Distraction, They Name is Thirty Eight Weeks Pregnant

I have been at work since 7:30 am.  It is now 11:30 am.  I have done literally zero things, besides stare out the window and take a walk to a coffee shop.  Yesterday afternoon I had a pretty intense hour of what felt like labor, but it fizzled.  This morning I’m having some milder contractions that are persisting, and I’m fairly confident they will also fizzle.   They are keeping me from focusing on a darn thing, though, since I sort of have to keep my spidey sense at least somewhat tuned to their frequency and intensity, just in case this is the real thing.

Waiting would be easier if I didn’t keep having this tease.  I’m not even overdue yet, technically still “early term,” but it’s been over a week of thinking “it could be today!” because of the contractions.  So, you know.  There is a huge Bar Luncheon today that I am skipping, because (as I explained to my coworker) someone there might ask me when my due date is and how I’m feeling, and I would be forced to commit murder and likely be kicked out of the Bar and lose my law license.  I think they do that when you murder people.

My OB, when listening to the baby’s heart with a Doppler at my regular appointment last Wednesday, smiled and said “Now THAT is a happy baby.  He is pretty content in there.”  And it made me smile, too.  I mean, he likes it in the womb, can you fault him?  It’s warm, quiet, he gets to hear the soothing lub-dub of my heartbeat, to float and stretch in the muffled and padded cocoon of my body.  His brain is growing, he’s practicing his breathing and swallowing, putting on fat and shedding the vernix and lanugo (skin protectants that keep fetuses from pickling in the amniotic fluid all these months, but which they do not need in the open air).  There are important things happening to his body in there, just as there are hideous things happening to MY body out here, and thinking of him as contentedly nestled in his maternal home makes me a little more patient.

We are making plans for the weekend.  My mother’s been here helping out for almost a week already – we are going to show her around our fair city (not too far afield, of course!)  I told her that if things continue as they are much longer, she can just change her driver’s license to an Alabama one and go ahead and register to vote, since it doesn’t seem as if she’ll be going home to Tennessee anytime soon.  But so – weekend plans: This might involve a beach trip, or a hike at a local park.  We may even take the boys fishing off a local pier with their new poles, though lord knows I don’t know how to put a line on the thing.  Maybe the Professor has more familiarity with how to work it.  We’ll just keep on trying to fill up our time, and I’ll try to keep from feeling like the watched pot.