So I am now in my ninth month gestating away as I say good-bye to my fellow workers and head home for a year long respite- or is it?
I was just thinking, I don’t think I ever stayed home for an entire year since I was a child. I was always in school or work. This is different! I am not completely clueless and I know that staying home with a newborn is no small feat but then again, I used to hold down two jobs, go to university and have time to style my hair- and that my friends is called multi-tasking. Have you even seen my hair?
So I am now at the stage where I see my doctor every week and there is always something new and exciting to learn. Like how I need to monitor the movements of the baby because it NEEDS to move 6 times every two hours. That alone is becoming a full-time gig for me. I have a spreadsheet and I check off movements because if there are none, I need to head to the emergency immidiately. I cannot pass GO or collect $200.
I was also instructed to monitor my sugar intake, increase my excercise routine to a 45 minute walk and to be wary that at any moment I can potentially leak which is a common sign that labour might begin. And here is the funny part, there are a lot of maybe’s at this stage. If your water breaks, you MAY go into labour right away but it MAY also take hours. If you feel contractions, you MAY be in active labour, you MAY not be. If you start feeling pressure on your pelvis, you MAY be experiencing the baby pushing its head into the birth canal or MAY be experiencing the normal effect of the baby turning (they call it lightening, I laugh at that term).
So after all the MAY be’s, there is one sure thing- I am still nervous about the whole labour thing. Truth is, I am afraid because I don’t know what the pain is like. I read on forums that it is “nothing like you have ever experienced before”- thanks. How the heck am I supposed to relate to that? Tell me something useful like “It will feel like a million papercuts” or “The pain will be like a migraine in your pelvis”… something… anything! Don’t people know that half the fear is not knowing?? For once, I just want one person to tell me the honest truth… only to prepare my poor and terrified pelvis!
I realize that this blog is about a mother-to-be but I think I will continue logging in after the baby is born and call it “A mother has been…” Only to share the stark reality of a newborn regimen and routine and ready moms who are taking the plunge into maternal heaven. I would like to be the one true voice in the wilderness that states it like it is… raw and unmodified from the facts of reality.
I am leaving work and everyone says, “You will be really busy with the little one, enjoy every minute”. I want to define what “busy” means. So keep reading…
But first, I will continue ranting about the rest of this gestational waiting game to either prepare moms to be or just to get a laugh. I just have to remember that there is no “undo” here and there is really no “refunds, exchanges or upgrades”. Nowhere to go but forward and onwards. So forward I march into the dark realm of labour and impending motherhood and I pray that as light is being shed on what it all feels like, that I will adjust quickly and with agility. I am ready and set, now all I need is the “Go”.
Smartignani
B. Ed and B.A Psychology
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