Full Term

It’s official – I am three weeks away as of today.  Well, three weeks away from my anticipated due date, which could be off by weeks.  Not based on the baby or anything else, just based on the fact that very few women actually give birth on their due dates.  I suspect that many don’t even make it within a week.  They’re either early or late.  Last week, we were invited to a party that happened yesterday and I was asked to make sushi, so I was holding out until then to have the baby.  Also, my doctor requested my cooperation in waiting until I was technically full term.  So, today is that day and now I can have the baby.  The car seats are moved back in the van and the base to the baby seat is installed.  That was the big job, although there are lots of small tasks in the house that still need to be done…and the fact that our cradle is still being fixed (well, I hope it’s being fixed anyway).  I don’t really think of these things as a big deal, though.  The thing that keeps me holding on is my desire for another big baby.  It’s highly likely that I’ve mentioned it before, but Jenny was 9 lb. 6 oz. and eight days late, while Elias was 7 lb. 4 oz. and two and a half weeks early.  The difference was amazing and Jenny just never felt so fragile as Elias.  She was big and hearty and healthy, while I worried about him a bit more.  So as much as I don’t want to be pregnant anymore, I would like to have a bigger baby than last time. 

Really what would help is one event per week leading up to my due date that would keep me from wanting to have the baby so badly.  One party or get together, etc. and I could look forward to those things rather than my due date which is still depressingly weeks away.  Typically, my Thursday Bible study would be enough, but it’s not quite cutting it lately.  I thoroughly enjoy it, but if I had the baby..say, tonight, I would probably still go on Thursday.  If I had the baby on Wednesday, the girls could all come to see me in the hospital after the study, which would be awesome.  Therefore, it’s not imperative that I remain pregnant for that reason alone.  Unfortunately, it feels like a quiet month in the way of events.  I suppose I could try using my imagination and pretending that there were things to go to, but then I would be disappointed when the day came and it wasn’t real.

Anyway, I’m rambling now. 

In other news, my family is sick.  Elias came down with a cold last week and his nose ran and he coughed like crazy and effectively passed it on to Jenny.  Now Mike and I have a touch of it as well, although not nearly as bad as the kids.  Jenny has had a fever for most of the day and is acting very sick.  She tends to get hit with things much worse than Elias.  When he is sick, he doesn’t act quite as down as she does.  She will lay on the couch for hours at a time doing nothing and sometimes falling asleep, whereas he is rarely content to sit still.  I am sure that some of it is personality as Jenny seems to be a lot like me when I’m sick and Elias more like Mike.

The nice thing about this illness hitting us now is that tomorrow is Victoria Day and Mike has the day off.  The weather has also been very nice which makes it somewhat easier as well.  I still have lots of things on my to-do list for the house, but if necessary, I imagine we’ll all be nice and lazy tomorrow.

Aside from the cold, I’m not feeling too awful physically.  I’m paying very close attention to the baby lately, making sure that it’s moving enough and if I’m feeling hiccups or small movement down low, which would indicate that it is still head-down.  It’s possible that my kids were like this, but this baby seems to either be going nuts or totally still.  I’ve been on the monitor at the hospital twice now and the first time, the nurses were astounded at how often it moved, while the second time, they were trying to wake it up by giving me ice water to drink.  When it’s calm, it’s hard to believe that I’m carrying a child that could safely be born now.  When it’s awake, there’s no way that I can ignore it, and of course it’s grown enough to be born – it could probably crawl already if it wanted to! 

I just noticed the time stamp on this entry and thought I’d mention that, for the record, it is not yet Monday where I am writing from.  The side bar tells me that there was a draft saved at 6:16 am on Monday, May 19th.  As of this moment, it is 11:14 pm on Sunday night.  So, to clarify, my due date is three weeks from today, Sunday.  I know, nobody cares, but it matters to me right now (blame it on pregnancy…you can do that for almost anything).

I’m sure there are things I could have gone on to say, but I should probably finish doing the dishes and some other general cleaning up.  My concern is that if I went into labour in the middle of the night, my mother-in-law would have to come over to stay while the kids slept and then she’d see how bad it was in the morning.  This is one of my greatest fears…well, okay, it’s diminishing a bit year by year, but still, it’s not a nice thought.  At least if my dishes are done and there aren’t pieces of clothing and garbage strewn about, it’s not quite so bad.

If I’m still pregnant, you’ll hear from me sometime soon (or at least during my thirty-eighth week), and if I’ve had the baby, it may be sooner.  Or later.  Okay, I’d better leave it at that before I stop making any sense at all.