Plodding Along Towards Week 39

Between writing my last post at 37 weeks of pregnancy (when I felt, matter-of-factly, that having a baby was still a million miles away) and week 38 of pregnancy, I experienced, quite suddenly, pretty nearly all of the catalogued pre-labor symptoms that suggest labor might be coming. (Well, if you google them [which trust me, I did . . . a ridiculously unnecessary amount of times] what they actually suggest is this: "labor might be hours or several weeks away".) 

Which of course I already knew. I've had one hundred babies after all. But I kept on googling . . . hoping that somehow I might suddenly read something new that would narrow the window between hours and weeks to . . . "precisely this time on this day".

I didn't find it.

But all at once, despite my former inability to believe anything, it was real! This baby! Coming! Labor! And delivery! And our entire lives changing! It could all suddenly happen in HOURS . . . or weeks.

Hours or . . . weeks.

HOURS OR WEEKS!!!

Nothing in my life has ever driven me quite so mad as the ten times that I have lived through something this enormous coming in hours or weeks.

I went from having done nothing to prepare (because no need to act rashly . . . we still had all the time in the world and I? a picture of calm) to packing a hospital bag, and pulling out the baby cradle, and washing baby sheets, and analyzing a thousand emotions and physical symptoms, and alternating days between cleaning like a mad woman because baby might be here any minute and . . . dejectedly doing absolutely nothing at all because what was the use when it would just get undone and no baby was ever really coming anyway.

But! I've calmed a bit. I've quit looking anything up on the internet (I may have read it all at this point anyway), and I have quit panicking about having things done (or panicking about them not being done). And I've allowed that this baby most likely will follow the pattern of all of my other babies (saving Mette -- that two-week-early curve thrower) who arrived within about four days (one side or the other) of their due dates. And I've determined to spend at least a little chunk of time every day this week doing something creative. Life is so full of so many demands that I often tend to feel guilty if I am doing anything other than what needs to be done, but I read something from Elder Scott the other day where he talked about his love for painting and how using our creative abilities adds depth and meaning to the monotony of life's demands, etc. With that approval, I dropped my guilt and . . . I'm writing a blog post! And determining to pull out my camera this week! And I even played the piano yesterday and today! (Which is a slow and painful process as I have to pause and think about every note beyond the keys between middle C and the Cs on either side of it. As I was slowly working out an arrangement of Nearer My God to Thee today, Summer came in and asked, "Why are you playing the piano?" When I told her I just wanted to, she called, "Mette! Come on! Let's dance!" Mette excitedly joined her. After about 30 seconds Summer leaned over to her and whispered hopefully, "Don't worry. In a minute it will get exciting.") 

In other news, and speaking of Summer and Mette, they have become the best little playmates! Summer is four and Mette three, so it isn't as if they haven't been interacting with one another for a long time, but something has just clicked between them the last month or two and they are able to play and entertain each other for hours. It's a very satisfying development and makes me incredibly grateful that I had those two girls so closely spaced. 

Notwithstanding all of that, there are still a few glitches: They tend to make a tremendous amount of mess in their adventures together. Poor Hansie is perpetually left out (as they don't want his curious little hands anywhere near their Calico Critter arrangements or Little Pet set ups). And, . . . I overheard this matter-of-fact portion of a conversation coming from the kitchen the other day:

Summer: "But Mette, sometimes it's hard to be your best friend. Because you just scream at me all day." 

Anyway, that's all for now.