Posts from — October 2008

On my way to drop Bug off at school today, I looked up in the sky, and lo and behold there was an actual skywriting airplane in the sky above our heads.  A Skywriting! Airplane!  I’ve never seen that in real life.  But there it was over the city of Atlanta for my reading enjoyment.

And enjoy my reading I did, because although it had been written some time before I saw it and was kind of blurry at the beginning, I read the message “SMILE TODAY” up in the crystal clear blueness and thought, “Yes!  I WILL smile today.  This is a sign!  Obviously the baby is coming this very day! How much clearer can you get than SKYWRITING IN THE SKY ABOVE MY HEAD?”

So happy and excited was I in my certainty of this clear sign and portent of laborious things to come that I called Lorso from the car to report on my findings.

“You’ll never believe what I’m looking at! Words in the sky! From a plane! It’s totally cool.”

“Oh yeah, I think I saw that on my way to work this morning.  It is pretty cool.  Although seems like an pretty expensively fleeting way to advertise.”

“Yeah! And guess what, it’s – wait. Wha? Way to advertise?”

“Yeah.  I mean, seems like there are more lasting ways to get people to your store than using smoke in the sky to write SALE TODAY.”

So much for signs and portents.

On the bright side, some store somewhere in Atlanta or possibly the surrounding area is having a sale today on something!

So, you know.  AT LEAST THERE’S THAT.

I’m in the bathroom, carefully applying my makeup, as it is the only bastion of hope I have left for improving my appearance.  I pick up my mascara, and feel it slip from my puffy white-knuckled sausage fingers and watch it make the tumble to the far far away nether regions known as The Floor.

Hearing the clatter, Lorso, my knight in shining armor, appears instantly at my side and swoops the tube up and hands it to me before I can even utter my first bending down grunt.  “I heard it fall,” he says, chest puffed with pride. “Here you are, m’lady.”

I look into the eyes of my sweet husband standing before me, holding my mascara and say, “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND???  THE VERY ACT OF RETREIVING THAT TUBE MIGHT HAVE SENT ME INTO LABOR, BUT NOW THAT CHANCE IS GONE.  STOLEN. BY YOU.  ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOURSELF?”

“You’re right,” says Lorso.  And he chucks it back onto the floor and leaves.

Sometimes I forget the girl we’re looking forward to meeting isn’t just a daughter in this family.

She’s also a sister.

Come out LG. Your family is waiting.

My greatest wish in the universe right now, right behind PLEASE GOD GET THIS BABY OUT MY BELLY is that my silence in the last two days was due to the fact that I was holed up in a hospital bed unable to tear my face away from the sweet sweet face of our quietly sleeping and good-natured-right-from-the-start little girl.

But this is not so. The real truth is that if I had posted for the last two days, I would have officially had to change the name of this site to Daily Diatribes With Complainy McWhines-A-Lot. And I really don’t have the spare change for a new domain name right now.

So let’s look at the positives of the situation, shall we?  First – both the baby and I are healthy and fine.  Second – the due date is technically next Friday (originally it was the 24th and they never changed it on my chart – a decision I am now seeing the wisdom in) and so I am not overdue or even due yet. Third – I am not unusually physically uncomfortable.  I mean, true, I have a belly that is as big as one of Jupiter’s moons and so naturally have all the normal discomforts that come along with that (feet=flat as pancakes, belly starting to resemble an itchy, baby-filled crepe, am regularly passed on the sidewalk by the elderly using walkers), but on the whole I can’t really say I have much pain, and I consider that a huge plus. Fourth…

Yeah, three is all I got.

The thing is, Bug was eleven days early.  I never got to the waiting phase, because I assumed that like most first babies, he would be on time or late.  So now that I have passed the “eleven days before” mark, this baby officially feels late to me.  And what I have discovered in these few days of being the most pregnant I’ve ever been is that the hardest part of waiting for labor to begin is the overwhelming mental exhaustion that comes along with it.  It’s like my brain has been taken over by zombies.  I am a zombie brain.  I lay in bed at night with my heart pounding, thinking “Is my water going to break now?  Now? Now? Pause. Doze. Startle awake - OMG NOW?” This happens until I fall asleep, but then begins again every time I wake up to go to the bathroom, which at this point is usually twice a night.  Then I wake up to my alarm and realize I am starting another day with no baby.

This kind of REALLY SUCKS.

The other part of the mental anguish comes from the times when I’m sitting around wishing that this baby would come and it hits me: the thing I am wishing for most in the whole world right now is to be in a shitload of pain.  Awesome!  Like last night I had some nausea and felt really crappy for about half an hour and the whole time I kept thinking, “Ugh I feel awful.  But maybe this is labor!” and I would feel excited.  And then immediately after that I would think “Holy shit, this might be labor!” and I would feel terrified. Then I would get excited again and think, “Yay, labor!” and then, horrified, think, “Holy shit, labor!” and then I felt excitement and then terror and then excitement and then terror, then excitement, terror, excitement, terror…and then the nausea passed. And I went to sleep. And I woke up again this morning with no baby.

See? That. THAT IS WHY I AM CRAZY.

So crazy that I can’t think of a coherent way to end this post except to say that while I know that walking and keeping physically active will help this baby come out sooner, I will also be diligent in my crossword puzzle solving and Newsweek reading and online ANTM watching.  Because if I don’t use these things to occupy my brain, THE ZOMBIES WILL WIN.

(P.S. Also, in an effort to keep occupied, I will continue to post every day until I AM in the hospital with LG in my arms. TAKE THAT ZOMBIES.)

Gorgeous quasi fall day – check.

Good wholesome family fun – check.

Healthy, vigorous outdoor activity – check.

Eclipse of the sun – check.

Baby?  Nope. No check. Nada. Nothing. NEGATORY.

Anticipation = killing me.