Twenty-Eight Weeks

Hello, and welcome to the third trimester!

Wow, that doesn't seem right at ALL. It seems like I was just watching that first line show up on the pregnancy test, dark purple and so very positive. Except that that was back in December—LAST YEAR!—which means that while time is racing along, I have also somehow managed to be pregnant forever.

Similarly, I go back and forth about how quickly I think August will be here. I alternate between states of denial, where I deliberately refuse to think about bassinets and diapers and freezing casseroles, and states of total panic, where the fact that there's a home birth kit in the linen closet and four giant bins of washed and folded baby clothes in the garage is NOT NEARLY ENOUGH PREPARATION!!! On Friday I enlisted my dad to help rearrange Westley's room and the playroom to make space for another small person and her belongings (and to get a jump-start on the battle to keep Westley's toys out of his sister's mouth). Our little house already looks more spacious and better-organized, but it's only a start. I can't keep my mind off how much there still is to do. Except when I'm putting my fingers in my ears, denying, la-la-la can't be not ready for a baby if I can't hear you la-la-la!


Along with the anxiety-denial cycle, fear struck HARD this week. When I noticed a tapping sound overhead on a quiet afternoon, I was certain someone was walking around in the attic. Whoever it was almost certainly had a knife and was going to kill me. Even the kitty seemed on edge. (And the kitty is known for her excellent judgment on all matters.) Heart pounding, I went outside and stood in the middle of the front yard to survey the roof. I expected to see Leatherface. Instead, a big fat crow was pecking at a shingle. The sound its beak made was identical to, if less ominous than the tapping I'd heard from the living room.

That evening I dreamed I gave birth to a full-term, perfectly formed baby orangutan. Holding my slippery and very hairy newborn, I was horrified. What am I supposed to DO with it? I knew in that way you know things in dreams that no one was going to help me with this; I was going to have to figure things out on my own.

One of the hardest things about this whole process is knowing that I have to do it all myself. And I don't mean the eventual going into labor and pushing the baby out and breast-feeding part. I'm the one who has to eat well, keep up with a gazillion appointments, and figure out the best sitting and sleeping positions for a strange body.

Consequently, I've gotten very tired of other people asking me for things: "Can you switch your appointment from 10:05 to 8:05?" "Can you bake two dozen gluten-free, soy-free vegan cupcakes for the picnic?" "...pick up eye drops while you're out?" "...play Candyland again...and make me a hot chocolate?"

No. No, no, NO!...I want to say to all of it. I'm exhausted, I want to say. I'm overwhelmed. There is a person elbowing me in the back of the bellybutton all the time, I want to say. But instead I say, Fine. No problem. I'll take care of it.

I always hoped motherhood would somehow make me more assertive and confident, but it hasn't happened so far. Maybe I'm just saving up all my "no"s for after the baby is born, when I really won't be able to do XYZ.


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