Yesterday was what I am hoping is going to be one of my last midwife appointments.  I am about 11 days away from my due date and I am looking forward to meeting this little person.  But Baby M looks like he is going to be hanging around the belly for a little while longer. 

With my due date getting closer I now have my records and I snooped through it all as soon as I got home.  So here are the latest updates direct from the files of the midwife.

• Baby M is approximately 7.2lbs at this point.  Which is not too scary.  Maks was 7.5lbs when he was born so this new baby isn’t going to be too much bigger than Maks.  I am hoping anyway.
• I have to go to another ultrasound.  My midwife wants to make sure that my fluid levels are good and that the baby has enough room in there.
• I am GBS positive.  And because I have an allergy to penicillin it looks like baby and I will be staying in the hospital for up to 48 hours after birth.  If my labour is longer than 12 hours then there is no worries but if the labour moves quickly (like everyone thinks it will) then baby and I will have an extended stay to make sure that the infection isn’t carried on to the baby.

With Maks I had some real issues with breastfeeding.  It was hard.  I expected to breastfeeding to be easy.  It wasn’t.  I couldn’t produce, I was tired and the hospital ended up supplementing with formula after about 24 hours.  I was very upset that for the first little while I had to supplement.  But with a whole lot of pumping (I killed two breast pumps in Maks first year) and stubbornness we got breastfeeding to work.

But I have never felt like more of a failure than I did during those six weeks.  The lack of support that I had from the doctors, nurses and the non-existent lactation consultant had me feeling like I would never be able to do it.  But eventually I did it.  And this time around I know what to expect.

I feel confident this time around that things are going to be different.  And I am pretty proud of myself.  I intend to nurse as much as I can.  I am not as concerned about what people think this time around, I just want to breastfeed.  I have made this known to just about anyone who asks me.  So I very surprised when my cousin forwarded me a link yesterday about the vulgarity of women that breastfeed in public. 

I was appalled. 

To me breastfeeding is not sexual, it is about survival.  And as someone who couldn’t do it for so long I was very upset.  I don’t understand why it would upset people to know that a woman is breastfeeding in their general vicinity.  Breast does not automatically translate to sex.  People need to get their mind out of the gutter.

As of next week I will be 37 weeks pregnant. 

I am pretty much organized.  I have my hospital bag mostly packed.  I still need to throw in stuff me to wear if I have to spend the night (which is most likely going to happen) and stuff to come home in.  Coming home is fairly easy.  It is the finding something to wear while in the hospital that is proving to be a problem.  I want to nurse and I don’t have any button up pjs.  In fact I have no pjs at all.  I sleep in granny nightgowns (yes, Millhouse is a lucky man!!) and I don’t want to take them to the hospital.  And I am scared to go buy something because I don’t know what size I am going to be.  After Maks was born my pre-mat “fat” clothes fit but I don’t think that will be happening this time around.  So I am left with nothing for me in the overnight bag.  Hopefully Beanz will be able to do some last minute shopping for me when the baby gets here.

Also, work has gotten super, duper boring.  I am so tired of going in am so happy that this is my last week.  I have one of those really boring accounting jobs and now that the new girl is fully trained I have nothing to do.  So I spend the majority of my time trying to look busy and counting down the minutes.

All in all this pregnancy has seemed longer than my pregnancy with Maks and I getting to the point where I am super duper anxious to meet this new baby.

I don’t remember labour.

I remember being in labour.  I remember what I was wearing the day I had Maks.  I remember going to the hospital and all the events that lead up to Maks’ birth.

But I don’t remember labour.  More specifically, I don’t remember what labour felt like.  I don’t remember what I felt like in the hours, days, weeks leading up to me being in labour.

And this is distressing.

I am experiencing some serious pains but I don’t know if it is pre-term labour, Braxton Hicks, round ligament pain, or the baby dropping.  Over the past week I have called my midwife, telehealth, googled non stop and read everything I could get my hands on and I still don’t know what the hell it is I am feeling.

My midwife keeps telling me that this is normal.  I have to rest, take hot baths, take Tylenol and stay hydrated.  It will all go away if I do that but it is not.  There are days when it hurts so bad I can’t move and then there are days when the pain doesn’t exist.  On those days especially I question what the hell is going on.  If the pain was consistent then I at least would be able to justify my complaining but it is not.  Sometimes it is there all day, sometimes it is when I stand / sit / lay down / walk, sometimes it shows up in the shower and sometimes it’s just not there at all.

I wish I knew what was going on. 

I wish I could remember what labour felt like so I would know if this is something I should be worried about or not.

I am panicking as a direct result of procrastination.  My lack of organization this time around has finally caught up with me and now I am running scared.  I attempted to pack my hospital bag last night when I realized something. 

• I don’t have a bag.
• I don’t have any toiletries
• I don’t have any clothes for the baby.  All the stuff I washed and put away were for 6 months and older.  I have no newborn or 3 month clothes. 
• I don’t have any clothes for me to wear in the hospital.  I don’t own any pajamas or bedroom slippers.
• I don’t have pads
• I don’t have swaddling blankets 

I swear I went through the list that the hospital gave me.  Stinky and I went shopping to make sure that we had everything and I really did think that I was ready but I’m not. 

I guess I shouldn’t have spent so much time looking at designer ties.

I am now slightly panicked. 

OK, maybe more than slightly.

Currently I am on some impromptu bedrest.  I am experiencing some killer round ligament pain that has consistently gotten worse as the week went on.  I called my midwife at 9am today and she sent me home with the instructions to rest for the remainder of the day.

So I have been home for most of the day trying to take it easy.  I am not really a take it easy kind of person though.  I never really stop moving and this is hard.  I even tried to sleep but I couldn’t.  If I had a natural sleep aid I so would have taken it.  It seems like the only time I am not in pain is when I am sleeping.  But I didn’t have any so I just took half a Tylenol instead.  It helped with the pain but I still haven’t really slept. 

I am thinking that tonight is going to be an early night.

When I was pregnant with Maks I got my first ever pregnancy massage.  It was enjoyable and relaxing.  I had never had a massage before so my expectations were greatly exceeded.  I never got one after that but that was because I never had enough time.

This time around I am way more stiff and tired than I was with Maks so I decided to get another pregnancy massage. 

This one is nothing like the other one that I had.  It was painful.  I think that the masseuse bruised me.  She used her elbows and knuckles even though I asked her not to.  Instead of gently massaging out my knots, she used a lot of pressure to loosen my muscles. 

 I wanted a peaceful experience, and instead I got bruised hips and a sore back.  I don’t think that I am going back.

With baby # 2 arrival looming on the horizon, I am decided to get cracking on my baby to do list.  My plan for this weekend is to make Millhouse help me get all of the below done.

• Clean out the spare room
• Clean out the spare room closet
• Get plastic storage boxes out of the basement and go through the baby stuff that I saved and make sure that it is still OK for this baby.
• Wash baby stuff I saved
• Put away the baby stuff that I have saved
• Pick up paint
• Paint spare room
• Bring crib out of the basement
• Set up crib
• Get baby bedding
• Wash baby bedding
• Put baby bedding in crib.
• Wash cloth diapers.

 Now with that being said, most likely none of that is going to end up getting done.  What I figure is going to happen this weekend is:

• Go to the beach
• Take a nap
• Look over social security disability paperwork for my mom.

I am thirty weeks this week.  I roughly have about ten more weeks to go.  I am counting it as eight weeks though.  Maks was early and I have a really strong feeling that this baby is going to be early too. 

At this point my slackerness has caught up to me and I am in full blown panic mode.  I have realized that I am in no way ready for this baby.  I don`t have anything done.  I have pulled out some clothes but I haven’t washed them or organized things yet.  I bought a breast pump but it is not put together.  Heck, I haven’teven opened it yet.  I need to get stuff for and pack my hospital bag.  I need to replace the deadbolt locks on the doors because Maks can open the old ones.  I need to paint, fold, put away, and organize everything and eight weeks is not a very long time.

I am in full panic mode now.