38 Weeks

I seriously cannot even believe i am writing this blog post. Am i seriously thirty eight weeks?? since i delivered bayli at 37 weeks i have never been this pregnant before and boy is it driving me crazy. i am SO done. mentally i'm convinced this is how people feel when they go past their due date since i always assumed i would deliver around the same gestation age as bayli. i am basically angry and negative all the time and my emotions are on edge. i cannot fathom how much worse i will be if i have to wait until 40 weeks to have this baby girl.

i have been contracting daily for the past two weeks, on a couple occasions we've gone in to the hospital because they were coming on so strongly only to be sent home after monitoring for a few hours because the contractions aren't dilating me, they are just painful. yay. the nurses explained that this condition even has a name: "prodromal labor" (more on it here and here.) the nurses feel so bad for me, but there's nothing they can do besides offer some intense narcotics that i have so far avoided taking. but they are tempting... sooo tempting.

every night, and sometimes in the afternoon's too i have a few good hours where my contractions are 5-2 minutes apart (depending on the day), and way more painful than contractions i ever felt with Bayli because i got my epidural pretty early into her labor process. the contractions feel like my belly is a basketball that is being pumped up with too much air, and with every contraction i'm positive that if the pressure increases any further i will literally split down the middle. then after a minute or more, the break comes when the contraction finally stops, and i feel sore and breathless, like i've just done the most hard core workout, and then throbbing pain... down there. and then it's time to pump me with air again. i just cannot believe that after all of these days and hours of contractions i am still only dilated to a 1.5

i told garrison this morning that i genuinely don't think she will ever come out. i know that logically it's impossible. she HAS to come out eventually. we've only got two more weeks to go before the dr will physically take her out if he has to. but none of that is clicking in my head right now, all i can think about is how she's still in there, and will stay there forever. each day growing a bit bigger, and each night hurting a bit more. and of course there is the ever-glooming threat of c-section if she gets big enough that i explained in my last belly update.

i'm not in a happy place.

for example: we do a weekly ritual of asking the Young Women in my church before our lesson begins what something positive, and something negative from that week was. when it was my turn i genuinely could not come up with a single positive thing. how pathetic. seriously my attitude needs an adjustment and i know it.

basically my prayers at night go something like this:
"father, bless this baby to he healthy and strong, but not too strong... those kicks have been hurting recently, and bless her to grow, just not too big cause eventually i need to get her out, and my organs are feeling very claustrophobic right now, bless me to be able to sleep tonight so that i can have the strength to hopefully push her out tomorrow. i know that most people probably pray to take their contractions and pain away, but i'm ok with that, as long as they are actually doing something. i promise to be good if you will just let them be contractions that work. oh, and bless my water to break so that i won't have to be confused about when it's the real thing or not. amen."

i need to be finished with this post now before i continue any further down this path of negativity. but basically... if you need me, you can either find me at the hospital checking to see if this time it's actual labor pains, or "curb walking" around the entire city of Orem, or laying in my bed, eating the leftover cadbury mini eggs, crying, feeling bad for myself.

Have a great week! Hopefully my next post has a completely different vibe to it, and baby pictures, lots of baby pictures.