Week 40: The one where I've been pregnant for 10 months

Forty weeks … because apparently I don’t know how to NOT be pregnant.

I can’t say I’m surprised that I’m still pregnant. But yet part of me couldn’t help but hope that I wouldn’t go passed my due date this time. When this blog posts I’ll be 40-weeks-and-one-day pregnant. Someone once told me that the definition of eternity is every day passed your due date. And that person is right. Ten months is a long time. Long enough. Ten months is what I signed up for. You hear that, baby?! I signed up to keep you in there for 40 weeks. I held up my end of the bargain.  

But that’s it.  

Time’s up.  

GET OUT.

As of last Thursday I am now officially “advanced maternal age.” That really has nothing to do with anything. Except I thought I could use my force of will to make the baby be born before I turned 35. Turns out that’s not the way it works. Good to know.

A few weeks back I had to start wearing my glasses full time because whenever I put my contacts in, it feels like I’m wearing tiny pieces of sandpaper on my eyes. This happens when my allergies flare up, but what could I possibly be allergic to in the dead of winter?  Apparently my eyeballs are allergic to being pregnant.

While I’m certainly more than ready to meet this new little person who will make our family complete, there is also a small (and growing smaller with each passing day) part of me that says to just appreciate this time while I have it. This is our last baby. (I mean it this time.) I’ll never be pregnant again. I’ll never have another round belly that I can’t find a shirt to cover. I’ll never feel the rolls and kicks from a baby on the inside. (Somehow it’s less cute when a giant 4-year-old foot connects with your ribcage when you’re least expecting it.) I’m sure it’s not much of a surprise to anyone that I more or less enjoy being pregnant. And this is my last hoo-rah. So I’m trying to enjoy it while it lasts because I know I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

At my doctor’s appointment last week I was 1 cm dilated and 20 percent effaced. This prognosis prompted the doctor to ask if I wanted him to give me a “rough cervix massage” to try to get labor started. Obviously I took him up on the offer. Who can refuse something
so delicately titled? Rough cervix massage. Just say it. It makes me laugh every time I do. Unfortunately, it did not get labor started. But that’s only because my body refuses to go into labor on its own anymore. Apparently it did it twice, and that was enough for it. Now it’s willing to just let babies stay in there for all of eternity.  

My wonderful cousin asked me last week what I needed for the baby. My response? “For it to evacuate my uterus in a timely fashion.” I’m pretty sure she was looking for an answer more along the lines of “diapers” or “muslin blankets,” but, you know, I need what I need.

I got my nails done again, and this time I managed to pick a less insane color. Because maybe the reason the baby won’t come out is because it doesn’t want to be born to a mother with insanely colored fingernails. What? That seems like a stretch? You get to 40-plus weeks pregnant, and then we’ll just see what you consider to be a reasonable argument. I’m willing to bet that all arguments will be on the table.