Waiting

I was so positive that this baby was coming early. I thought that she would DEFINITELY be here by the 21st. I had contractions during the 36th week, and was worried I wouldn't even make it to 37 (which would mean NO HOMEBIRTH). Well, week 37 came and went without any signs of labor. Once we got to 38, I was absolutely sure she would be here any day. I even insisted that we set up the enormous inflatable jacuzzi in our living room that we had borrowed, thinking it was a birthing pool, and fill it up. That didn't work out as planned. As I was filling it up, I went over to check on it and found water all over the parquet floor, inching dangerously close to our wedding album and Alex's guitar. That was a chaotic moment of me racing around like a maniac, trying to figure out where the water was leaking from, jumping up to turn off the hose that was filling up the pool, and trying to save all the other stuff that was left on the floor.

After the excitement, we left it a few days, took a little dip in it, and then realized that the filter was leaking, which lead us to the realization that there was water underneath the pool and it was warping the floor (despite the fact that we had laid plastic underneath it to prevent precisely this type of disaster). This left us no choice but to drain it, clean it, and leave it propped on it's side to allow the floors to dry. In the meantime, the cats peed on the rug and we broke one of our lamps while trying to re-inflate the pool. It would have cost a lot less if we had just bought a birthing pool!

On top of all the pool drama, I was an emotional wreck last week. I kept pleading with Baby Gouda to come before my midwife,Teresa, left for a midwifery convention in the Canary Islands. Every little twitch I felt, I hoped was the onset of labor. The very fact that I was an emotional wreck made me think I was close! At the beginning of the week I was confident she would be here before Teresa left on the 25th. By Wednesday, though, I started worrying. I took walks, ate pineapple, ate spicy food, drank hot chocolate, even ate a bunch of dried apricots thinking that would "move things along" but all to no avail. I kept hoping I'd wake up with contractions or my water would break, but nope. Nothing. Nothing at all. This just added to my overly-emotional state. When I awoke on Thursday morning, though, I was calm once again. Teresa was gone and there was nothing I could do, so there was nothing left to worry about.

Now with the full moon, I'm just hoping that she holds out until tomorrow after 10pm when Teresa gets back. I do have another midwife, and a substitute for Teresa in case I go into labor before she gets back, but I just LOVE this woman! She comes over to do reflexology on my feet, and give me massages and check the baby's heart rate and check my blood pressure. Sometimes she comes over just to chat. She even called me from the Canary Islands just to see how I'm doing. She just HAS to be there for this baby's birth!!!

Here are some of the pictures we took this past week on some of our walks. Of course they are mostly of Bella, playing and riding her tricycle. While waiting, I've been focusing on the last few days that Bella will be an only child and giving her lots of extra squeezes and kisses. We talk a lot about her being a big sister, and I think she's ready. When we talk about her, she calls her by name, she calls her "bebe" and "mana" (hermana) and she knows that when her sister's born, we will eat cookies to celebrate her birthday. She's so eager for those cookies, the first words out of her mouth this morning were "cookies bon mana" (cookies born sister).

The last two weeks have been extremely challenging for me, but I've made it through, and now find it hard to believe that at some point, this annoying false labor that I've been having the past few nights will lead to the REAL thing! I'm not good at waiting. I've never been good at it. Perhaps my new daughter is already teaching me a thing or two about life.