Thursday, April 19, 2012

Whirling Dervish

New York, 2010

24 weeks today, which is what doctors usually consider to be the cutoff point for viability. Meaning if you go into labor at 24 weeks, you may very well have a micro-preemie who survives.

Of course, that is not what I want to happen. But suddenly dealing with that fact, plus the round number of 16. Weeks. Left. has me feeling a little loopy and ill-prepared.

That is 16 weekends to pack, move, unpack, accumulate baby supplies, take childbirth education course, read all those books about exactly what you do with a newborn, and find some time to breathe and relish our last few months of life as just-the-two-of-us. Oh. Also, I am interviewing for a job, considering childcare options if I get the job, and interviewing tenants for our current apartment. It feels like a lot of spinning plates.

It's not that I don't think it will all get done (or that disaster will strike if it doesn't, and if we have a newborn at home surrounded by boxes without having read a darn thing about what to do with him.) But I am by nature a planner, someone who likes doing certain things, especially in the domestic realm, by the book.

I find it incredibly surreal that there's, say, a 5 week window when baby could come. From 37 weeks to 42, give or take, when baby is considered to be full term (and a larger window if you do have a preemie.) Not knowing when this will all happen is kind of freaky to me. I get that it's the circle of life and so on, but it seems awfully tricky.

It feels a little like at any moment I could go into labor (I don't have any medical reason to believe this will happen at the drop of a hat....it's just the awareness that it could.) Prior to, say, 15 weeks, I was concerned with losing the baby. Now it's the realisation that no matter what, I will have to face labor.

I also worry that there could be some complication that would require bedrest and shorten those 16 already scary weeks of geting stuff done into, say, 4 weeks. So that's where my head is at today.

It is a beautiful day and I am sure my pregnancy mania will pass. But it comes in waves.

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