8/29/21
I keep thinking about the stories I read during this pregnancy about how native (Chinese?) field-working women would just, when they felt their baby coming, squat down and have him, strap him on her back, and keep working in the field. I hope I can do something like that. I hope I can have such absence of drama. So much popular media showing the contrary has been embedded in my mind since I was little. Please make my mind strong and overpoweringly creative. Please let me unlearn what I used to believe. Unleash it from the core of my being and let it fly away, and give me a new core.
9/1/21
tonight, this feeling again of being physically vulnerable/limited by the basketball stomach, yet in mind, feeling clear and focused and capable. It started raining hard and I was trying to close all the windows in the house and this one wouldn’t shut (my ab muscles are kinda not in place/weak right now) and my immediate rxn was “oh no you fucker” and I shoved everything aside and with all my might – closed it. Got adrenaline rush from being mad at the window lol. But also, not really being careful anymore to not strain myself, cause I guess it doesn’t matter if I strain myself to the point it makes the baby come out, since I’m full term now.
9/2/21
he feels even lower maybe- his head. I can almost feel it if I bend over too much, the head stops me from bending all the way (every time they’ve checked starting a few weeks ago, his head is down). feeling more anxious to get everything “done” and in place before he comes (my due date is tomorrow and we still have unpacked moving boxes everywhere, my clothes are taking up his whole changing table, his cradle not set up yet…) Packed most of my hospital bag I think, but not all. And then trying to calm down, in reaction to the anxiety. Again, still, have serious questions about how something so big/basketball-size is going to fit through my little pelvis- it doesn’t seem physically possible when I’m looking in the mirror, and I get scared about this- this is contributing to the anxiety, maybe 20%. But 80%, I am excited to see him, to experience birth with him, and looking forward, trusting, and at peace. I know, just when I need it God, you’ll bring me to 100 percent.
At my last appt on Tuesday, she said I was 39 weeks and 3 days I think. She said the latest I can go before they induce is like 41 weeks and something days. I didn’t know there was a limit, it kinda stressed me out to hear this. I wanted to wait until he just came on his own. But she said the more you wait past this certain time, the increased risk of stillbirth (she called it “the S word”) and other complications. I didn’t realize this- i thought you could take all the time you wanted. They want to do a “membrane sweep” at my next appt on 9/9, if I don’t have him before then. I looked up what a membrane sweep was and saw it can be really uncomfortable – they stick their fingers up there, into your cervix, and like, PULL the baby sac away from the uterine wall, in order to stimulate labor. So…I don’t think I want to do that. I have a hard enough time dealing with simple pap smears where they just scrape the surface of the cervix…I think I would rather “chance” it waiting, than for them to do that to me. It’s my body, still. And I trust Hunter (we think we’ll name him this)—I feel him moving and lowering and even slight cramps sometimes – I know he’s coming. Maybe he’s ready, and he’s just waiting for ME to get all my shit together – like mentally and with his furniture/house.
9/3/21
At the end of this pregnancy, still bumping into/backing up into things with my tummy and butt, by accident. Still not used to this expanded body, and frequently misjudge distances. Still shocked at my transformed and transforming physical state, even after nine months. Was telling R while we were driving to my now-weekly and soon-to-be-twice-weekly non-stress test and ultrasound appointment, how it would be nicer if the baby grew outside your body- in a see-through sac- then the doctors could just observe it and not have to do so many tests. R agreed and joked it would be better if you could cook up a baby, like combine R’s cum with my blood or something, and cook him up in a pan, so baby-having could be more intentional and not as scary.
Marriage Journal 