The nice thing about a third pregnancy is that a lot of the fear has been beaten out of you by experience.
In the final stages of my pregnancy with Tristan, I worried about everything. I was already in a state of heightened anxiety because of everything related to his conception (he’s my IVF baby) and the loss of his twin, and the echogenic cardiac focus. Add to that the regular first-time-mom anxieties (“Will I be a good mom?” “How will I know when he’s hungry / cold / bored / in need of emergency medical attention?” “Does labour REALLY hurt that much?” etc) and the sundry anxieties thrust upon you by reading too much on the Internet (“Should I have bought the Eddie Bauer car seat instead of the Graco one?” “Do I really need a wipes-warmer?” “Can you ever really have enough receiving blankets?” etc.) and I was pretty much a nervous wreck.
With Simon, I was over a lot of that, but worried myself nearly to death about how I would handle two, and whether we had ‘wrecked’ our perfect little family triad by adding another person (truly, that seems like the dumbest thing in the world in retrospect, but I honestly worried myself to tears over it more than once back then.) And of course, it was a hell of a handful to have a newborn and a not-quite-two-year-old in the house, and I think I was justified in worrying how I’d handle all that.
With this baby, I’m confident in both my body’s ability to birth this baby and my parenting skills, leaving me free to focus the entirety of my anxious obsessing (and that, for the record, is a LOT) on the big question of WHEN???
The midwife has been gently reminding me throughout our appointments that third labours are generally quite fast. I was blissfully resistant to this idea at first, telling myself (and anyone who would listen) that my labour with Tristan was more than a day and with Simon nearly a day, so anything shorter than twelve or fourteen hours would seem like a walk in the park. Then I started to really think about my labour with Simon, and while the induction took most of a day and a night, the hardest part was convincing him to leave the uterus in the first place. Once he started moving, he really came flying down the birth canal like a house on fire. While it took more than 20 hours to go from nothing to 5 cm of dilation, I went from 5 cm to 10 cm in about 20 minutes, and Simon came out with just a few pushes.
I keep turning this over in my mind. Twenty minutes, eh? That’s not a long time. I was thinking about it yesterday after work, standing at the bus stop at the Rideau Centre, when I began to wonder with a sickened kind of fascination what I would do if my water broke on the bus. The bus home takes me 40 minutes in the absolute opposite direction of the hospital. Would I ride home and have Beloved take me back to the hospital – in rush hour traffic? Would I get off and take a bus back in the other direction? Would I ask for an ambulance? Playing out these various scenarios not only occupied me for most of the ride home but convinced me that taking the new van back and forth to work for the next week was well worth the $40 in parking fees it would cost me!
(The fact that we’ve been watching the entire catalogue of back episodes of House on DVD for the last month has, by the way, honed my ability to envision a medical disaster to perfection. Perhaps we should have been rewatching Lost instead.)
So I’ve been speculating on the what-ifs of an early labour, but I’m still mostly convinced this guy will be a late arrival. I keep telling myself that at the very outside, there’s only about five weeks left before he gets his eviction notice. No doubt, the Player to be Named Later is much easier to care for on the inside. He doesn’t need to be fed, or changed. While I would love to be able to put him down for just a little while, at least my arms are both still free. He’s low maintenance when he’s on the inside. For those reasons, I’m happy to keep him there. Of course, there are about a hundred reasons why I want to evict him, primarily simply because I can’t wait to meet him and get on with the next phase of the adventure. An end to my elephantine size, restless legs, aching pelvis, itchy nipples, inability to eat or draw a deep breath, lumbering gait, throbbing knees, reflux, and need to pee every eleven seconds would be nice, too.
I know I can handle just about anything, but the uncertainty is my real nemesis. The waiting and the not knowing. Uncertainty is to control freaks like me what snakes are to Indiana Jones. My kingdom for a crystal ball!
Oh the obsessions. I need a new one. I can’t tweak my registry anymore, the crib is put together, we’re doing our birthing class now…
I hope #3 arrives with gusto and early…and maybe on a nice Saturday morning when you’re at home and you and Beloved can get to the hospital quickly and easily…
Don’t be so sure he will be late Dani.
As mentioned, my Tristan was like yours (full day labour, 3 hrs pushing). When his little brother arrived, it was 2wks, and 1 day before my DD. He arrived an hour after I got to the hospital, and I remember just holding him saying…you can’t be here, you’re not supposed to be here yet. I didn’t even have my bagged packed.
So take my advice and still pack your bag early. I know from experience, you don’t want to have to send your hubby home to do it as it takes 15 minutes just to describe the spot in the cabinet where you keep the nipple cream.
Itchy nipples! I completely forgot about that!
I was relatively calm during my first, but I was a total paranoid wreck with my second pregnancy. And I was pretty nervous that the midwife would miss the birth, so she gave us some instructions on emergency delivery. The gist of it was, “Remain calm. If the baby is coming that quickly, things are probably fine and there’s really not much to do.” It also talked about how to handle shoulder dystocia and nuchal cord. It did help to know that Joe and I at least had some idea of what to do if the need arose.
Good luck, Dani! I can’t believe it’s so close!
OK, I thought you couldn’t possibly come up with more to obsess about, and given that you have another three weeks plus to fill blog with PTBNL chatter, can we officially start the Arrival Day Sweepstakes?? I am thinking at least 3 days late….so I’m in for Feb 4th. It’ll be morning for sure…probably in the van on the way to the hospital….
That imagining the worst-case scenario is *so* something I would do. I’m glad that your water didn’t break on the bus. But have you considered that if it breaks in your vehicle, Beloved gets to try to clean your van up; if it breaks on the bus, some OCTranspo bus is what will be all amniotic-y. Just sayin’. That’s a new van, isn’t it? 🙂
I don’t watch Lost, but aren’t they sort of freaky about pregnant women, too?
You’d stop worrying about medical emergencies and start worrying you’ll get on a bus, experience a blinding flash, and end up on an island in the South Pacific with a bunch of weirdos with odd patterns of weight gain and hair growth, the time line completely impossible to follow.
Maybe it would distract you from the itchy nipples, though?
Worrying and obsessing, that’s what moms generally do, isn’t it :). My first was 4 weeks early, 13 hours labour; 2nd was 3 weeks, 6 days early, 6 hours labour. I’m glad I’m not having a 3rd, that would be only 3 hours labour, which is too short!
You’re getting close – I’m sure baby #3 will come at the perfect time. Because he/she will be here, and that will be the best.
You’ve totally hit the nail on the head – not knowing when is the worst part of pregnancy. Good luck. PS – after your water breaks labour starts shortly after (30 min), not immediately after.
I’d carry a towel around with you if you are going to have your water break on the bus. Incidentally, mine broke about 6 hours before I ever felt a contraction, so there could be plenty of time for transit.