Life Happens

It's now November 13th (yes, the post says October something, but that's when I came up with the title "Life Happens", then got stuck on what to write about and saved it as a draft. Now I think I'm ready to let it flow. . .

Regarding my pregnancy. . .What I don't understand is how this is really supposed to go down? . .I mean, I'm 38 weeks pregnant. . .and this belly, this life in my belly is seriously supposed to exit in a logical manner? I can't believe what has to transpire in my near future. I'm utterly thrilled and completely terrified of the prospect. My midwife keeps telling me to "trust my body". That I need to learn to relax in order to reduce tension, thereby reducing pain. This all makes sense in my head, but I inevitabley work my way back to, "how is this going to fit through that hole?". The nursery is pretty much ready, but I can't say much for the parents. I mean, we're as ready as we'll ever be, I suppose. How does one feel prepared for something like this? When it's yours. We've got a little pool going for when I'm actually going to deliver. No prize has been established, but we'll figure out something. My estimated due date is 11.26, here are the guesses so far:

Me: 12.03, Kent: 11.19, Mom: 11.22, Dad: 11.28, Patricia: 11.24, Joe & Joyce: 11.22. We'll see who's the big winner. . .other than us, of course.

One wonderful thing is that I'm off work! There's been a price to pay in that I'm generally more uncomfortable than not uncomfortable, I have these sporadic episodes of tachycardia where I feel as though I may pass out, swelling everywhere, and I now have a hypoactive thyroid related to pregnancy. None of these have affected the baby, which is great, I'm just pretty exhausted and uncomfortable. All that to say that work was just something that had become increasingly difficult because of how I was feeling, so my midwife was a champ and put me on restrictions. My maternity leave was set to start on Thanksgiving (the week for which I was scheduled a string of five, eight hour day shifts - just crap), so now I'm on restrictions until my leave kicks in. No bed rest, although I seem to do a lot of that anyway. . .

On a sad note my animal house has been reduced by two. My little kitties Kuzco and Squirt have gone to live with a new owner in Stewartville. :-( It has been a tough road, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I was in over my head in the caregiving department (work, home, dog, 3 cats, husband, baby on the way), and needed to change something so that I wasn't a raving lunatic by the time baby arrived. After weeks of trying to find friends, friends of friends, classifieds, humane shelters (listed in increasing desperation) a woman called from my Mayo classified ad and would even consider taking both. Odd part was she called on the very day where I had found some resolve. I woke up after spending many days worrying about what I was going to do, not being able to find a home and all, even my very last choice of surrendering them to a shelter wasn't an option, because all of the humane shelters were full of cats! Anyway, I woke up and said, "You know what? Something will happen. Something will work out. I can't go on stressing about this." And I got the call that evening. She and her husband came a few days later to meet them, and ended up liking and taking both. I was relieved and devastated. I still am sad about it because I miss them, but I needed to do it for myself. And although I feel like a failure as a caregiver, I hope that they are happy in their new environment and get the love and attention that they deserve. Now we're a one dog & one cat animal house, and we're all dizzy with anticipation of the one baby addition.