Monday, January 13, 2014

Waiting, waiting

I'm less than a week away from my due date.  I had an appointment last week with my OB to see where things stood.  He was happy that things were moving along and he didn't think we would make it to my due date.  Looking at the statement now, I wish he hadn't said that.  I've spent the last four or five days hoping that labor would kick into a higher gear but it hasn't happened.  As a result, I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do with myself.  I've already put myself on maternity leave from my job.  If I would have known I had almost another full week of work availability, I would have kept on earning a paycheck.  However, I didn't want to be half-way through an assignment only to have the baby and then stress out about finishing before the end of the month.  So without employment to consume my time, I've been using the last few days to "nest" which hasn't really been compelled by some sort of instinctual motivation but instead by simple boredom.  

Today I made scones for breakfast because at least that killed some time.  The house is prepared.  The baby's room is ready.  The Christmas decorations are back in storage.  (Save a few "winter" decorations that I like to have out that remind me of the time of year.)  The laundry is washed, folded and put away.  The bathrooms are clean.  The kitchen is tidied and mopped.  And I don't need to vacuum again.  In the evenings I've been working on a cross-stitch piece that has been an on-and-off project for a couple of years.  I finally cleaned, starched and blocked some crocheted snowflakes that have been sitting around.  I sewed some liners for the baskets underneath the diaper changing table.  I rearranged things in the guest room, knowing that we will have a parade of company starting in a few weeks.  I went through my clothes (and had Zac do the same) to purge things to be donated or simply thrown away.  

I'm actually at the point where I could attempt to organize or do something with the boxes of photographs I have stacked in the closet, but there really isn't any level of boredom in this mortal realm that could motivate me to tackle that undesirable project.  Maybe I'll just keep on working on the cross-stitch.

As each day passes and I get more and more impatient.  Last night a friend asked me if I was nervous about the process of having the baby.  No, not nervous.  Sure, I've had absurd anxiety dreams the last few nights (e.g. baby is born and for some reason Zac and I forget to feed the baby for 24 hours) but during the day I don't really think about the labor and delivery.  In this case perhaps ignorance is bliss.  You don't know what you don't know.  I have no reason to fear labor and delivery because I have no idea what it's like.  And even if this was my second or third child, each delivery has the potential to be an entirely different experience.  I simply want to come through the process with a healthy baby and a healthy me.  How we get there isn't really important to me.  I'm just ready to get there.

I wonder what else I can bake/cook this morning . . .



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