Anticipating the Great Journey, in Room 2

I’m sitting in the hospital, birthing room 2. I’ve mooned three people already but they assure me that I’ll stop noticing that stuff soon. 

One sock of mine has a hole in the heel so I feel the cool ground when I walk, though the labor and delivery ward is very warm today.

I’m at 41 wks and 3 days and the baby has mostly shown no signs of wanting to join this earthly party. Yesterday my doc did a membrane sweep to “stir up some trouble” as she called it and looks like she did. I was up all night w demonic cramps and I met my mucus plug this morning which was even more disgusting  than I was prepared for. 

I’m at the hospital for a Miso, which is the next lily pad in the steps we’re taking towards evicting my tenant. 

It’s strange to want Showtime—since Showtime involves your body cleaving into two people, lots of blood and hemroids but it’s as everyone said it would be — you just get to a point in pregnancy where you’re over it and you want the baby out. You’re ready to trade one set of discomforts for another. 

The past few weeks, as the discomforts of the third trimester mounted (the mortar and pestle grind of the baby’s head in my pelvic basin, numb hands, continued insomnia and blah blah blah more maternal complaints), I found myself complaining a lot and dwelling in a negative headspace. Work was insane-the project’s climax was pending (slated for 2/28) and every body was on edge. 

When we finally transitioned management of my project to my maternity leave xoverage person last wk, I found the quiet I needed to really stop and appreciate how I’ll be meeting and holding our baby any moment now. As happens, I was so caught up in the now and the hectic chaos of work, I hadn’t tapped into that feeling. It’s like when you plan a big trip and you only realize—like really realize—you’re going when you’re in seat 2d watching the plane’s wings cut through the clouds.

Even now it doesn’t feel quite real, sitting with the rhythmic heartbeat of our baby punctuating the air in room #2. My little kangaroo has been content to hang out in this nesty pouch for what seems like forever and it doesn’t seem real that I’ll be sweating and hollering and pushing a tiny little life out of me soon. But it’s nice to have these four hours where I’m just waiting and realizing it’s coming. It’s forcing me to appreciate that Nick and I have embarked on the big trip. That I’m sitting in 2d, that there’s turbulence coming and moments of calm, and at the end of the runway, a grand adventure or a return home.