Sunday, January 27, 2013

Raspberry: 31 Weeks

Dearest Raspberry,

I'm so very weak, and so very impatient. I've been fighting it, but I'm slowly slipping into that mindset of being "done."

The ridiculous thing is, I'm so not ready to be done. I'm not mentally prepared to go from having two children to three (will I ever be?). I'm more than a little nervous about having a newborn again. And I will never, ever be amenable to sacrificing sequential hours of sleep again, though I know that it will be an unavoidable consequence of your impending arrival.

Not that I'm getting much sleep these days anyway, between your brother's teething woes, my misbehaving legs, and my general tendency towards insomnia (especially late in pregnancy).

What's really messing with my outlook, though, is the realization that I may be on the brink of prodromal labor again. All this time, I've been trying to remain optimistic about the possibility of it happening: that it may lead to a nice, quick active labor, that it may be easier to handle a second time, since I'll know what to expect. But now that I'm actually being faced with the possibility, my only thought has been, "I can't do this again." Add to that a brand new fear that this culminating "nice, quick labor" may be a little too quick, to the point that we don't make it to the hospital in time, once things get serious.

I had a rough evening this past Thursday, into Friday morning. Contractions galore. Though things had calmed down quite a bit by the time of my afternoon appointment on Friday, I still had to spend over an hour hooked up to an NST monitor while your father and siblings tried to amuse themselves nearby, and all four of us were exhausted by the time we got home from the ordeal. I've now got a bottle of pills handy to take in case things get crazy again, but the memory of the side effects that I got from them the last time is almost enough to make me want to trash the thing without opening it. I don't remember them being much help with all of the contractions when things were bad with your brother, anyway.

The good news is that this time I am not yet showing signs of dilation, as I did around this time in my last pregnancy. So, while I am baffled that I ended up having such a lengthy episode of contractions given my fairly limited activity levels, I was pleased to find that perhaps my caution has done me some good. I may be contracting, but I'm not progressing yet.

I've got another busy week ahead of me now; I won't be sorry to see January go. Let's see you how you, me, and my irrational uterus handle what's in store.

Love, 
Mommy