The Home Stretch

I'll be 38 weeks tomorrow. I've made it to term and only have about two weeks before my due date. Interesting things happen when you're this far along in the pregnancy. For example, my back aches have finally begun in earnest. I woke up a couple of days ago feeling incredibly stiff on my right side, and it's getting harder to move about without my back hurting today. Not terrible pain, but it certainly doesn't make it easy to do things. Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't be doing so many things.

Of course, at this stage in the pregnancy, there are other things to think about. In the first trimester I spent pretty much every bathroom visit checking for any signs of a miscarriage before I made it to the "safe" mark of 12 weeks. Now I spend pretty much every bathroom visit checking to see if my water has broken. I know most "first" babies come late, but Hubby's cousin's water broke four weeks early. My coworker said both her children came two weeks early. My original due date, before it was recalculated to June 2nd, was May 25. It's not outside the realm of possibility for the baby to come pretty much any day now.

The good news is that we're really moving forward with our preparations, which makes me feel a lot better about the things that I can control. Yes, I still have to finish thank you notes, and no, the nursery is not finished yet. But my brother did move most of his belongings out of the room so we can start to clean and fill the room this weekend and next week. We've had our hot water heater checked for safety, got Hubby's TDAP vaccine, packed a hospital bag, and sort of chosen a pediatrician. My brother is offering to help us with furniture and my brother-in-law is offering to help us build our crib. And most of the baby clothes are now tagless and washed.

Today we also did the important step of installing car seat bases in both my car and Hubby's car so our infant carrier can go back and forth between the vehicles. The same center where we took our childbirth class offered car seat installations (or rather, installation instruction) and safety checks. Since Hubby had to work at the only time they were available, my parents went with me so we could get both cars ready and they could learn for future car seat installation as Baby grows older and starts to be babysat by his grandparents.

The other baby-related activity of today's busy day was attending a cousin's baptism! It was great to see a beautiful 7-month-old baby being supported by her whole family. And just like how being an engaged wedding guest made me think about my upcoming wedding, this event made me anticipate my little one's arrival even more.

What else happens in the home stretch besides final preparations and future baby dreams? More actual baby dreams. On the morning of May 13 I dreamed I was in the hospital to get Baby checked and the nurse told me I could have issues giving birth because of the placement of Baby's hand. She went to consult the doctor about a c-section and promised me the doctor would return shortly. In my dream I waited a long time before finally going out to find the doctor myself. I ran into another nurse who told me the first nurse didn't know what she was talking about--that the hand placement would not affect the birth at all and that I was free to go home now. I returned to the hospital room to grab my purse when I noticed there was a strange man hovering around the table where my purse was. I quickly grabbed my things without talking to the man and checked my purse to see if anything was missing. One thing was: my wallet. When I looked up, the man bolted from the room. I yelled, "Stop thief!" and chased him (while pregnant) into an empty stairwell. I could see him on the stairs in front of me and began to throw objects at him including my heavy water bottle in an attempt to get him to slow down. "Give me my wallet!" I shouted at him. He shouted back, "Give me the book!" I paused and wondered, "What book?" before waking up.

The second baby-related dream I had was shorter and not quite as action packed, but just as exciting. This morning (morning of May 17) I had several dreams in between my frequent bathroom trips, but only one was related to Baby. In this dream I could see my child clear as day, though he wasn't an infant. He was probably about a year old, maybe two (I'm not a good judge of baby ages yet). He was shirtless (maybe sitting in a tub?) and I could see his beautiful tan skin that was the same shade as Hubby's. I'm almost positive this dream came from a conversation we'd had right before bed where Hubby pointed out that my skin was so light our baby would probably come out more pale like me than like him. But in the dream I was so happy to point out that Hubby was wrong and I was right--he looked exactly like I imagined. Tan skin and also a dark crop of wavy jet-black hair that fell over his face in a style that was not too long but not too short. It reminded me of my older brother's hair when he was little, and was also the same color as Hubby's (though the waves were definitely my side of the family). The best part was that though our son didn't talk or even babble in the dream, there was a moment where he looked up at both of us and smiled. So happy. So loving. So loved.

I cannot wait to meet and see this baby. I can feel him right now, his feet hard against the top of my belly. My body is stretching for the home stretch as I get closer and closer to the moment where I know I'm going to fall in love all over again.