kiwords

Yup, still here. TODAY was this little one's due date, making this baby both overdue and the longest pregnancy I've ever experienced. The boys were all born in the week before their due dates, so I already feel a week overdue. COME ON OUT LITTLE GIRL!

At least I didn't have her in the car, on the side of the road, in a snowstorm, right? And as I said to Clay last night, "She has to be born eventually, right? She can't stay in there FOREVER?"

This is my fourth baby, so you'd think I'd be pretty confident on that point. However, I find late pregnancy makes me just as frantic and befuddled as it ever did. Last night Clay was showing me tiny little dresses, trying to cheer and distract me, and I looked at them and realized with a start that labor doesn't just mean I won't be pregnant anymore - it means I'll have a tiny little baby to PUT in those dresses.

This was more of a shock to me than one might expect. I seem to have quite the capacity to lose track of the obvious.

Poor Jennie went home Saturday. She missed her FFA meet, because the interstate between us and Wyoming was closed through most of Friday. I still managed to feel guilty about that, although I'm not sure how to justify it. Jennie was very gracious about the whole thing, even though I know she was disappointed. I suggested she stay another week, since she'd missed the meet already, but she pointed out that her school, her teachers, and her mother all might have a problem with it. So she'll be back to meet her sister this summer - probably in June.

So here I wait. I think I've tried everything to get this baby born - including acupuncture. None of it works. I have, however, decided that I could make my fortune if I could only find an effective way to market an over-priced ebook of labor-starting tips to women who are in the last days of their pregnancy. Because we will pay the price. Oh yes, we will.

And yet, continuing in the theme of me not making any sense whatsoever, I plan to go see my doctor tomorrow with a very compelling argument about why I shouldn't be induced. I think I have to work on my talking points, though, because at this point they boil down to this: I REALLY HATE MEDICINE and STOP BEING MEAN TO ME.

Okay, she's not ACTUALLY being mean to me. She's just being a doctor, which is an unfortunate side effect of all those years of medical school. Right now I'm regretting not finding a midwife to follow this pregnancy - especially since the doctor seems to view me, in my pregnant dotage, as a ticking time-bomb already. An overdue ticking time bomb? Now THAT right there is a recipe for pitocin.

Soon, I am told, this will all be over, and the new normal will begin.

Call me jaded, but I'll believe it when I see her.