Somedays I can't decide if I want to laugh or cry at what my life has become and the ridiculousness that imitates a "daily routine" - This is a day in my life at 39 weeks pregnant.
5:45 am John's alarm clock goes off, I reach across the bed {who am I kidding, I'm in the middle of the bed attempting to find a comfortable position, my poor husband his huddled in his corner nugget of bed I still allow him to have} and smack my soundly sleeping husband. After all that annoying alarm is waking me up too and I've been up no less than 4 times during the night to pee the half ounce that my bladder currently holds.
6:00 am Ugh. It's useless, I have to pee again now that I've been woken up. I loudly grunt and groan as I attempt to sit up in bed while simultaneously roll to the side. Realize that my bladder is about to explode and I have to hurry! Barge into the bathroom where my husband is showering, pee - loudly exclaim "you've got to be kidding me!" because I think I may have expelled a whole two tablespoons. How could that have felt so urgent??
While washing my hands, John and I discuss the night;
"how many times did you get up hun?"
"I think this makes 5"
"Contractions last night?"
"yup, all night long. At least one an hour that woke me up"
I honestly don't know if he says anything after this, because I've already stumbled from the surface of the Sun that is our bathroom with the lights on and back into our dark, warm bed.
6:15 am I'm finally beginning to nod back of to sleep, John stops by to say goodbye and give my belly & I a kiss. We quickly discuss anything important about the day and he heads out the door.
I spend the next 3 minutes contemplating whether or not I should get up and pee again, and finally conclude that I'll sleep better if I do; back to the bathroom I go, then back to bed.
{in a Non-Pregnancy World, this is about the time I should be getting up to head out for work}
7:30 am My alarm wakes me up, I do a quick mental check of everything I have on my desk at work and decide if I can go back to sleep or if I must drag myself in. To be honest, it doesn't matter much what work is waiting on me. I can barely hold my eyes open, back to sleep I go.
8:45 am The office has been open for 15 minutes now, my daughter has decided to push on my right hip bone with her hands and my left ribs with her feet. I can feel the bottom ribs displacing again - I'll have to remember to get the Chiropractor to put them back in place later this week. Roll back over, adjust her to somewhere *slightly* less uncomfortable in my too-small belly, go back to sleep.
9:15 am Wake up, realize I'm going to throw up, like right this very second. Barely make it to the toilet. Mentally grumble about the last 8 months of morning sickness but remember that this is so much better than it has been. Clean up, text my office a quick message "alive, no baby, will be in eventually". Go attempt to eat breakfast. Throw that up. Text John a similar message as what I sent to the office because he has sent me no less than 4 texts worrying that I haven't texted yet.
Respond to the 9 or so texts I've received during the night (aka early morning that I'm still sleeping), assuring everyone that no, the baby is not here. Yes, I'm still showing signs of labor. Yes, I promise that we will let them know when we're on our way to the hospital/certain it's the real thing/baby has arrived.
Drink a bottle of water on John's urging to not let the vomiting let me get dehydrated. Shower and dress while trying to keep the water down.
9:45 - 11:30 am (Depending on the day & how many times I've thrown up)
Arrive at the office, do a few things before sitting down at my desk beginning my work day. At some point, get up to go out the front to the mailbox (I try to group my work into two categories, sitting and standing so I'm not always up and down). As I'm standing at the mailbox, have a horrible contraction out of nowhere! Realize that there are clients in the parking lot behind me, try to nonchalantly lean on the mail box while breathing through the contraction, all the while thinking please don't notice me, I'm not doing anything strange.
Client is leaving, now is my chance. I make a break back for the front door to safely make it to my office. Half way there have these weird stabbing pains down both my legs as my daughters head burrows deeper into my pelvis don't fall, don't fall. Almost to the door. Of course there are clients around to notice you acting strangely - if you can just make it into the office you can hide before they come in from the parking lot Oh I hope they don't think me rude to not wait & hold the door for them. And just your luck, right about now you feel another strong contraction coming on, you know it's going to be a bad one.
Make it into the waiting area but you have to stop and lean on the front desk because the contraction is here and it mixed with that stabbing pain has you doubled over. On the count of three, you have to move. One, Two, MOVE - clients are coming in the door, you can't scare them! (never mind that it is most definitely only glass between you & them, so they can already see you!) You are lucky enough to stand up *almost* straight and hobble to the hallway, out of sight you can finish being in pain in private here - but wait, you forgot that you work in an office with other people. They see you leaning on the wall attempting those ridiculous breathing exercises. They've gotten mostly accustomed to this, but you still see their looks of concern as they asses whether or not you're about to have that baby here & now.
Afternoon My afternoon continues similarly to the morning. Though I'm careful to stay away from areas that I will likely run into clients. By 3:30 I summon one of the interns or Cora at the front desk to do just about anything that involves standing or walking. "Will you please come here? Can you take this to the stack of out going mail?" "Can you take this to so & so's office". Even I hate how needy I have become but every time I get up, hard contractions start & we have a similar episode to my morning. I attempt to comfort my wallowing self that this is almost over and you can bake cookies or something to make it up to everyone for how needy you've been for the past couple of weeks. Then those far too logical thoughts creep in but remember, Rebekah, prodrominal labor like this can last weeks and you aren't even to your due date yet!.
By 4:00, I have horrible indigestion (from water?? Yeah, pretty sure it's from water!) & have to pee (again). Can I hold it? Maybe. Do I really need those tums? Yes - you've already learned (more than once) that if you don't take care of the heart burn you will throw up! No one in the office needs to see me throw up again (most had that pleasure earlier in the pregnancy), so you make a "standing" pile of things to do while you're up out of your chair. I get up, take care of the 4 or so things that have to be done including a Tums expedition to the kitchen & the restroom. Realize you're completely drained, don't possibly have the energy to start another project & start working towards going home.
5:00 You have tried for the last hour to get out of the office, but something always gets in the way. Everyone knows, just like you do, that labor is imminent, so if they need something from you they know it has to happen before you go out the door for the day (unless it could wait 6 weeks...). Did I just pee my pants a little or did my water start leaking?? Oh well, at this point I don't even care. Thank all things good & holy for panty liners!
5:15 You begin your drive home, realize the car is on Empty and contemplate stopping for gas. No way do you have energy for that, and contractions are in full swing again. You know stopping risks having a mailbox episode at the gas station. You give in and stop. It would certainly be worse to run out of gas and you already feel awful for how needy you are to your husband who is so helpful already so you don't want to have to beg him to do it for you.
5:45 - 9:00
- Get a plate of food & veg out in one of my three rotating spots: the couch, bouncing/rocking/swaying on the exercise ball or in bed.
(Crock pot meals are all my family is eating now, fortunately I compiled the recipes & ingredients before my episodes of false labor were this bad so John or I can have the next days meal in the crockpot waiting to be turned on in about 10 minutes.)
- Pray that labor comes during the night because you just don't know how you can have another day like today.
- Try to spend quality time with husband, after all, this may be the last day just the two of you.
- In bed by 8:30, asleep by 9:00.
Baby Girl turned two weeks old on Monday. This week John went back to work. It was emotionally hard to have him leave each morning but as far as taking care of Baby Girl, it wasn't too bad.
