You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part.
-Tom Petty
Today's theme is: "Oh my God. Still?"
Yes. STILL. I am at the point where every pregnant woman who ever lived gets shifty-eyed and starts making furtive glances at tilt-a-whirls and giant bouncy houses and thinks to themselves you know, it could work...
I felt this way when I was pregnant with Chris. The days tick down, and I do my best to keep my mind off the fact that OH MY GOD THIS KID IS STILL INSIDE ME HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? At this point, all she's doing is eating for free. I feel like shining a flashlight up my crotch and tell her goooo towarrrd the liiiight. We went to the Greek festival this weekend, the first year since my engagement that I wasn't volunteering to feed people who couldn't pronounce what I was feeding them if they tried. Dim got permission to park on the church grounds, an honor reserved for, I don't know, the pope? We had better-than-handicapped parking. The policemen working the traffic and crowd had to be radioed as to our arrival so as to be waved through the police line. I felt ridiculous. I'm not made of nitro-glycerin, for Pete's sake. But Dim was insistent. If I go into labor at the festival, he didn't want to wait half an hour for a shuttle bus to pick us up and take us two blocks to the hospital.
Once I got there, the women staffing the booths (who all know me) were pretty much of the same mind when they told me: SERIOUSLY? IS YOUR UTERUS MADE OF ADAMANTIUM OR SOMETHING? HOW HAVE YOU NOT GIVEN BIRTH YET? Okay, the Greek ladies didn't say Adamantium, but still. One of them led me over to a local politician who is running for Governor, a man who was wearing glasses too stylish to be a heterosexual Republican, but who also happens to be a talented ER doctor and a military surgeon, made awkward introductions, and instructed him to keep an eye on my midsection for the remainder of the evening in case I broke my water all over the stuffed grape leaves. (Secret ingredient, by the way.) The poor man was there to shake hands and kiss babies, and yet still managed to be graciously polite about his new assignment: Cervix watch.
So of course, after all the attention showered on me, which I find completely embarrassing, I don't go into labor. I get Pope parking, and a medical escort on standby, so OF COURSE nothing happens. Dim and the kids went with (big) Sophie again to the festival last night, but I stayed home. Dim parked in Pope Benedict's spot again, just in case he needed to make a speedy getaway, so OF COURSE nothing happens again. There was nothing on TV for me to watch, and nothing but unfolded laundry for me upstairs, so I took myself out to a movie. It had all kinds of nice explode-y noises and big booms to scare a kid out of hibernation, but no.
The induction is scheduled for Thursday at ungodly o'clock in the morning. I'm trying to keep my chin up and stay distracted. It's really hard.
But soon this will all be over, and I will have a new little baby in my arms to cuddle and stroke and try to fit her entire head in my mouth. And you? You can come over and have amniotic grape leaves.
Posted by Jen at September 21, 2009 9:32 AM