still..... but not all that *still*

Spent half the afternoon weeping yesterday. In parts because I am so frickin uncomfortable, I mean soooo uncomfortable it makes me cry. I have lost my ribs, they just don't exist, instead I have actual pummelling of my heart. I also have (just let me moan for one minute ok, then I will stop - it's totally allowed when you are one week away from your due date), where was I, oh, also have incredible stretching muscle type pain at either side of my belly, low down just over the pubic bone. Like round ligament pain but worse so that I actually have to breathe through it like labour pain and lie down for half an hour. I just don't know how I could get any bigger than this. It is unreal. I am loving my baby being active and there, I am just soooo over being pregnant. I am not humble or gracious or a smiling Madonna any longer. I am not thrilled to pat my belly and sigh all happily any more. I am just hair pulling and screaming to go into labour. I am sure this is a stage I need to go through, so that I can surrender and be accepting all over again and approach labour more calmly.



Maybe I did before, I cannot remember. I can't remember anything actually, my mind has been erased of all things other than the incredible discomfort of being unable to walk. Or sit, or lie down, or have a bath... for any length of time. I am totally living in the now, and it's sort of tiring. I do not remember yesterday, or can see as far as tomorrow (where I still may be pregnant and not in labour). Imagine going overdue? Shudder. I would be living on nothing but pineapple, curry spices, long walks and be forcing my dh to bed. I'd really like this post to be different, to say how grateful I am, how serenely and peacefully I am approaching labour. And while I do have snippets of time when I feel that way, mostly I just am tired, and desperate to be on the other side of pregnancy. The notion of being able to roll over at night! To lie on my back or belly! Oh my. It's like a distant dream. Phone calls and comments from well wishes are all 'not long now!. Oh you are ready to pop! Are you ready? Do you have everything? Are you excited?' Really???? Really? I'd like to slam the phone down but decorum deems otherwise. Excited? Ready? So been there. Now I am just hungry for labour. One must smile and say all of the right things though... least you seem rottenly ungrateful for your blessed state.



And so I am considering this funky funk of physical intensity part of the build up to labour. Like the contractions that come daily now and with higher intensity, I am accepting that this is how it is for me right now. And it's ok to feel this way. because why torture myself mentally also? Last week I was all giddy with joy about labour, and excited when we set up the birth pool. Now I am just drooping and wilting and wanting to spend half the day in bed. I have read nearly an entire novel per day this last week. I have been downloading so many books on my dh's Kindle that he is sort of mad that he can't get to read his daily newspaper there. He bought me my own yesterday. I have never been interested in e-books before. But you can lie in bed, and with the touch of a button buy a book from amazon and be reading it 60 seconds later. It's sort of amazing. I have found a new way to be frugal and keep our house form accumulating hundreds more books :) Isn't that a good way to look at it?





I do like this funny sign though in my town ('the town of books' it calls it'self). Ho ho.



I am not totally irritated by people. I cannot believe the amazing kind and generous things I am hearing and receiving by post from on line friends. It is over whelming and sweet and just right. When people you don't *see* in your daily life can be so open and sweet it makes you feel better about the world in general I think. And linked to other people despite spending your days at home. I think I have found the 'friends' I know in my regular daily life to have vanished or at least have little interest in keeping much contact when I see them less regularly. It makes me sort of sad. I guess it takes time to build friendships, and effort to keep them going. So it's as much a failure on my part as anything. Pregnancy does keep me quieter anyway. And less involved. I think it's a physical inability to go places but also a sort of protecting of self from the things people speak about and their own issues and energies. Shrug. I suppose life ebbs and flows that way. Pregnancy makes me very family orientated, I see that. They literally become my pared back world.



Special, miraculous and utterly exhausting. Is where I am. Or maybe just that last bit. Really. I am hoping I can look back at this and laugh. Or at least feel huge quantities of empathy the next time I see a large and uncomfortable woman near labour. I will nod at her, yes. I know. And I won't say 'nearly there!' All upbeat with seven exclamation marks, no I will just nod and smile. And be glad I can move and skip and bend over to pick up a pen.



Random unrelated photos from the last few days. Showing that yes, I can still see beauty and other wonders of daily life. I thank the universe for my three children, who make me laugh. Every. Single. Day. They really do force you to stay sane.