2001-11-07
I'm starting to get uncomfortable. The kid is exerting near-constant pressure on my bladder, for one thing. Maybe it's a phase, or maybe it'll just get worse and worse and worse until he's born.
I have 15 more days of work. That doesn't sound like very many. I am very ready. Once I'm off, I'll have two weeks prior to my estimated delivery date. I'm not sure what I'll do with myself. I'm sure I'll figure something out.
I'm kind of excited about the prospect of going into labor. I'm really not scared. I've been reading a book called Mind Over Labor, about using mental imagery to cope with pain, and while it's kind of interesting, I just can't see myself following these exercises. I have always been impatient with relaxation exercises, with guided imagery, with those situations where you close your eyes and someone uses a gentle voice to prompt you to relax your foot, relax your calf, relax your thigh. Those things just drive me crazy. I'm not quite there yet but I think I'm getting close to the point where I shouldn't read any more books about childbirth.
B's family is coming to visit over Thanksgiving. His parents will stay in a motel and his brother will stay with us. This should be pleasant enough; they are all pretty easy to be around. I'm not experiencing one iota of worry about the state of the house. The primary reason for this, I guess, is that B is by definition more concerned than I. And not just because it's his family (I know that technically our marriage means they are my family, too, but it doesn't really feel that way). I suspect that when my family comes he'll also be more concerned about the state of the house. I suppose if he were completely oblivious, if his standards were dramatically lower than mine, then I'd have to scrape together a little concern. But that's not the case.
I have a friend who's been talking for a while about adopting a South American child on her own. Not just talking, but meeting with social workers and having home visits and the like. I talked to her the other night and learned that she'd just agreed to adopt a pair of identical twin boys from Guatemala. They were born on September 11. Their names, though she will likely change them, are Jose Armando and Jose Fernando. Because of some peculiarities of Guatemalan law, they must remain in foster care for a long time; she will probably not be able to go pick them up until April.
Many people she knows are expressing the opinion that she is out of her mind to take this on. She figures that this way the kids will have each other and that makes sense to me; as I saw first-hand when I taught, the one-mother-one-son dyad can be awfully intense. She's planning to make part of her house into an apartment and rent it to a college student in exchange for part-time childcare and to have another adult on the premises. She has a very strong support system of friends and family in the town where she lives; though a fair number of them are the ones telling her she's crazy, I'm sure they'll rise to the occasion once the children are present. Also, she also has plenty of dough. I think she'll do fine.
Another woman in my pregnancy group had her baby. She had an emergency cesarean due to placental abruption. This is a very serious, fairly rare occurence where the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, definitely a warranted cesarean. From what I've heard, both she and the baby are doing well. This leaves two of us still to pop. The other woman's EDD is December 1, mine is December 16. So far, the six babies that have already been born are all healthy. Some tiny superstitious part of me wonders how likely it is that all eight would be healthy, and wonders if mine will be the one with difficulties. I don't really think so.
As I've said, I have a strong sense of optimism about the birth and actually look forward to it. Part of it is my macho streak. Whether it's true or not, I like to think of myself as having a high pain threshold. And I do like a challenge.
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