40 Weeks Today!

Joey liked the pretend turtles in the kid's area.

I hit all of my goal dates! First was Nov 1 because that pay day was the final check I needed to have enough for savings while I'm on maternity leave. Second was Nov 10, Matt and Jenny's wedding! The wedding was amazing and beautiful and I loved being able to spend the night with Dan and friends from school! I even had a glass of wine and got up and danced for Cupid Shuffle ;) Next was Nov 12, we had plans with Diana to go to the National Aquarium since it was Veteran's Day and I had off work. Last was Nov 16 since that was both the end of a week and a day into a new pay period. I got to finish out a pay period which means my next check will be normal, then I'll get to spread my PTO out over the next several weeks so that every pay period I'll be getting something. The extra day, yesterday, is 8 less hours from PTO I'll have to use in this pay period, yay!

This week at work has been hard though not because I've been feeling bad. I've been tired, but that's about it and pretty typical for my pregnancies apparently. I was looking forward to going on maternity leave and being able to take mid-day naps! I can never predict if I'm going to sleep well at night, so the fact that I can now take naps when I need to makes me feel a whole lot better when I wake up at 0300. I was a little sad leaving work yesterday because I love all my co-workers and I am going to miss them! I'm definitely glad to finally be on leave though, and I think with the next baby I won't wait so long to go on leave. I've had no indications of labor being close so far, but with a second baby that means nothing. I could go into labor 10 minutes from now or a week from now regardless of what "symptoms" pop up, so I'm trying to relax as much as possible. Though now that I'm off work, I keep making lists of things that need to be done and I'm not sure if it's nesting or my perfectionist-self that wants everything to be done before the baby gets here so that all we have to do when we bring him home is snuggle :)

Carrying BOTH my boys on our Aquarium trip!

I'm officially 1 week and 1 day farther along than I was when I had Joey. On the one hand, it doesn't really feel different because I was so large and uncomfortable with Joey (because of Mega Cyst) that this time around everything has seemed easy in comparison. I'm more sick of comments from other people than anything else. Not that I mind when people ask "When are you due?" in the store or at work (I had a lot of fun telling people "Saturday" all this week and watching their eyes get big!), it's more the stuff like people trying to be subtle when I know all they really want to know is if I'm in labor yet ("Oh just calling to check in"). At least I've had some people who are honest about it, "Think today's the day?". I love you all, I really do, I appreciate the support and prayers from our friends/family, and it may seem harmless enough to say "how are you doing?" but when you're the 5th person to ask me the same (or similar) question in a day, it gets a little tedious. I know I'm still pregnant, I know I'm not in labor yet, reminders really aren't terribly helpful at this point ;)

The thing I'm most excited about right now though is the fact that I have a "birth companion" lined up! Johns Hopkins has this amazing, FREE, program within the nursing program where they provide birth companions for as many moms who ask for one. It gives the nursing students the ability to attend many more deliveries than they normally might AND it gives laboring moms a knowledgeable person to help give them comfort or even advocate for them in hospital settings. The people who run the program make every attempt to accommodate all the moms who call, but sometimes if you call late in your pregnancy (like me) you might end up having your baby before they can get back to you. I didn't have high expectations when I called, because the voice mail message said "Please give us up to a week to return your call", but I figured with a free program I wasn't losing anything. I got a call from a leader last Sunday evening, who sounded amazing, and she said that if I didn't hear from a student before going into labor then to just call her and she'd come to my delivery. I did hear from a student and we met with her today to go over plans and paperwork and just to meet. She's really nice and I'm excited to have somebody lined up to help since I will likely not be getting the good drugs at the birth center. The midwives and nurses will be there for me medically, a "birth companion" is more for comfort and coaching (she can give Dan ideas of things to do for me). My companion is also excited because all the deliveries she's attended so far have been in hospitals and mine will be her first in a birth center. She was really interested to hear about the center and how the midwives did things (like encouraging eating/drinking during labor, full kitchen, big tubs, etc.). I'm glad she's excited and open minded because it really is a wonderful center and, who knows, maybe she could end up working there one day!

Midwife appointment this week was good, probably the quickest ones I've had so far (usually we end up talking for the majority of the appointment) since I've run out of questions to ask and we're just playing the waiting game. Blood pressure, baby's heart rate, and my weight are all good. My next scheduled appointment is on Wednesday, but I'm hoping not to make it ;) Even if I do make it, and I have to schedule an appointment after that, I'm on leave now so I can go in pretty much whenever they have openings (the last several appointments I made more than a month ago so I could get them for the evening slots after work). I'm not going to try to predict when I think I'll go into labor or when I think the baby will be born (my one and only guess was yesterday because it was my last day at work and Joey started labor on my last day of work at the school!), but I'll be happy as long as I go before 42 weeks. That's when the midwives aren't allowed to handle my delivery anymore and I have to start seeing the OB, who delivers at the hospital. Ultimate Goal #1 is a healthy baby, so if it takes 42+ weeks and a hospital stay that's totally fine, because Ultimate Goal #2 is a regular delivery regardless of location (if a c-section becomes medically necessary see #1). My secondary goal is to stay at the birth center so I can eat/drink freely, hang out in the nice big tub (with water jets!), and recover in my own bed and have the midwives come to ME a couple days later for followup. The bed thing is very important. The quality of rest I will get will be much better in my own bed than in a hospital bed, I don't care how expensive those beds are, nothing is the same as my bed!