Crumpled Diary

So, as of midnight I’m 41 weeks pregnant. That’s a week past my due date. I’m scheduled for an induction beginning Wednesday evening. Wish me luck. Man, I’m tired.

Over the past 7 months or so, I have read a lot of descriptions of the weeks of pregnancy. I have read about my baby growing from the size of a grain of rice to a bean to a blueberry to a strawberry to a plum - you get the picture. It’s always food for some reason. Now, she is approximately the weight of 4 navel oranges (3.3 lbs.) and will soon graduate to a large jicama.

That all used to be very exciting for me to read about, but I am having trouble caring about the cute comparisons at this point. The only description that I would be excited to read at this point is “Your baby is now the size of…a full-term newborn baby! And no longer lives in your uterus!”

Yes, I am ready to give birth. I mean, I don’t literally want to give birth today. In 5 weeks she will be a crenshaw melon, whatever that is, and the week after that the fruit analogies will be no more. She will, in fact, finally be described as being the size of a baby. I will be happiest if she makes it to that point safely, within her current confines. However, while I am generally all for seizing the day and all that crap, and I should probably be more appreciative of every pound I gain, every teary outburst, every stretch mark,  every patch of flaky skin, every pain, every uncomfortable sleepless night, but mostly every kick and wiggle from within, so help me, if you happen to have a magic time-travel button that could magically transport me to May could you possibly send it my way?

There are 9 weeks left until my due date. There is a fairly large chance that I will have to schedule a C-section sometime earlier than that due to a marginal placenta previa. I will know more after another ultrasound in 2.5 weeks. Even though having a set date, a schedule, would be somewhat of a relief as I impatiently read through the next few weeks of milestones, I mostly still would like my body to have the chance to do its own thing.  Mostly.

A year ago I was freaking out, waiting for my wedding, and I thought that anticipation was bad. That was nothing compared to this.

It’s a girl! We call her Isabel. That will not necessarily be her name once she is born, but that’s what we call her. I know, it’s a little confusing.

Isabel is down with the west side.

In general, she has a bit of an attitude problem.

I would not surprised if she were born wearing a black leather jacket and smoking a cigarette. We are expecting Her Sauciness on May 20.

I have been extremely anxious lately. It’s been worse since around Thursday or so.  I am going to see a doctor next week who specializes in this sort of thing (women’s mental health) so I am hoping for good advice. I have not been treated for my anxiety problems since I found out that I was pregnant (around 4 months ago; I can hardly believe it!) and it hasn’t been easy, but this is definitely getting worse.

Blah.

Thanks to all for your nice comments last week; I’m sorry for not being better about responding to them. One thing about the way that I have been feeling is that it makes me extremely uncommunicative.  Email is a major stretch and phone calls pretty much don’t happen. You would think that the simple act of commenting would be easier, but not so much.

There is Exciting Baby News on the way, so stay tuned!