33 weeks- on time, if not early this week for an update, yay me! Photo by Cate, once again. Thank you so much for making me look pretty yet again, dear.
I picked up a few extra baby items this week- some baby sleep sacks and pajamas, that sort of thing. I don't put my babies in clothes until they are oh, I don't know- maybe around their first birthday? It's not quite that bad, but I absolutely cannot stand holding a soft cuddly baby who is in stiff, thick blue jean, or wearing poky buttons, or worst of all, overalls with the bib constantly riding up and covering the poor little one's face! This obsession with comfort has progressed with each baby. Cate, why I put the dreaded overalls on her at, like, 6 weeks old! Grace never wore the overalls. Gideon wore nothing but pajamas and sleep sacks for at least three months. And so on and so forth with each child, progressively, until my sister Stephanie teases me and says in surprise, "Would you look at that! Is Truman old enough to be wearing CLOTHES?" Hah, yes, the two and a half year old is not compelled to wear pajamas anymore (though pajamas, especially of the super-hero variety, are about his favorite thing in the world).
As I near the end of pregnancy, of course thoughts are starting to shift toward labor and delivery...I try to not overthink it and totally psyche myself out. From a medical stand point, I have pretty non complicated text book labors- generally around 7-10 hours total of active labor, though I may have mild contractions for hours or days prior. However, lately it has seemed to me that I have gotten the raw end of the deal. Of my friends who have recently had babies (friends havng baby nmber two or so) somewhere around 6 out of 7 of them have had labors lasting 3 HOURS OR LESS. As in, "I woke up having what I thought were mild contractions, and the baby just arrived an hour later."
This is just not fair. I have totally paid the price with my 6 "textbook labors" and I more than deserve being able to say afterward, "You know, it really wasn't that bad. I would much rather go through that again than the first trimester of feeling sick," like one friend told me right after her first was born. If the words "You know, it really wasn't that bad," can just casually come out of my mouth after the baby arrives, I would be thrilled. So would my poor husband. I imagine Ben probably listens to their birth stories rather wistfully as well (well, no, I imagine like most husbands Ben doesn't really like to sit around and talk about birth stories); at least if he did, he probably feels almost as jealous as I do, because trust me, I don't go through labor, WE go through labor. He stays by my side the entire timedoing what he can or whatever I ask to help me through each and every contraction. I even begin to feel sorry for him: "I'm really sorry, but can you grind your fists into my back YET AGAIN with all your strength-no, harder-harder still-HARDER!- for another two minutes without letting up? Just keep doing this for the next two hours, please. I'm really sorry, Ben. Yeah, Thanks," is how the conversation would go if I could talk at that point. Instead, I can manage to say, "HARDER! no, HARDER! I SAID, HARDER!"
Anyway, somehow we have always made it through it, he and I and the baby. We feel like we have been through a world war at the end of it, in the trenches together, but victory always finally arrives at the end. But no, the words "You know, it really wasn't that bad," have never escaped my lips. Maybe this time, though, baby: maybe this time you'll take it easy on me. If not that's okay. We'll make it and there will be a sweet precious adorable baby at the end that will make all that pain worth it.
It's getting closer! Can't wait to meet little Seven!
