Are You Ready to Rumble?

This post is basically all about baby preparations. If you don't want to read that junk, feel free to skip it.

Nothing interesting going on here with me. I had another NST on Friday and things look good. They declared Spidey's fetal monitoring strip as "perfect" and my blood pressure as "good enough." I've got one last NST this coming Friday and then, assuming nothing extraordinary happens this week or over the weekend, Spidey will get evicted at 9am on Monday. It's crazy to think that a week from right now he'll be on the outside. Wow.

My friend C, whom I've posted about before, is having her baby today. She's the one who had the high NT numbers and the Kell positive blood problem. She's been getting weekly MCA sonograms (which measure the velocity of the throughput of a particular artery in the baby's brain) to monitor the Kell issue. She's also been having some amniotic fluid issues, but they tend to correct themselves by the next appointment. She's 37w1d today and went in for an amnio to ensure that the baby's lungs were ready for the scheduled c-section tomorrow. Well, her amniotic fluid is so low that she's having the baby today. Wow.

I'm still not sleeping for shit. I basically don't even bother attempting to go to sleep until sometime between 2:30 - 3:00am. Then I sleep in the chair until around 4:30am. Then I move to the guest bed until I get up around 6:30am. I've been trying to nap for an hour or two in the afternoon to make up some lost ground. I'm tired, but not completely useless so I guess my plan is working.

What's nice is that in those quiet hours between 11pm and 3am (when Megan and Kevin are asleep), I'm getting a lot done. I've written down everything I can possibly think of to help my in-laws take care of Megan. They live in Syracuse, and although we talk to them often on the phone, they only get to actually see Megan about 3 times a year. So to show up and attempt to care for her on their own for nearly a week while I'm in the hospital will be interesting. Plus, they aren't arriving until Sunday afternoon and we are leaving at 6:15am on Monday morning for the hospital. Nothing like cutting it close, folks! But beggars can't be choosers and I'm grateful they are uprooting their lives to help us so I shouldn't complain.

I've left directions to everywhere they would want to go (her school, the park, the library, the mall, the hospital, the grocery store) complete with maps. I've left detailed schedules for the 4 days I'll be in the hospital. I've left lists of what she eats (luckily she's not picky). I've created a medical authorization form for them in case of an emergency. I've made up a menu for the week and the corresponding grocery list to do over the weekend.

Spidey's room is ready. There are even decorative things on the walls. This past weekend we washed the car seat lining and brought the bassinet up from the basement. We didn't use a bassinet with Megan, she slept in her crib from the first night home from the hospital, but we were in a small townhouse at the time. Now we are in a larger house, it's a haul to get to the baby's room umpteen times a night. My neighbor gave me a perfectly lovely bassinet so I figured why not try it out. If it doesn't work, we'll ditch it and move him to the crib.

Megan is crazy excited. Frankly, a little too excited. I'm 100% certain she will be doing inappropriately dangerous things to/with the baby in the name of "helping." She's also been doing some advance homework on the whole regression thing. She cried 2 different times last week at night going to bed because I wouldn't let her wear a diaper (she's been potty trained for 1.5 years). She cried another night because I wouldn't let her sleep in the crib. She's asked twice if we will be moving back to the townhouse once the baby comes (presumably because she knows we lived in the townhouse when *she* was a baby, so that's where babies live). I've read so much on Shelby's blog about her struggles with Celia's potty accidents that I'm scared shitless about what's going to happen here. Heavy sigh. But, whatever it will be, it will be. And we'll figure it out. She's not the first kid in the history of the world who had to welcome a sibling and lose their spot in the limelight. She'll get over it.

Boy, I sure did ramble on for someone who has basically nothing to say. Perhaps it's my way of forced optimism after that neurotic and depressing angst-filled post about the DBTs. I actually do believe that this might work out, I might have a live baby next week. FINALLY, FINALLY this past weekend, I caught myself switching from using "if" to "when" while discussing the baby's homecoming. At this point, I think I'm more nervous about the c-section recovery than anything else. No driving for 2 weeks, no lifting Megan for a while, that will be rough. Especially because she's so short that I still need to lift her up to wash her hands whenever we are out somewhere. Kevin suggested I just bring hand wipes and ditch the sink washing activities until I'm fully healed. Good idea!

I said dozens and dozens of prayers yesterday for all of my friends who are hopeful mothers. I pray that each and every one of you experience a wildly happy and fulfulling Mother's Day in 2009.