7 Days Over

This was to be my post at exactly 7 days overdue, I wrote it the night before I turned 41 weeks and saved it as I was going to add a bump picture the next day and then post it. Of course things kicked off on the labour front and it has just sat unpublished but instead of deleting it, I want to post it as it was how I was feeling at that time. 




 

And we're still both hanging in there! Yay and ugh.

So, here's your 41 week bump picture: (note I never took a 41 week picture after all - other things on my mind! But here's one from mid-week that week...)

Either this baby is one stubborn monkey, or my cervix is a ring of steel - not sure which, or perhaps it's a bit of both but neither are giving in easily.

I'm OK, well fed up of the incessant waiting and being on edge. Fed up of people asking me when it's pretty bloody obvious that I've not had him yet. I know their intentions are well but honestly, most of them have had a baby or 3 themselves so they really should know not to irritate the overdue and slightly unhinged lady.

I have a midwife appt tomorrow, I assume she will offer/do the stretch and sweep. I think she will arrange for me to be seen at the Day Assessment Unit the following day, for my pre-induction checks and to decide which method will be best for us and I'm expecting to be admitted for the process to begin on Monday. So, baby has 5 days to make an appearance....

I'm not looking forward to induction, the thought makes me well up. Firstly, it's an unknown for me because I've never been induced. Secondly, it's a train that once set in motion, doesn't stop until it reaches its destination. If things don't work or it doesn't go smoothly, I'm going to end up with a c-section and considering I was going to of had one at 37 weeks, that would be a bitter pill to swallow. I also do not want to be in hospital for days whilst they try and artificially force this young man out. I do not want to be away from my children or my husband, I don't want to be in worse pain (because inductions are notoriously more painful than natural labour) than what I'm fearing from a natural labour and in an alien environment to boot. I'm simply terrified.

It's all going pear-shaped it seems and there is nothing I can do to alter the course - that's Mother Nature for you. I literally feel like a lemming, waiting for my turn to jump off the cliff and I don't like it. I don't do out of control, I don't do going with the flow - it's part my anxiety issues and so one is setting the other off and making everything feel like it's spiralling out of my control. I'm also almost constantly nauseous from lack of sleep and panic, which of course makes me panic itself.

I'm having huge trouble sleeping, every twinge has me half panicked and half excited. My dreams are getting more vivid and I spend a lot of time just lying there during the night, worrying about how things are going to go and it's making me miserable. I feel like I want to cry all the time and that's not my personality at all.

I'm sorry, I know this should be (and it is!) a very exciting time, I've wanted this moment for what seems like an eternity but it's just not running how I thought it would and I feel almost cheated that not even this part of the journey can go our way and work out smoothly.

I've just had enough now, I'm not even physically uncomfortable or anything, it's the mental and emotional side of going overdue that's doing me in. I know that the end is in sight, this will not go on forever and I just have to be a bit more patient and have some faith that all will work out alright in the end but it's difficult after such a long time of anticipating something that in my mind, should of happened already.

I'll update tomorrow, after the midwife appointment....