Term

Hello out there.

I'm still alive. You might have noticed it during my sporadic commenting on your sites now and then. Occasionally I've been moved enough to comment on someone else's thoughts - but I just haven't mustered up the energy to compile my own thoughts in any coherent matter.

This pregnancy has been rough, in more emotional ways than physical I suppose. I never believed or experienced so called "Pregnancy Brain" in my previous pregnancies, but this time it hit me hard. I can't think, I can't speak (is that a song? no clue.) and I even rear-ended someone a month ago while in a complete haze. A friend suggested it's probably the children I already have that are contributing to my absentmindedness, but I have to believe it's all of the people in my crazy life - including the one still cooking.

Depending on whose chart you use, I'm 37 weeks exactly today. Officially full-term, by most accounts. At my last ultrasound, the baby was measuring in the 80th percentile or so - already 6 pounds 11 ounces. Compared to the boys' birth weights (3 lb 14 oz, and 6 lb 3 oz) that sounds amazingly large to me.

On one side of my brain, I'm reassured by these numbers, but only to a point. I still feel a twinge when I tell coworkers that I'll be going on maternity leave soon. I feel like I should leave out the "maternity" part, because - what if? What if something else goes wrong? Even though I'm well past the point that my problems happened with Ethan and #3, and everyone is being super cautious, and I'm being followed with testing twice a week... there's just no "out of the woods" in my world.

I'm off soon for BPP # 3 (or 4, who can keep track) and feel my same combination of calm and nervousness. I can feel the baby moving now, but what if she doesn't cooperate during the test? What if something else shows up that hasn't to this point? What if my BP is up now?

Yes, for those of you paying attention, I said "she". As far as they've been telling us, this baby is a girl. We were very happy to hear that, but honestly no happier than we would have been if they said it was a boy. I could write sixty posts on the ridiculous comments I've received - both positive and negative - regarding baby gender. Yes, I'm excited to have the chance to see the "other" side of parenting now, but I would have been just as excited to have the chance to have three boys. Seriously.

NO. I'M NOT JUST SAYING THAT.

NO. I WASN'T SECRETLY HOPING FOR A GIRL.

Anyway, I need to start motivating myself and CG to get out the door. This post is all over the place, as is my brain lately, but I make no apologies for that. I also don't apologize for not posting in months. I am not ready to throw this blog away, but I'm also not ready to feel that my life or free time are less important than writing something.

I do miss writing though, which is very cathartic for me. I especially miss the community I've forced myself into, of other parents of children with special needs. No person I've met in "real life" has been able to completely express what I've felt like Billie, or Rob, or the dozens of others I've come to know and love through their brutal honesty. I will continue to stalk them through their blogs as long as they feel like sharing.

And eventually, I will get around to expressing my own feelings again. As much as this pregnancy is a joy, I can't wait to have my brain back again. In 10 or 20 years.