Getting Time Alone in Before the

The Final Days of Pregnancy

It's hard to believe that in a week's time, I will no longer be pregnant. You think it's not going to end, and then the day comes like today, when you realize that it is ending. Just as I got used to my cumbersome body, I feel a pang of regret knowing that this huge butterball of a mid-section is going away, transforming into a human baby, but gone, all the same. My massive tummy and I were just getting the hang of it. Now, wham, it's going to be taken away from me. Pregnancy bliss, being spoiled by strangers, getting special treatment, not caring about caloric consumption, always having the perfect excuse, taking my own, sweet time, spending lots of time on the couch, getting favors done, letting it all out, and so much more, will be gone in a week. Back to reality and anonymity.  I quite got accustomed to the perks of pregnancy.  Though I complained a lot and though they seemed to loom on forever, I adored the nine months.  To find myself pregnant in April this year at age 46 was a titillating discovery. Staying pregnant in the vulnerable first 12 weeks was an enormous relief. Watching my body grow to gargantuan size in the mid-section was shocking.  Getting around the last several weeks has been tiresome.  And all the possible combinations of emotions poked their heads in to this three-quarter of a year-long experience. Physically and emotionally....it challenged me in a wonderful way. I took care of myself as best I could. And I continued on with my life as if the pregnancy were an appendage. Because I knew that I couldn't just sit and bask in the advanced-age pregnancy. I had to get some things accomplished, pregnant at 46 or not. Most important of those things was to be the best mommy to my daughter as I could be.  She deserved all the attention I was able to give her throughout these nine months. I hope she thinks I did a good job.  So, I am looking at my last weekend I'll be pregnant. What will I do and how will I savor it?  I am going to spend all my time with my daughter. It will be our last weekend together as a mommy and daughter duo. This is her last weekend of being the only child. She can get spoiled a little! Tonight we got our Christmas tree. Tomorrow we will finish decorating it.  A pre-baby celebration will be had.  But if I end up in the delivery room this weekend, it will be an abrupt end to a fun-filled journey of pregnancy in my 46th year.  

What's Left to Do as Week 39 Approaches?

There is nothing left to do - aside from the maddening nesting - except sleep and eat.  Braving the December 1st NYC thunderstorm today for, perhaps, my last doctor's appointment, I crossed off the last of the few errands by buying a large supply of baby diapers at Babies R Us.  Here's what's left between now and my due date next week:
-Get a base for the infant car seat
-Buy a breast pump on Craigslist
(Baby daddy can do those above two items)
-Purchase a Christmas tree from a Manhattan sidewalk vendor (reminiscent of a scene in When Harry Met Sally) and decorate it with the family over hot chocolate and Christmas cookies (the latter of which - though would be fantastic to spend the evening baking them - I will buy. Just so you know, daughter and I did bake cookies a couple nights ago and topped with homemade purple frosting. That counts as my seasonal home baking, doesn't it, even though the cookies came out sort-of ice hockey pucky??).
-Decide what to do with cat while basking in a glorious hospital stay for baby's birth. Dad and daughter will be staying with friends.
-Get in some fun and relaxation!!

Is the last item really going to occur? How much fun can a 39-week old pregnant lady have? For that matter, is sleep going to happen? Insomnia? I have it, thus, along with the myriad of bathroom trips I make, my body is on auto pilot. It must be because I don't really feel that tired.

Relaxation? Yeah, right. It ain't gonna happen because a pregnant mommy doesn't slow my daughter down.  And the apartment doesn't cook dinner or clean for us.  There's no such thing as relaxation for a pregnant person unless you're Queen Victoria with nine children. Plus, the above list will grow as I come up with more chores, as I inherently will.

Eating? I plan to let myself eat for two until the big day, when reality strikes me in a moment of panic when I realize I have gained 45 pounds and a box marked "skinny jeans" will be staring me in the face when I get home from the hospital.  But I have a week left to luxuriate in Godiva chocolates from Macy's. The dieting bridge can be crossed later. At least I didn't gain weight in the last week as I've not been to the grocery store to load up on impulse snacks.  I just ate a mug of Grape-Nuts.  Hmmm...it's fun to eat cereal at night. Late night healthy snacking I'll do. That will be my fun and relaxation.

Nesting is Truly True

When I read about nesting while pregnant with my now four-year old daughter, I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Truly I didn't. I literally did not get the concept. Just like I still don't get the signs that read, "Don't curb your dog." I have been living in NYC for 7 and a half years, see that sign on every street, and still can't imagine its meaning.  My comedic hero, George Carlin, would also be confused. And he would be appalled by the sign and by the term, nesting. Why can't our language be more meaningful? Say what we mean!  Instead we use bogus terms to sound important.  Leaving the curbing of the dog thing aside, since I don't have a dog, I don't need to know what it means. But nesting does apply to me right now because I am supposed to be doing it. I now get what it means because I finally read a definition of it that makes sense.  However, choosing the word "nesting", was a really bad idea. Whoever came up with it should be put on trial. Sorry. It left me utterly confused and dejected four years ago because I thought I was supposed to be doing something which I wasn't doing. I guess I wasn't doing it because I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.  This is torture for a 9-month pregnant lady.  But, as I mentioned, now I know what nesting is. It's organization. And I have been doing it, furiously, I might add.  All I can do and think about in the last 24 hours is getting my apartment clean and organized.  And that is what nesting is to me.  I am on a rampage of getting my place spic and span. I just bought some more cleaning supplies at the $.99 store. I've disinfected the hand-me-down baby toys. I put mattress covers on the beds. I have made the fridge spotless (it wasn't easy to get the dried syrup off the side door). The floors have been scrubbed. Cabinets rubbed down. Radiator pipes fixed and painted.  Furniture re-arranged for ease and simplicity.  Clothes have been sorted, discarded, or stored.  Sheets are clean.  I even moved my wall pictures around.  Yet, I am not nearly finished. I have an inner need to carry on well into the nights before this baby comes next week with more scrubbing, polishing, dusting, sweeping, vacuuming,  re-arranging, tossing out, and stacking. Yes, one can and must do all these things, even in a one-bedroom New York City apartment. As you can see, there is no stopping me.  My hugely pregnant body has taken on all the positions that ferocious cleaning requires.  This will toughen up the baby, who has now likely experienced contortionism.  Not an ounce of this "nesting" business occupied me in my last weeks of pregnancy four years ago. You'd think that even though I didn't have a clue what nesting meant, I still would have had the urge for organization. I didn't then. Now I do. I guess it's true when they say every pregnancy is different.  Let's hope the cleaning urges last me a lifetime! 

How Do You Really Know When It's Time?

The Internet offers many articles on what to expect in weeks 38 and 39.  The baby may drop. But that's usually only in first pregnancies, they say. What about second pregnancies and beyond? Doesn't the baby drop? My baby feels like it has dropped down to my knees, based on the lower back pains that are keeping me sleepless the last few nights. Yet, we all may agree that books and magazines and articles alike all tell us not to go to the hospital too soon. When is too soon? What is the point between being too presumptuous and being careless? Those taxi and elevator births sort of skew things a little bit, don't you think?  We don't want to bother our doctors in the middle of the night, but we don't want to ask our partners to become home birthing doctors either. Why don't we just camp outside our chosen hospital in the 39th week? That way, if it's a false alarm, we can just go back to our tents or cars. If it's not, then we can simply walk in the door. Whether a baby is already coming out of us or not, at least the professionals can finish the job, not the taxi driver or a panicked partner. Back to my earlier question, why do babies not drop as quickly as first babies? That means the first-time mother gets more of a warning. Hey, that's not fair. Regardless of how many babies one already has, it is still scary stuff to not know when the human being inside of you wants out. I want to know. How do I plan for anything, then? Even getting the mail seems like a hazardous errand if I'm supposedly not in the know.  It seems like the very most important detail that is being left out from us mothers is the detail we should be most in tune with. When is the baby coming out? It's just another example of a slap in our face on top of being punished with 9 months of pregnancy followed by painful childbirth for eating that apple. Here's the thing. You get to the hospital too early and you sit around for days, wasting everyone's time. You don't get there fast enough, and you're lectured by your doctor and made to feel like you're the worst mother in the world.  It's as if we are more concerned about what other people think than about living through the whole experience of labor on our own terms.  Even in the final moments of 9-month pregnancy, we are self-conscious.  Bogus.  Let's stop that.  I shouldn't care a less if my doctor is inconvenienced by me.  That's his job. Or is it? He gave me the speech on what he pays for medical malpractice insurance each year. Last check-up, he was on the phone telling his patient to not worry, to go home. She was obviously at the hospital too early in his opinion.  I could hear her pleading with him to come over, but he won the argument and tended to me and the rest of his patients in his office instead.  I detected annoyance in his voice.  Oh gosh, we clearly haven't gotten a hold of our own destinies. Still.  Yet, however appealing birthing at home with total control sounds, I'm still one who's wired to rely on technology.  So I'll wait until my doctor's green light tells me it's o.k. to proceed, suppressing my own annoyance or not. I'll follow those articles and believe my baby has not dropped.  At least, if all else fails, I live one block from the county hospital.

The Truth About Age and New Motherhood

In your forties the idea of becoming a new mother again is scary, to say the least. At least in your twenties, you know you are going through the same things that millions upon millions of new mothers go through all across the globe.  Yes, it's true, having children in your forties is happening a lot and it is nothing new. But it isn't even near as common as child rearing is in the two decades that precede it. And for that, the woman who finds herself with an infant in her forties may feel a little lonely at times.  There just aren't enough of her. Even here in New York City, a mecca for women who put off having children later in life, older moms are the exception, not the rule.  So, at play dates, at school, on the playground, I am going to continue to be the one who is going to be older than the other moms. That's o.k. But sometimes it'll be lonely when the other moms can't relate to what I'm talking about. Picture this: the kids are playing on the jungle gym and we moms are on the bench talking.  Musical groups come up. I mention Led Zeppelin and Rush. I get a quizzical look. Or  I mention that I named my daughter after the Little House on the Prairie books. Another pause, followed by, "Oh, yeah, I've heard of them." The point is, I stand apart in the group. The group can't relate to me totally. I'm an anomaly Now, for Pete's sake, I am not attempting to elicit pity from anyone reading this. I am merely stating facts and figures. Here's a figure: Only 5 percent of live births are from women over the age of 39.  As recently as 2006, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) reported that the average age of the first time mother in the United States is 25.  If that were graphed, I would fall on the far right tail of the distribution curve. I'd be deleted for skewing the results. Maybe I should move to New Zealand where the average age is 30.7. At least I'd have more of a chance to fit in when I reveal my true age amongst the playground moms.  Maybe, in lieu of, ""Oh my, you look good for your age," I'll be greeted with, "Who cares?"  Forgive me, I am having fun with this topic. I don't feel left out or different, really.  The real culprit is stamina. Or lack thereof. That is what is scaring me. I can handle different. I had a poster in my room growing up with a rooster with an actual comb on its head. The poster read: Dare To Be Different.  Believe me, though, I didn't tell myself that I would wait until my forties to have kids. I don't think many women actually aspire to that because we all know the risks and difficulties of getting and staying pregnant, even as soon as age 35.  So, looking, acting, and being older than my contemporaries on the playground shouldn't and doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that I may run out of steam chasing them around the playground. Getting pooped out, so to speak.  A friend of mine has a 25 year-old and seven year-old. I asked her a question to which I already knew the answer: "What age was easier for you when you had your sons, 24 or 42?"  We all know her answer was an emphatic 24. She answered so quickly and with such gusto, it got me to think about what lies ahead for me in the need-for-energy department. With an active four year-old and an infant any day now, I am headed for activity the likes of which I've never experienced.  When most people my age start thinking about how to fit relaxation into their lives, I will be thinking about how to get more physical energy out of my body.  While I'm chasing my kids around the apartment, let's just hope the saying, "It'll keep you young", is true. I will need youth on my side, and I'll take it any way I can get it!

Going into Labor on Thanksgiving Day

Not really! There's no baby yet, but I had some false alarms on the drive home from Thanksgiving dinner at our friends' house. Going over some big potholes put me into labor mode. And we started discussing the option of going to Woodhull Hospital near our apartment in Brooklyn. There were lower-pelvic tightening and labor-type pains going on.  But then it suddenly stopped, and I realized that perhaps the two plates of food and three servings of dessert I ingested might have had something to do with the pains. Nevertheless, it would have been some story had I truly gone into labor today. I wouldn't have minded. I'm definitely ready. It's really dragging on now. However, there is still much to do - as my friend inquired while I helped her make a pecan pie - if I had the diapers yet. No, that is a detail I've forgotten.  Better get those diapers tomorrow, yet do I dare venture out on Black Friday to buy them? I don't think I want to face Baby's R Us when those fake labor pains, along with my crippled leg, might creep up while I'm waiting in line to pay for diapers.  I will go to the local baby store here in Brooklyn and get a package or two to start.  Next, I need a breast pump.  But I still have time for that.  It's now two weeks away.  I can't sleep tonight because the belly is now a liability for me  while lying down. I simply can't get into a comfortable position. That's an oxymoron if you're 38 weeks pregnant.  Coupled with 10 pounds of Thanksgiving food, there is no way that sleep will come to me tonight easily.  What is a 38-week old baby doing inside there about now, anyway? What is going through the mind of a soon-to-be-born baby? "I want out," or "I want in?"  I have no idea because this baby of mine is just doing what seems like perpetual somersaults.  I can see the stomach moving and undulating with each kick. Well, it did cross my mind this morning, as it will every morning for the next two weeks, that this baby will come out today.  And I will be a new mother again at age 46.  Yikes!  Well, I am so thankful for having the joy of being pregnant this year, at my age, with a sibling for my daughter to grace our lives in a few days' time. Thankful that I have gotten through these nine months with no real problems, except the unnecessary ones in my head. But I guess that goes with the territory.  Happy Blessings of Thanksgiving to All!