Wednesday, April 13, 2016

39 Weeks Pregnant

I am a beached whale. With paralysis. A paralyzed beach whale. Who has lost all interest in television. This is a very sad state of affairs.

The happy part is that I know this is all so very temporary, and on the other side of this is a squishy little baby, hopefully with Aaron's eyes, that I get to snuggle. But I am not lying or exaggerating when I say it genuinely feels like that is never going to happen. I just can't imagine it happening. I fully expect to walk into my doctor's appointment tomorrow morning and hear my OB say "wow, we've never seen this, you're just not going to have this baby."

And they'll of course get her out in some way, by some means I'm DESPERATE to avoid (read: c-section) and now I'm thinking about that ridiculous article I read in Cosmopolitan (first mistake) like two weeks ago about women who felt like they had no control over their "birth story" (second mistake), and how that meant they lived the rest of their lives to regret it and statistically were more depressed, or some such. (The irony with shit like that is that Cosmo likes to think they're 'empowering women' by articles like this - the gist was 'maternity wards are evil, rabid tools of the patriarchy' - but really they're just freaking everybody out and pushing they're own agenda, which is genuinely patriarchal, if you ask me, which you didn't.)

I'm not even to my due date yet. 5 days away. 5 days feels like saying "two decades." 5 days of this? Of feeling like my hips are falling out of their sockets, and not being able to eat, or sleep, or keep my attention on old episodes of The Office or the weird English novel I'm reading? How could anyone possibly live through this?

Imagine every night at like, 2 am googling things like "are cold feet a sign of labor" or "are chapped lips a sign of labor" or "has anyone died of insanity while waiting for labor" or "oh god is this labor I hope so but also I hope not because that is terrifying." And then your bed mate is like "you ok babe?" And you're like "never better, just watching Jimmy Fallon's latest lip sync battle."

On Monday I went grocery shopping, which was a huge mistake, because I can't walk (I mentioned the paralysis.) I finished my round of the store and realized I hadn't seen the Panko anywhere, so I had to go back and find it, dammit. Because I was sure as hell not going back out later (paralysis) and I had made it this far, etc. etc. On the very front of the box of Panko it says "JAPANESE-STYLE BREAD CRUMBS." But for whatever godforsaken reason, Basha's does not stock them in the "Asian" food aisle. Can you please explain this to me? They are in the BAKING aisle. That is SOME BULLSHIT. Especially because the baking aisle is like, aisle 2, which meant I had to walk again to the other end of the store (paralysis reminder).

Anyway I brought up the grocery shopping because the last item on my list was a modest bouquet of flowers for myself. Well, technically for my impending daughter, but she's not coming anytime soon at all, so I knew they were really for me. For my kitchen table, because for the love, I need something colorful and distracting. But I forgot the flowers. I got to the register, miraculously only encountering one person who exclaimed "WOW! YOU'VE GOT A BUNDLE OF JOY COMING SOON!" (the "wow" part is always just so kind) and as the cashier started ringing everything up I suddenly remembered the flowers. I didn't go back and get them (flowers are not panko status.) I mourned for a little bit, I don't mind telling you.

But I bring that up because today the doorbell rang - you should really hear our doorbell right now. It's dying, so it sounds like the warped tones of a Tim Burton nightmare sequence. Anyway it rang, and there was a delivery - a bouquet of flowers. From my mother-in-law. How did she know? She didn't, but she sent them anyway, and I love them. That's a nice story to share right now, I thought.

Also regarding the weird guy who brought up my BUNDLE OF JOY in the yogurt section - I finally remembered the other day to try out my joke when it happened, which is to look confused and say "what do you mean, I'm not pregnant." But my error was that I pulled this joke on the lady doing my nails, who did not have a great grasp on the English language. She started it by saying "you have boy or girl?" And I said "What do you mean?" And the look on her face! I thought she was going to vomit. She was like "YOU BABY! YOU BABY!" and I realized this was not going as expected, and that she might call the police, so I said "yes, a girl, a girl! I'm just teasing you!" And she looked horrified, and then said her daughter told her she was pregnant as an April Fool's prank. Mine is not an April Fool's prank, except maybe it is and the joke is on me because, as I mentioned, my daughter is just going to live inside me forever. She just is.

Every time I google something about impending labor or the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, all I find are articles about disgusting bodily activities to watch for and all the things that are GREAT SIGNS but also could still mean your baby is 2345 years away from coming. I haven't yet found any articles about the mental anguish of these weeks, and though I've established the good side of all of this above, like a good Catholic girl, (squishy baby, etc.), I can't access that emotion right now, and I feel horrible and like I am going a little insane. This blog post is my contribution to the world of internet discussion boards about week 39. Here's some SEO to make sure you find it:

39 weeks pregnant going crazy
39 weeks pregnant oh my god someone help me
has anyone ever been pregnant forever
39 weeks pregnant i hate everything and everyone

Signing off now, bye.