41 Weeks

I wrote almost an entire post here and somehow deleted it all. Fitting. I'm writing this 4 months after the fact and post-dating it, because such is life right now. I couldn't being myself to blog in real time by the end of pregnancy, because I really didn't expect to be pregnant on my due date, let alone beyond that. Yes, the physical discomforts were wearing on me, particularly the left round ligament pain, but I was unprepared for the mental aspects of the last few weeks of waiting. 

On Friday November 12 I was 37.1 weeks pregnant. We finished our homeschool term, I recorded my podcast interview with Kori and Fallon, Noah lost his first tooth (I cried), and the kids had their last week of preschool and co-op as we started our newborn quarantine. I slept like a rock that night, after months of 3-5am insomnia! 

At the end of that weekend, on the early morning hours of November 14 (37.3) I had time-able contractions every 10 minutes for 2 hours, but they petered out. The kids and I made baby's Birth Day cake that day, just in case. My homebirth cart was set up, the bathtub was clean, the newborn supplies were ready and waiting in the bassinet, my parents were on-call for the big kids, our maternity pictures had come back, and excitement was peaking. 

Then that Monday, at 37.4, my midwife had to back out of our contract. Not because anything was wrong, but because Nebraska is stupid (my words) and had launched another one of their campaigns to "investigate the credentials" of homebirth providers. I was devastated. I cried on and off for 24 hours straight. I knew I was excited for my homebirth, but I hadn't realized just how much I was looking forward to the experience until it was no longer an option. I had two counseling appointments and lots of tearful conversations over the next few days. I informed the doctor he was now Plan A and talked about what we could do to make the hospital as home-like as possible. I hired a doula after all. I wrote my first-ever birth plan. With a sinking heart and tears in my eyes, I moved labor and postpartum supplies from the birth cart to a hospital bag. I tried not to attach meaning or a story to the facts. For a few days, I had nary a Braxton-Hicks contraction, and I had a brief reprieve from the hip pain and swelling. I processed the heck out of things, in hopes of creating safety for my body and baby and getting things started again. I felt like I was having to turn all of this around really quickly-- I didn't realize how much I had been counting down to 38 weeks! I was in a hurry to be ready by that day, which felt incredibly rushed.

Then 38 weeks came and went. Baby did, of course, re-engage after a week or so. We celebrated "Thanksgiving" the weekend before the real holiday. I'd hoped to eat a big meal and walk that baby out. I loved the food, but the long walk just induced a good nap. So I didn't go into labor before my doctor and the doula went out of town for the long holiday weekend. I assumed things would kick in once they both got back. Advent started that Sunday, and when the dinner prayer ended with the words, "come Lord Jesus, come quickly!" We started adding, "come baby brother, come quickly!"

Again, I had to confront just how much I'd been counting on 38 weeks, as we approached 40 weeks and I continued to be shocked I hadn't gone into labor. After passing the due date, shock turned into despondency. I stopped timing my spurts of prodromal labor. I started to understand why women would say, "I thought I was going to be pregnant forever!" I knew in my head that I wouldn't, of course. But going to bed with excitement each night quickly turned into going to bed with despair and dreading another sleepless night with no baby in the morning. It was like groundhog day! 

I started to fear my body really had forgotten what to do. I started to wrestle with Rosie's birth story and my mind tried to tell me that maybe my labor with Noah was the exception, and my body failing me was the rule. All lies, of course, but it was an actual mental battle to trust that baby would be born "when the days of my pregnancy had been completed" like the Bible says in these instances. I started to fear the cascade of interventions that I'd be pressured into with each additional day I remained pregnant at my "advanced gestational age."

Meanwhile, I tried to really soak in the last days of life with my 2 big kids, the end of my last pregnancy, the kicks and wiggles, the unique relief of submerging an aching belly in the bathtub. I told baby we couldn't wait to meet him and it was safe to come out now. I oscillated wildly between contented anticipation and anxious suspense. I had to repeatedly claim hope when doubt threatened to take over. 

The weather helped a lot. We were having one of those magical sunny Novembers, so I would rest in bed during rest time, and then shoo the kids outside for the afternoon while I sat in the sun, propped up my feet, and read Labor with Hope and the latest Outlander book. 

On December 1 (39.9), I read this excerpt by Hannah Brencher in light of Advent, and it reassured me:

“I think it is far too easy to package up the story of Elizabeth and say, "See!? Elizabeth is someone who was waiting for something, and then God showed up." Yes, this is all true. But anyone who has felt the waiting period knows the feelings and longings and pain of another day unfulfilled leaves scars. It isn't something you get over instantly (or sometimes ever). It stays with you.

The waiting changes us.

It turns us into different versions of ourselves.

Even though the Bible makes it clear that waiting is an unavoidable part of life, it is still so hard to be able to say, "All of this has a purpose. All of these unfulfilled yearnings are turning me into a steadfast person." That's not something we easily utter or can tell someone else when the waiting has taken a turn for the "too long."

No matter where you are today, God sees you in the waiting. He counts every prayer. He knows what your heart yearns for and the Bible says that if you cannot specifically ask for it, God will still know your desires by the groans of your heart. That is our God.

He is a God who does not dismiss us when the waiting feels endless. He is a God who does not walk out on us or use the waiting to punish us.”

Yet I felt like I'd earned the right to try some home induction tactics by 40 weeks. My due date appointment still showed a healthy baby with good amniotic fluid levels. The day AFTER my due date, I got "induction acupuncture" which did exactly nothing. So I said, "screw it" and after weeks of staying isolated and close to home, we trekked into Omaha for a fancy dinner as a family of four. I was craving a mussels platter from Darios, and I was also trying to reverse psychologize that baby out. "Maybe if I say, you can't come tonight because I have plans, he'll actually come." Alas, labor did not start but we made some really sweet memories. The wait was wearing on all of us, and it was hard for the kids to understand, too, why the baby wasn't here yet when I'd told them he'd be here by Thanksgiving. Rosie was quite offended when baby still wasn't here by his due date, and Noah was needing reassurance that the baby would actually be here no later than 42 weeks (I was needing that reassurance, too).

At 40.4 that Monday, I felt like I was totally within reason to try some more aggressive methods of induction, especially after another round of minute-long contractions every 3-5 minutes for an hour and a half at 1am that morning. I tried pumping over the weekend and had done the Miles Circuit more times than I could count. Chiro, PT, and spinning babies were on repeat. So on December 6, I got my membranes swept. It was totally painless, which told me my body was probably close to being ready and I wasn't interfering unduly. It would either work, or it wouldn't. (I was at 3cm but only 50% effaced with baby's head at -2 station when they checked). I took a nap that afternoon and I SWEAR that when I woke up at 3:30pm, I felt a pop and a small gush of fluid. I called the doula, my doctor, my parents. We got the kids to bed after dinner, Angela came over along with Mom and Dad, and I just kept cramping. Nothing escalated. I finally told the doula to go home after all, and I went to bed really discouraged. Mom and Dad stayed the night, but nothing came of it. I still wasn't in labor by the next morning and the lie that my body had forgotten what to do was playing heavily on my mind. 

I finally went in after 24 hours of this, and while my fluid levels were lower on ultrasound, the amniotic fluid test strip was negative, SO then I just felt stupid and like I was a first time mom and not a third time mom in terms of knowing what my body was doing. It was embarrassing even though, in hindsight, it shouldn't have been. I was just SO READY to meet this long-awaited baby!

On December 8, I read this advent devotional by Hannah Brencher:

“Mary's response is faith, never fear, throughout the entire story. She arguably had every reason to freak out over the story unfolding before her, but she stood firm in her faith and scripted that faith into an anthem.

I can think of several instances in my life where I did not sing a Mary song. Instead, I rehearsed back a familiar anthem of fear to myself. Fear that God would not show up. Fear that promises would not unfold. Fear that I would take the next step only to trip and fall.

Every day, I can choose to glorify God for what he is doing, or I can script a solo story where everything weighs upon my shoulders. 

In your own story, you will often be faced with the same choice: faith or fear. Trust that God will do it or fear that it's all up to you.

…Today you can soak in the reminder that he is a God who picks you out of the crowd for a divine purpose. He makes no mistakes. He never gets it wrong. He's not playing head games with you. He does not spoil his children only to pull the rug out from underneath them.

He walks with you. He covers you. He goes before you and follows behind you. You are precious to him, and he is delighted by your "yes." And even if you live your whole life with a thick film of fear over your eyes, he won't think to love you any less.

You have a choice, though. Every single day. Faith or fear. How will you respond?” 

In spite of these good words, by 41 weeks on the 9th, I was getting really anxious I'd need to induce. The fluid levels looked good, but Dr. Sisk kept me on the monitor for quite a while at my appointment to make sure baby's heart rate was okay and he was really just napping and not stressed. While I sat in the recliner listening to his steady heartbeat, I closed my eyes and visualized going into labor that evening once the kids were asleep. I imagined changing from the outfit I was in, into my labor outfit, bouncing on my exercise ball, calling the doula, relaxing in the tub, walking to the hospital. I saw it all in my mind's eye. 

So when I had evening contractions that petered out again (1 minute long, 5-7 minutes apart after dinner for an hour), I went to bed pretty annoyed. Well, that's putting it mildly. I had some profanity-laced thoughts for God in my journal entry on "December freaking 9th" in which I insisted I was taking my OWN day of PTO tomorrow because Ross had been off all week, ever since my false alarm Monday, and nothing was happening. I vented, "I didn't want to re-start homeschool and germ exposure a measly 2-3 weeks postpartum. I wanted and planned for 5 weeks of REST after this baby was born, and this isn't (****) it. The first week was nice, the second was antsy, and this week has been ridiculous. It's been 3 weekends of meal planning and grocery lists thinking, 'surely this is the last pre-baby,' and here we are well into another (effing) month!"

I ended up falling asleep easily after getting all of that out of my system!