41+2 weeks

So I haven’t written in a while… though I surely could have, there has been a lot of emotional work going on in my head. Mostly just role transition stuff, but also some coworker dynamics stuff, and learning about some of the less developed areas of my psyche that aren’t always attractive to know about but exist nonetheless. But as those lessons were learned over the last few months when I haven’t been writing and I’m kind of past them right now, I won’t digress into details here. Glad to have learned a lot from my Winnipeg experiences, don’t want to go back, nuff said.

So Critter is way late in my mind. Each day that I am pregnant again when I wake up is either a hard thing to face or doesn’t phase me at all, my mood about it really swings from trying to relax and have faith in baby coming on his/her own schedule and really being disappointed that another day in the world stands between me and finally seeing my baby’s face in person. Seeing any one of my baby’s faces in person, I guess you could say. I had an accupuncture appt yesterday with a naturopathic doctor to try and induce my overdue rainbow baby as my Doula’s recomendation (41+2 today), not that I put much stock in alternative medicine per se but I am also getting to that overdue pregnant lady level of desperation and willing to try almost anything in exchange for labour progress.

After the needles were in my very swollen hands and feet (yay that came on in the last three weeks) she asked me what might be holding me back, I started crying right away. Said I was worried this baby wanted to be born but couldn’t come out, was trying but couldn’t, was stuck for some reason… even though I know from our u/s monday that babe is right occiput anterior, favourable for a vaginal delivery. I also had a thought about 36 weeks pregnant that maybe our baby had encountered amniotic banding syndrome and only had one leg now even though I’d seen two legs at 20 weeks as I’d only ever felt one leg kicking- turns out I was feeling this correctly as the right leg is free to my right rib but the left leg is tucked posterior where I can’t really feel the kicking. Cord was in a good spot, not nuchal so that was also reassuring.

Anyways back to the appt. I said that I was afraid this baby would die too, that I would never get to meet it. That I didn’t get to meet our daughter because she was too broken from how she was born. That I never got to know the first baby we lost, and two babies who I feel are supposed to be with me are just a pregnancy stick and a 12 week u/s image in my mind. I actually have kept Critter’s pregnancy stick in my makeup bag (sealed in ziplock!) because touching it was a talisman for me to say this baby would come home, would always be more than this stick but at the very least the stick was real and so was this baby. I said that maybe the universe was mad at me for our daughter’s life ending too soon and so I wasn’t really allowed to have this baby either.

It was hard but good to say those things. Jack knows them all too, he’s there for me during the fears but he doesn’t share them to the same depth as I do- and that’s okay, its different for him, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the losses he just feels them differently.

She suggested that I think about what I allow to give meaning to- if I want to give meaning to these fears I can, but I can also choose to not give meaning to them- to say screw you universe you’re not taking this one away too. She also said she really felt that the worst case scenario was not going to happen, she felt really reassured that it wasn’t. She also said maybe play out that worse case scenario in your head so you aren’t held back by it- and cry and let it go… she also said going overdue was not my fault which I had felt it was (like even though all I want is to see baby to know its okay that somehow my grief is holding back his/her birth). I also lamented that I’d wanted a midwife birth as I’m low risk, or my old Winnipeg OB who I clicked well with (my current OB is well respected but very abrupt in her bedside manner). She suggested maybe, just maybe if I "need" an OB she will be watching over me to quickly intervene should anything out of the ordinary happen, which was a good way to look at the change in ideal plans for this birth.

It was a good appt but now as I type this I’m streaming tears all over again. Becoming a Mom is breaking my heart. I guess at the same time though it could be said that becoming a Mom is making my heart stretch with love for this baby, so maybe a better way to look at it is my heart is growing and growing pains are part of that process.

Medically speaking, I have another u/s biophysical profile tomorrow morning and then will be induced either in or out of hospital depending on if baby is stressed or not. We scored well on Monday, 8/8 and baby is still normally active so hopefully after the cervidil they’ll let me go home until real labour starts. Of course I’ll stay for the monitoring etc. if that’s indicated, its not time to mess with the process now and worry needlessly.