Feelings on Forty

I am officially 40 weeks and one day pregnant.  Every day past 40 weeks feels like an entire week.  Your heightened senses tune in to and over analyze every kick, every hiccup.  You are so aware of each movement that you swear you can feel the baby blinking. 

You Google a different version of the phrase "how to induce labor naturally" at least once per day, desperately hoping to find an amazing new method to induce labor that doesn't involve hippo-like sex, caster oil, or nipples. 

You walk, squat, take the stairs, and repeat.  You bounce and rock hopelessly on your "birthing ball," which once served the more common purpose of "work-out ball."  

You beg your physician or midwife to "strip your membranes" despite the fact that the name of the procedure itself sounds horrific. You spend the entire day after having your membranes stripped expecting labor to start, and are rabidly furious when you find the only side effect is crippling pain that leaves you glued to the couch. 

You carefully and eagerly inspect your toilet paper for blood or mucous - anything that points to the starting signs of labor.  It is the only time in your life when you rejoice to find either of these substances coming from your body.  You text your Mommy friends immediately upon its arrival and fight the urge to share the good news with all of Facebook.

You wake every two hours to pee and towel yourself off as you have been sweating profusely. You might as well be feeding a hungry baby every two hours, because you aren't getting any sleep in your current state. 

You clean your house within an inch of its life at week 37.  Then again at week 38.  By week 39 I swear if I have to clean this effing house one more effing time I'm going to lose my effing mind. 

In your mind your new due date becomes dependent on completing random tasks.  If I scrub the grout in the bathroom the baby will come.  When that doesn't work, if I back up all of my files, make DVDs out of all of our home videos, and repack my hospital bag the baby will come.  If I scrub the baseboards, set up and sanitize all of the baby gear, and mop the floors the baby will come.  When none of these things help, maybe he is waiting for the Lions to win their first playoff game.  Maybe he is waiting for a full moon.  The 7th is a weird day to be born, anyway.  I bet no one in the world is ever born on the 7th.  The 8th sounds better. 

Every woman you know is having her baby before you - even those due weeks after you.  You swear if you log on to Facebook to find that one more woman had her baby before you, you are deleting your account forever.  Seriously this time.  You hear that Facebook?  Forever!

None of your maternity shirts fit you anymore, and you surrender to sweatpants and your husband's fleece.  You go to the bank and grocery store in gray Hanes and could care less.  You aren't even trying anymore.  Pretty soon gravity is just going to suck your massive body into the face of the Earth anyway, so who really cares who sees you. 

So that is where I am at on my 281st day of day of pregnancy.  I was hoping that tonight would be the night, but just a few hours ago I looked up the baby's Zodiac sign.  Capricorn, just like me.  I was devastated to read the following:

"There are two very different types of Capricorns.  The first is represented by the mountain goat, always climbing higher and higher; never content until reaching the top. The second is the garden goat, with little adventurous spirit or ambition-happy to remain within a small domain, refusing to budge unless it is pushed."

With that in mind, I'm calling it a night.