41 weeks

41 weeks today. So very, very tired. My back aches, my hips ache, I can't walk for more than 15 minutes without needing to take a break. There is no position — sitting, standing, or lying down — that is comfortable. I swear that I can feel my organs compressed into my chest — my poor, poor intestines. And, man, acid reflux is really disgusting. Have I mentioned I hate pregnancy? 

I have never been in labor so I don't know what it feels like, but apparently I have no obvious signs of someone who is close to being in labor. Given my current status, I really feel that this is highly unfair. At what point, exactly, does my uterus have a chat with my spine and my bladder and call it quits?? It's like my own body is taking the baby's side over mine — which, of course, is exactly what's happening. Biology is cruel. 

I have a c-section scheduled for Monday. My doctors wanted to do it earlier, but I'm glad I waited until 41 weeks because I am now uncomfortable enough that a c-section will feel like a relief. Even if it's as painful as last time, at least it will be over in about 20 minutes and I can be done. 

It's really a bummer to be one of those women who stay pregnant way longer than necessary. This baby could have been born perfectly fine and healthy three weeks ago. At that point I was feeling ok and excited to meet this new person, and now I don't really have the energy to think about anyone but myself. Intellectually I know that the baby is whole point of all this, but the animal part of my brain is taking over now, and all the animal wants to know is when this will end.  

I've been trying to make myself feel better by remembering that these are the last few hours I will ever be pregnant. And that the next time I'm feeling this terrible, it will be because I'm actually ill, and no one will expect me to be happy or excited about it. I do find some comfort in that. 

Almost 40 weeks

40 weeks on Saturday. I can now definitively say that the first and last trimesters are tied in terms of disagreeableness. There is just something so tedious about having all your organs compressed and a baby's head sitting in your pelvis for weeks on end. You can never quite catch your breath, or sit comfortably. Or stand comfortably. Or walk comfortably. More succinctly: I am uncomfortable.

Last time, I was anxious for it to be over, which is why I was ok with being induced at 40 weeks. I wasn't particularly nervous, just impatient. Now I am in the unfortunate position of wishing fervently for it all to be over and also dreading the ending. It's like wanting a reallllly terrible movie to finish, but also knowing that someone is going to stab you as soon as you leave the movie theater. I know that I eventually have to leave the theater. All I can do is hope the assailant has a very small knife. 

Being this pregnant, everyone has started to tell me their birth stories. My mother is a repeat offender. She loves to tell me how she, my aunt and my grandmother all had babies three weeks past their due dates. Her point (I guess?) is that late babies run in the family, though I have explained to her many, many times that no doctor would allow this today. I have also reminded her that dating a pregnancy is a bit more sophisticated now, what with ultrasounds and all. Her response: there's no way that all of them were wrong in their due date calculations and I have no idea what I'm talking about. 

Other than my mother, I don't mind hearing people's birth stories. They are all entirely unique, which I find reassuring. It's also sort of fun to hear about someone's precipitous labor, or their water birth, or the time when the nurses forgot to insert a catheter. I mean, when else do people share this level of personal information with you?! It's highly entertaining. It's also sort of gratifying to see the look of horror on everyone's faces when they learn that I had a c-section after a failed induction that lasted three days. Veterans have their war stories, and I have this, apparently. 

It's so enticing to think that you can predict the future based on what happened in the past. But it almost never works that way. I am trying very hard to accept that I cannot predict how this will go. I don't know if I will go into labor before my c-section date. If I do go into labor, I have no idea what that will be like. And if I do have a c-section, I don't know that it will feel anything like the last one. 

I don't know anything, really, except that I will not be pregnant in October. And amen to that.