Almost there.
You know, you'd think tha tafter all the years of posting about my attempts to get pregnant I'd do a better job of posting about the resulting pregnancy. My bad.
In any case, we're almost there! I'll be induced on Thursday (thank you gestational diabetes) and I can't wait to meet our little girl.
The house is nowhere near ready -- her nursery still needs a ceiling and two walls and I have to clean our room enough to squeeze in the portable crib she'll be living in for the next little while. It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks and as glad as I am to be done (hasn't been the funnest pregnancy) I'm starting to wish we had more time. It would have been nice, for one thing, to have some time alone with Sultry before Baby J gets here. She's stuck working right up to the birth and all her days off have been spent running to appointments, working her other job or trying to get ready for the baby. I don't know how she does it.
I'm getting tired of hearing how it doesn't matter if the nursery is done and that Baby J can sleep in a drawer and that we'll want her in our room because it's so much easier and blah blah blah. The ADULTS in the house are having trouble dealing with the dust and debris from the repairs. How is it ok to expose a brand new baby to it? I'm not the co-sleeping, attachment parenting type (not that there's anything wrong with that). I'm the baby-will-sleep-better-in-her-own-room type and that was the route we were supposed to take. Not that there's much I can do about it.
Everyone keeps telling me not to worry about the birth and that the pain is there for a reason and so on and so forth. I'm not actually all that scared. Sure, I'm nervous but it has more to do with being induced than anything else. The miscarriage gave me a good idea of how much pain I'd be in when I finally did have a baby and I know from that experience that I can cope with it. Especially with knowing that at the end I get a baby this time. When I miscarried I spent about 6 hours in the waiting room not allowed to eat or drink or take pain meds. I could sit in a chair or pace to the bathroom and the only distraction I had was talking to my Mom, Sultry or my big sister. If I can make it through that I can make it through labour. Or at least a regular labour.
Being induced is supposed to be more intense. The meds make the contractions stronger and more painful and things like an epidural are pretty much the norm. The epi has been the one thing I've been nervous about -- I'm not a fan of needles and the combination of having a big ass one in my spine and not knowing how my body will react has me a little reluctant to have one. They also lengthen the labour and increase the chance that they'll have to use forceps or a vacumn to get the baby out and I don't really want that. I guess I'll just have to see how I feel when the time comes. Luckily I can decide right up to the last minute.
I'm supposed to write a birth plan to take into the hospital detailing my wishes for how I want the birth to go. I don't have a whole lot to say medically -- most of what I want is already standard at our hospital. I do have to outline our family situation and that while yes, the father of the child is in the room her actual second parent is my wife and she's the one with the right to make decisions on behalf of myself and the baby. The one regret I have surrounding Th'Boy's birth is that our midwife wasn't there and they didn't understand that I was Sultry's partner and not just a friend. I couldn't insist on much because her Mom was there and we were still in the closet but if they'd known I would have had more rights (like not being kicked out post-birth when most new parents get to bond with the baby).
The hospital is pretty progressive and they've been really accepting of Sultry and I. There might be a tiny bit of confusion (hence the birth plan) but I think having DivaDaddy in the room for the birth will go pretty smoothly. Depending on how I deal with labour at least. Who knows, I might not want *anyone* in there. :)
Th'Boy doesn't know how he feels about any of this. He's excited in a kind of quiet way and not too jealous I think. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the birth but he does want to be around afterwards to meet her. He doesn't know where he wants to stay while we're at the hospital or what he wants to do about school on Thursday (he has Friday off). So all of that is up in the air.
In any case, that's where we stand at the moment.
M.
In any case, we're almost there! I'll be induced on Thursday (thank you gestational diabetes) and I can't wait to meet our little girl.
The house is nowhere near ready -- her nursery still needs a ceiling and two walls and I have to clean our room enough to squeeze in the portable crib she'll be living in for the next little while. It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks and as glad as I am to be done (hasn't been the funnest pregnancy) I'm starting to wish we had more time. It would have been nice, for one thing, to have some time alone with Sultry before Baby J gets here. She's stuck working right up to the birth and all her days off have been spent running to appointments, working her other job or trying to get ready for the baby. I don't know how she does it.
I'm getting tired of hearing how it doesn't matter if the nursery is done and that Baby J can sleep in a drawer and that we'll want her in our room because it's so much easier and blah blah blah. The ADULTS in the house are having trouble dealing with the dust and debris from the repairs. How is it ok to expose a brand new baby to it? I'm not the co-sleeping, attachment parenting type (not that there's anything wrong with that). I'm the baby-will-sleep-better-in-her-own-room type and that was the route we were supposed to take. Not that there's much I can do about it.
Everyone keeps telling me not to worry about the birth and that the pain is there for a reason and so on and so forth. I'm not actually all that scared. Sure, I'm nervous but it has more to do with being induced than anything else. The miscarriage gave me a good idea of how much pain I'd be in when I finally did have a baby and I know from that experience that I can cope with it. Especially with knowing that at the end I get a baby this time. When I miscarried I spent about 6 hours in the waiting room not allowed to eat or drink or take pain meds. I could sit in a chair or pace to the bathroom and the only distraction I had was talking to my Mom, Sultry or my big sister. If I can make it through that I can make it through labour. Or at least a regular labour.
Being induced is supposed to be more intense. The meds make the contractions stronger and more painful and things like an epidural are pretty much the norm. The epi has been the one thing I've been nervous about -- I'm not a fan of needles and the combination of having a big ass one in my spine and not knowing how my body will react has me a little reluctant to have one. They also lengthen the labour and increase the chance that they'll have to use forceps or a vacumn to get the baby out and I don't really want that. I guess I'll just have to see how I feel when the time comes. Luckily I can decide right up to the last minute.
I'm supposed to write a birth plan to take into the hospital detailing my wishes for how I want the birth to go. I don't have a whole lot to say medically -- most of what I want is already standard at our hospital. I do have to outline our family situation and that while yes, the father of the child is in the room her actual second parent is my wife and she's the one with the right to make decisions on behalf of myself and the baby. The one regret I have surrounding Th'Boy's birth is that our midwife wasn't there and they didn't understand that I was Sultry's partner and not just a friend. I couldn't insist on much because her Mom was there and we were still in the closet but if they'd known I would have had more rights (like not being kicked out post-birth when most new parents get to bond with the baby).
The hospital is pretty progressive and they've been really accepting of Sultry and I. There might be a tiny bit of confusion (hence the birth plan) but I think having DivaDaddy in the room for the birth will go pretty smoothly. Depending on how I deal with labour at least. Who knows, I might not want *anyone* in there. :)
Th'Boy doesn't know how he feels about any of this. He's excited in a kind of quiet way and not too jealous I think. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the birth but he does want to be around afterwards to meet her. He doesn't know where he wants to stay while we're at the hospital or what he wants to do about school on Thursday (he has Friday off). So all of that is up in the air.
In any case, that's where we stand at the moment.
M.