The internal game of Press Your Luck I’m playing with myself is getting old.
Each day now feels like walking uphill (and not just physically). The rational part of me knows every day that passes without a problem means that my baby is growing stronger, gaining more weight, and means she is a little bit closer to lung maturity. The irrational part of me wants her out. Like, right now. No doubt she’d be safer in the NICU than inside of me. I’ve never been pregnant this long before. I know I’m testing fate.
Right before Christmas, my doctor went over a plan with us on what was going to happen for the next 20 weeks. I interpreted this plan as the wait-for-something-terrible-to-happen-and-hopefully-she-can-survive plan. We talked hospitalization for a few days. We talked about medications that can be administered inpatient. We talked about bed rest. We talked about delivering at 26 weeks. We didn’t talk much about going to 39 weeks, which medically is as early as you can schedule a surgical delivery without an immediate medical reason.
Here I am, with six weeks to go, and mysteriously none of these contingency plans have been needed yet. My blood pressure is normal. My stress level is normal. My weight gain is normal. My sugars are normal. Blood work and pee and proteins and swelling and other random stuff is…. normal. My baby is moving, all of the time. My baby is already head down. My baby seems to kick me when I have doubts about how she is doing, like I’m already embarrassing her ability to do this.
But, six weeks is a long time when you’re counting each day. Each day is a long time when you’re counting movements. Each hour is a long time when you don’t feel anything and need to remind yourself ten times in that hour that babies do sleep in the womb. Each second that she moves goes by too fast. By the time I realize that I want to remember that feeling forever, it’s gone, and I can only hope in a few moments she does it again.
Tonight, after playing the what-if game long enough that I started to cry, I knew I needed to do something. I’ve decided that, instead of waiting for the little red Whammy to come across and take my prize, I’m going to stop playing this game show scenario with myself and start thinking positively.
I’m collecting 42 positive affirmations, mostly having to do with pregnancy, and I’ll have one each day to read over and over. I need to be focused on something other than thinking that this could be the last day. I know I can do this, I really do. Now I’ll have it in writing, staring me in the face, all day every day.
If Peter Tomarken were to ask me if I wanted to take my spins or pass them, I’d tell him I’d keep going. I’ve got this, and am working on 42 reasons to remind myself.
No Whammys!
Copyright 2014 Anne Mathay