Pregnancy Update

You know how when you're sitting in the doctor's consultation room and the doctor comes in and asks, "How are you doing?" both of you know it's only said as a polite greeting because the moment you saw their face you knew.  But you start talking anyway saying what a good week it was and that you're feeling great and you've been so optimistic and you feel almost healed focusing on all the positives not letting yourself think anything else is possible and surely it's been the best weeks by far and you're doing great really you are and if you can just keep talking maybe she won't have room to fit a word in so she can't tell you what you don't want to hear.  As if the facts unspoken make them somehow unreal.  A coping mechanism of denial, probably.  Eventually you've run out of things to say, as you can only repeat I'm feeling great so many times and you feebly end with, and the sunshine was lovely.

Ignorance is bliss but it is immature to purposely keep oneself uninformed so as to live a carefree life.

She tries to smile, a bit of a pained attempt, as if unsure of where to stick the needle for she knows anywhere she starts will still burst my happy bubble.  And it's just fact and nothing we did wrong and hardest of all, nothing more we can do about it.  Minimize stairs, is her gentle endeavor at letting us have at least something to "do better".  And she got out the little tape measure to help us all drive the point home and make it more real in our minds.  40mm is what is good... 8-9mm is a far cry from that.  The question in my mind; what happens when it shortens to... zero?!  But from here on out there is no need to measure anymore.  She will just check to see if I am in labor.  I must count contractions.  Be MORE aware.  No one else but me can tell if something is different, I alone am solely responsible to make that call.  Sometimes it seems the weight of this responsibility is too much.

We visited the NICU.  Our reality short of a miracle.  I realized just how good a job I have done at positive thinking and imagining my beautiful home birth at full-term (including me jumping on the trampoline on my due date if baby hasn't come yet!) that I have almost blocked out of my mind mentally preparing myself for the other possibility.  The nurse put it well when she said that one of the things NICU parents deal with is grieving the perfect birth story they were picturing.  I need to come back to my realist self at least enough to be ready so it won't be such a shock if it does happen.  (I still believe in the power of positive thinking and will continue, no worries, I just must also be prepared.)  And I can't help thinking What if God's will isn't my will?  Surely a pregnancy with complications and many sacrifices, early birth, and NICU stay wouldn't be His plan for us... or might it?  We saw a baby the exact (gestational) age as ours - except he was out and ours is in.  Strange to think of it that way, and amazing and beautiful.  I didn't think of it till later, but, if we have our baby in the next couple of months... they'll be buddies in the NICU! :)

I had a pity party for one day, bemoaning the things I was hoping to go to this weekend - the Tornado Spotter class, and the annual city wide garage sales shopping for baby stuff with a friend that we had been planning for so long, and church.  I feel like I am in an invisible prison, built of my own self-restraint, but somehow inescapable nonetheless.  It was an emotional day and not a good day to talk to me about moving a fridge and a little burner upstairs so I could effectively live my life on all of one story.  I need space.  I need air so I don't suffocate.  Spring is coming and I want to go outside.  Even though it is of my own choosing, for baby's good, it is still hard.  And then I kicked myself and got over my selfishness and started doing things for others.

And now I am back to doing well (sanity-wise)!  My dear dear friend went garage sailing FOR me and picked out a whole long list of baby clothes that I absolutely cannot wait to see, and a baby bouncer that I am equally excited about!!!!  And there is a baby shower for me tomorrow and about a gazillion people were invited and I am just so excited because I love socializing!!!  And then I feel little buddy-boy's kicks and know he's ok, and I'm ok, and we're telling him to stay in there (at least until after the baby shower - I MUST make it to my own baby shower!!! ;)) and 26 weeks is good and 28 is even better.  And I am blessed.