about reaching over for a feel, but withdrew.
Why?
Well, at that moment, it was confronting. I could see her top shifting a little as the baby's limbs moved under her skin, causing the slightest slide up and then down, casting a miniscule shadow to break across the fabric of her top before disappearing.
I felt the tiniest tear well up at that point and stayed silent. I think...maybe I talked about something else, or looked at the boats on the water nearby. I can't remember, but a sudden, gripping feeling of..."I want that" just choked me.
And I am sorry to write this down, because I suspect these two amazing people will most likely read this and feel bad. Don't. Please.
So you didn't give that a second thought at the time? You didn't notice anything at all afterwards? Good. I don't want you to.
As I have explained before, that is no sort of friendship if one party feels they have to censor themselves.
Stuff has been building for me this past fortnight. And again, like the weeks after we lost the baby where I would see baby-related things literally EVERYWHERE I turned, and so it is happening again now: near to my due date.
I came to work on Monday last week to hear three people I knew had had babies over the weekend. Then a high-profile contact at work announced she was pregnant, someone else got a positive pregnancy test, heavily pregnant women seem to cross my path with unnerving regularity and just this morning as I walked through the markets my nan pointed out a random sign on a stall warning about the dangers of mobile phones when you are pregnant.
Now I absolutely rationally know that nan, like my friends, would in no way have thought a completely innocuous gesture like that would make me feel terrible. So I cannot rationally A) make them aware of that (except via this blog, um?) or B) be angry with them about it.
And I am not suggesting that I take away from my friend that amazing experience of having her baby move inside her, and wanting to share it with her friends. That's what pregnant people do.
The thing is, it's all so fleeting. Maybe on another day, I would have reached over to feel her belly and been completely fine about it. And as I have explained before, whatever "bad" stuff I might feel is not something I hang onto.
So the tears started for a nanosecond there yesterday...but they were gone in a flash. Alright part of that is self-preservation, but part of it is trying to stay healthy mentally...and of course continue to honour the fantastic relationships I have with friends and family. I know I would absolutely hate it if people I liked to have around me felt they were on egg shells whenever we met.
Maybe I am stupid for writing it down here...and I am probably selfish for doing so. Because, like last year, Blogger is better than any therapist I've ever known. So, sorry, but don't take it on board or make it alter your behaviour around me.
This is a glimpse into how I felt for a fleeting moment one Saturday afternoon. Know what? Next Saturday, I am sure it will be very different.
Hmm, I am clearly formulating my application letter for Ramblers Anonymous here, but I hope some of this makes sense.
The next few weeks will be tough. March 5 will be tougher. But it is a mere moment in time. I'll be right.
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