week 38: the updates.

so, i know that every single post is about being pregnant, but you have to understand. I CANNOT ESCAPE IT. there used to be times when i would wake up and almost forget that i was pregnant. i would remember pretty quickly, but i would get out of bed and i would forget for a minute that i was pregnant.  it was WEIRD, but i could, for moments, escape it.

no way is that possible anymore.

but that's okay. you must be slightly interested, or you wouldn't be reading.

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a little snapshot into my brain: last night, i cried. i hit my "i'm going to be pregnant forever" moment and also was like "it's so unfair that no matter what i do, i keep on gaining weight even though i have worked hard to not eat like a truck driver for my whole pregnancy." i'm hungry--i've been starving for days, and it comes on suddenly--and so i eat. but i try really hard to eat well. i know you've heard this song before, but sometimes it really annoys me that my road, in this particular way, is so much harder than others.

(here's where i interject that i absolutely recognize that, in almost every other way, my pregnancy has been a lot easier and a lot more "healthy textbook" than others, so it's entirely possible that other people are looking at me and thinking the same thing, so turnabout's fair play but pregnancy also makes you mental.)

i'm sitting in bed, propped up because it's the only way i can really watch TV in bed and hope to sleep at all, because if i spend any sort of amount of time on my sides, i start the timer on how long i can stand it, and i'd rather use that with sleep, thank you very much, and crying, staring at the ceiling.  and my sweet husband just told me a couple of things that i already knew: a) i would not be pregnant forever. b) all i can do is what i can do, and i do that the best that i can. (granted, my best at 38 weeks is infinitely less than my best at 28 weeks, but that's okay.) i haven't been going to buy cakes every three days (his example) and i try to eat well.  c) i am doing really well, all things considered.

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friday night, i had contractions for 4 hours. every 15 minutes. not horrible--i could do things through them, including attending an electroacoustic concert with my husband for his school which was weird and mindnumbing, but was a required deal for one of his classes--but enough for me to keep checking to see how often they were apart.

then they went away.

sunday night, i had contractions for 6 hours. every 15 or so minute, or 20, and they were tough enough at times that i thought maybe they were going to stick around. then i went to sleep.

and they went away.

yesterday i washed my car at the self-serve car wash (it was disgusting, and i would not bring a baby home in that) and then went to the new supertarget and bought stuff (really, there's just a lot of stuff you have think about when you're thinking about what you need AFTER you have a baby...that's not even for the baby. that's as far as i'll go) and then i came home and made french toast and scrapbooked for a while.  no real contractions. nothing really going on much.

hence the "i'm going to be pregnant FOREVER."

then i went to the doctor today.

baby is at -2 station (which means the baby has dropped) and i am 1-2 centimeters dilated.

sometimes i love my doctor, especially when he says things like "well, the head is a LOT lower" and starts asking me how far i live from the hospital and talking about how he'll see me next week--unless something happens before then and saying how it's good that my body is doing this, because it's much better to go into labor at a 2 or a 3 cm dilation than closed. 

sometimes i love when my instincts have been right.

musicboy asked me how i felt being dilated. and i told him that it felt incredibly encouraging, like things were moving and progressing and like my body was doing what it was supposed to do.

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one total bonus of being this ridiculously pregnant: nobody who is driving a car while i am crossing the street or the parking lot can possibly give me anything other than the right-of-way.  seriously? you're going to not let the waddling lady go?

that's what i thought.

one thing that's sort of annoying: i don't talk about anything else in public. everything is about how i'm feeling, how i'm doing, when i'm due, how long i have, what's new with the baby, blah blah blah. i mean, obviously, that's what i think most about too, and it's likely what i talk about too much too (hi, i think i said that already).

but yeesh.

i figure it's just getting me ready for when Baby Girl comes, and everyone just wants to pay attention to her.  why wouldn't they, really? she'll be adorable.

but moms tend to become a little bit invisible, i think, especially at first.  that's okay.  i'm just getting ready.

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i have yet to buy a donut in 2011.  i look at them literally EVERY SINGLE TIME i go to the store. i think about it every single time i go to the store. i usually think i will do it after every doctor's appointment.

i haven't yet.

i don't know if it's either here or there, but there you go.