39 weeks and waiting

Hurry up and... WAIT!

Friday the 21st I woke up feeling quite dizzy.  After trying to get dressed for 15 minutes, I called in sick to work and went back to bed for a bit.  My blood pressure (100/60) and blood sugars have been pretty low on testing lately and if I don't seem to take care of myself, I feel faint.  I think that is how Jason lives his every day life... but it's hard to feel energetic when I want to lie down all the time.  Plus, summer is in full swing here and most days we are having temperatures in the 90s.  Yesterday, it was 102F/39C and it's not worth doing anything but lying under the air conditioner as far as I'm concerned.

Friday afternoon I sent Jason a text that said 'don't go to far and stay close to your phone... I'm having contractions'.  But after 2 hours of being excited that 'this might be it!' ... nothing happened and I felt fine.  So we had company over for dinner.  Saturday we did the triathlon and baby class and Nana arrived.  Sunday nothing special.  Monday, Tues, Wed I worked, although my schedule was much less work than it has been and the new PT at our company took over a huge amount of work and anxiety for me.

Wed night at about 9:30pm I started feeling pressure again.  Jason was out running and when he get home I told him to shower, eat, pack up anything he thought he might need, and that we should try and sleep because I was sure I would go into labor that night.  I thought the pressure of these contractions was a little stronger, but fell asleep by 11:30pm and woke to nothing, except disappointment and exhaustion.  Thursday on and off I had some pressure, and called into work and said I was done working because I didn't feel like dealing with these contractions for 2 more days of work.  It's pretty exciting right now to be done work without having any idea when I'll return to being employed or what kind of environment I'll work at next time.

Thurs afternoon we had a baby appointment and didn't learn too many new things.  I'm 4cm dilated and all looks good and ready to go.  My actual doctor is away getting married and won't be back until Tuesday.  The midwife I love has been waiting for her paperwork to be allowed to deliver at this hospital, and it hasn't come through yet.  So if I was to go into labor and deliver before Tuesday, then we would call the midwife and have her be with us, but the on-call OBGYN would come for the last few minutes to actually catch the baby.

Today is Friday.  It's 10am and 80 degrees outside.  Nana and Jason just left to take Rachel to gymnastics class.  I'm thankful for our air conditioning.  I've spent the morning dusting and vacuuming and playing with Rachel.  Nana has spent the morning folding laundry, ironing clothes we would never think to iron, and sewing curtains for some windows upstairs.

Jason has spent the morning playing with our baby pool - please join!
http://www.babyhunch.com/poolpage.php?poolid=25617a10625d50814c234356f985a9c7

So we're basically doing nothing and just waiting.  Rachel is getting the full blown attention of 3 adults and our house is having random parts of it cleaned that we never knew needed cleaning.  It is a funny instinct to 'nest' and get things clean and ready to do, but there really is something innate there that makes you want to clean and get all your home ready for the baby.

Meanwhile, here are other thoughts in my head...

Darkening curtains in Rachel's room (on top of our darkening blinds that we paid lots of money for) helped her sleep past 5am the last few days.  She was up at about 4:40am for 3-4 days, and then after putting curtains in she's lasted about 30 min longer.  A small victory that we will celebrate, but we would love it if she could sleep until 6am.  She's only sleeping from 8:15pm or so until 5am... and then she's grumpy after 9am.

Momo the monkey clock has not really helped yet.  Momo is a clock that has digital time and a face clock, and you can close his eyes at bedtime.  He will 'sleep' with his eyes closed until a time set by parents, and then when he opens his eyes and 'wakes up', it's supposed to tell Rachel she can wake up and leave her room now.  We've had it for about 2 weeks and I'd say she's made it totally through the night until he 'wakes' at 5:40am once.  A handful of mornings she has cried and thrown a fit because Momo hasn't woken up yet and she wants him to.  A handful of mornings we've been able to get back to sleep and wait for Momo.  Once she played quietly in her room until he woke up while we went back to sleep.

The thing that I am most anxious about in having two children is how on Earth we are going to cope with sleeping and fatigue?

Here's what I remember from having Rachel as a newborn, although the actually facts may be different.  When Rachel was born, I totally expected 6 weeks of chaos and no sleep and no plans.  I slept when Rachel slept as much as possible.  She was a pretty alert little baby right from the get go and didn't sleep much like some newborns do.  But I think the craziness was really for the first 2-3 weeks.  That's when Jason and I walked paces up and down the halls singing any children's songs we knew, swaddling and shushing and bouncing and changing diapers and nursing and starting all over again.  Then she got into a little bit better rhythm, just waking to nurse every 2 hours but then settling down and sleeping again in between.  By 8 or 9 weeks I remember her sleeping through the night without getting up to feed a few times, and at 12 weeks we started weaning her from night feedings and getting decent sleep through the night.  That all fell apart at 5 months, which devastated us because we thought we were ok, and then from that point forward has had its ups and downs.

These days I keep telling myself that other people survive just fine with more than 1 child, and that we can too.  I know it will work itself out.  I keep telling the baby inside me to 1) be healthy 2) come on out anytime it's feeling ready and 3) please be a great sleeper.  I also feel lucky that Jason only worked part time when Rachel was first born and this time, he's off from school until mid August.

If I have to be up all night long cuddling and nursing and changing and singing to a newborn, how on Earth will I have any energy to get up with Rachel at 5am and then deal with her temper tantrums throughout the day?  And if Rachel is asleep but the baby naps, will I be able to nap?  Can Jason and I take turns?  Will Rachel happily play with Nana and Grandma and other family while we rest?

How will Rachel cope with taking an hour to get ready to go out somewhere?

How will Rachel deal with seeing me nurse the baby if she gets up at 2am?  What if that's in our bed, where Rachel is not allowed to be?

I feel so tired now and want to sleep all the time, and I'm getting 6.5-7.5 hours solid sleep right now!  Will I be able to survive weeks of only sleeping 1-2 hours at a time?

Will nursing be easier this time around?  Last time I was in tears trying to make it work, many times, for the first 8 weeks!  (Although I grew to love it and happily nursed Rachel for 17 months)

Will this baby need to feed as often as Rachel, who nursed every 1.5-2 hours for months and months and months?

Will I be able to carry Rachel and the baby at the same time without hurting myself?

Will the crying baby wake Rachel up and disrupt her pattern of sleeping pretty well these days?

Will Rachel always be waking up a sleeping baby during the day when Rachel is awake and loud?

Will Jason and I be able to be nice to each other if we are sleep deprived and exhausted all the time?  The toughest things for us as a couple have been the middle of the nights when Rachel won't sleep and we feel about ready to kill each other.

I wonder if we'll have a boy or a girl?

I can't wait to play with the baby's little fingers and toes, and see a chubby cute little bottom.

I'm excited to put on lots of the little tiny clothes we have for the baby, like dinosaur butt sleeper.

What will I do in the middle of the night when I'm having to nurse all the time?  With Rachel, I got into a routine of getting her and taking her to the couch, getting all set up to nurse, and putting on a show to keep me awake so I wouldn't accidentally fall asleep.  I watched season after season of 'Sex in the City', which I absolutely hate now after watching so much of it.  And I watched loads of 'How I met your mother', which started a relationship with a tv show that I can't wait to be done next year when the show finally finishes.  Rachel would nurse for almost exactly the length of a show, and then I'd put her down for 1.5 hours and go do it again.  During the day I read novel after novel and spent loads of time on facebook wishing I could find a way to type and nurse at the same time.  I also took her hiking, walking, cross country skiing, and had play dates with friends almost every day.

Now we're in a new house and things feel very different.  Rachel's room and the baby's room are right next door to each other, and we're down the hall.  There's no couch or tv upstairs with any of us.  There's no entertainment in the baby's room for me and I doubt I'll stay awake reading a nover in the middle of the night in the rocking chair.  Jason and I still can't really decide about co-sleeping.  I don't want him to have to wake up or be bothered by me and lights and things while I'm nursing.  I'm less paranoid about falling asleep while nursing but hopeful that I can master nursing while lying down this time, because last time that just didn't work for me.

So, instead of coming up with a plan, we'll just see how things go and then we'll leave on our road trip to VA.  During the 3 weeks or so that we plan to be gone, I expect no sleep and chaos and difficulty with both kids.  And HEAT!  But we will have family around to help.  And it will be exciting for me to get out of the house, since I feel already like all this waiting close to home has given me cabin fever.

I think I might go make some raspberry tea, cool it off with some ice, and see what happens...