I spent the week busy, back in the full swing of my "normal" life. I decided I had been too focused on the whole birth thing, too eager. Then this morning at five it all happened again. Giant poop. Contractions ten minutes apart for two hours. I didn't even wake Jeff because I was afraid of jinxing it. The contractions were low and steady and crampy, just as I had remembered my early labor with Eliana. It was a misty, green morning and I watched the sun come up behind the mountain, hoping. I finally woke Jeff and he started writing things down. But by the time he was ready to go to work, things had settled. Roseann came and helped with Eliana, did beautiful work around the house. I walked Lucy fast and furious around the park. A couple more big contractions. But now it's six in the evening and after much nesting and a long nap, he's still chilling. No journey yet.
I'm dying to leave the house but there's nothing I really want to do. I want to birth this baby. I want to meet him. I want this next chapter to start. I should relish these moments alone, but I'm too eager for the next phase. The noise and mayhem and unknown. The love and labor and incredible work. The reward.
Tomorrow is my actual due date. My body is totally ready. So I shouldn't be too eager. My girlfriend recently went sixteen days overdue. I call her multiple times a day asking how the heck she kept it together all that time. I usually would call myself a pretty patient person, but this one is harder for me to work with.
I threw a ton of stuff into a mixing bowl to make some banana bread. Now I watch the timer like it's some sort of sign, something that I can count on being ready to come out, perfectly cooked and ready when the dinger dings.
But the real meat of life doesn't have a dinger.
Fourteen minutes to go. I'll pull it out, give it a taste, and fumble over my belly to put back on my sneaks. Then another round of power walks around Greenough, watching the buds as they burst, the rush and height of the river, everything so green and fresh and new.
2 comments:
so glad you called and we could chat through your last park lap.
keep on keepin on . . . now i'm waiting for my bread to come out of the oven (: literally and metaphorically (though I suppose the latter is a bun, right?)
love you!
Hang in there, Gillian. I was 20 days past my due date with Ruby. And it was difficult. And I tried everything... walking, twice daily acupuncture, castor oil. Truth was, she came when she was ready. And she's still stubborn, and lovely, 6.5 years later. I'll be thinking birthy thoughts for you:-)
Post a Comment