Pregnancy Week 39: Seven Things to Do While Waiting for Baby

July 2, 2014

We’re in the home stretch! I’m full term! Over easy! Well done! If I were a Thanksgiving turkey, the red pop-up thermometer would be poking out of my tummy right now.

And yet, there’s not a lot happening at this stage. I’m bored. It’s hard to write, because my laptop no longer fits on my lap. I’ve outgrown most of my clothes, so I don’t feel like leaving the house much. Mostly I just wait for baby.

photo 1-3

The waiting is the hardest part. (So wise, that Tom Petty.)

 

If you’re in the final countdown like me, here’s what you can do to fill the time:

1. Take some last belly bump photos and get into a fight with your husband.

ME: Frame the photo so that you cut out my arm, okay?

HUSBAND: I’ll try. But you’re beautiful, and your arm looks fine.

ME: My arm looks doughy.

HUSBAND: You’re pregnant.

ME: My arm isn’t pregnant.

And so on.

I want to love the skin I'm in.

I want to love the skin I’m in.

 

I hate being this person — the 15-year-old girl who shrinks from photos because they might reveal a flaw. I know I should be wowed by my body’s amazing ability to create life instead of disappointed by how it looks. And there are definitely times when I feel like a curvy pregnant goddess, but lately those moments are few and far in between.

It can be strange and surreal to fully embrace a body that now requires GPS navigation. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize this landscape at all.

Maybe I shouldn’t take anymore photos, so I wouldn’t even have to deal with it. But I regret now how little documentation I have of my teenage years, all those times I turned away from the camera — and I’m sure I’ll be sad someday if I let my droopy triceps stop me from having pregnancy photos.

So I take the photos. And I fight with The Husband about chopping my arm from the image.

Look, ma! No hands! Or arms.

Look, ma! No hands! Or arms.

 

2. Answer a lot of phone calls and have this script ready: “Nope. No baby yet. I’ll let you know.”

See also: “It’s fine. My due date is still three days away.”

 

3. Read all the child-rearing books.

I have all these really great literary books on my nightstand. But I’ve temporarily pushed them aside to plow through parenting guides instead. Now I know how to have the happiest baby on the block, and I’ve become “baby wise.” I know how French women raise their babies, and I know the essential life skills every child needs. And I also know that all these books offer radically different, conflicting advice.

I told my friend Dean that I feel like I’m cramming for the biggest exam of my life.

“Yep,” he said. “And you won’t know the results for 20 years.”

 

4. Exercise. 

I’m desperate to leave the house and go walking, but it’s been a little hot in the desert lately. Even in my air-conditioned house, it’s hot.

It's Nazi-looking-at-the-ark hot.

Today was Nazi-looking-at-the-Ark-of-the-Covenant hot.

 

So I’ve been doing laps around Home Depot and Costco. I swim every morning. I do yoga DVDs. I still don’t feel like I’m doing much, but it’s something.

Swimming. And still hot.

Swimming. And still hot.

 

5. Nest.

In my household, this involves rearranging all two pieces of furniture in the guest room closet-turned-nursery. (It’s a strange room. If you could see it, you’d understand why the furniture is in the closet.)

Nobody puts baby in the closet! Except me. I put baby in the closet.

Nobody puts baby in the closet! Except me. I put baby in the closet.

 

And painting a wooden letter.

For the door of the nursery. In retrospect, I don't know why.

For the door of the nursery. In retrospect, I don’t know why.

 

And tossing a bunch of crap that should have been thrown away years ago.

HUSBAND: Why do we have three bottles of anti-malaria pills?

ME: Well, you never know. We could go somewhere with malaria.

HUSBAND: They expired in 2011.

ME: Your point?

HUSBAND: Wouldn’t you want new malaria pills?

 

6. Get really good at stressing out. 

Current worries include but are not limited to:

* I’ll never have time to write again.

* I am too young to have a baby.

* I am too old to have for a baby.

* I won’t have any snacks at the hospital.

* I will miss the coziness of just The Husband and me and regret expanding our family.

* Baby won’t love me.

* Baby will be born without a butthole. (This happens to 1 in 5,000 babies, by the way.)

* I will give birth to a dolphin.

 

7. Nap.

People keep telling me to sleep now and enjoy this time before the baby comes, as if sleep is something I can stockpile.

I only sleep for a little while before I get too uncomfortable, and then it takes a lot of momentum to get out of bed. I have to rock back and forth, flapping my limbs around like an awkward turtle that ended up on its back.

turtle-hurtle

And as soon as I get up, I just want to take another nap.

 

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4 Comments

  • Reply Judith Salkin July 2, 2014 at 4:08 PM

    Megwyn is fairly certain that you will not give birth to a dolphin as neither you nor Jason are part dolphin.

  • Reply HSP July 2, 2014 at 4:17 PM

    Eek. I’m sorry I gave you one of those books and made you worry. Bottom line: DO WHAT FEELS RIGHT. You will know. Everyone who says there is only one way to raise a baby can fuck off.

  • Reply Amy July 2, 2014 at 6:06 PM

    Great. Now I get to spend the next 4 months worrying about my baby being born butthole-less. Awesome. Thanks, Maggie.

  • Reply Debbie council July 3, 2014 at 1:18 AM

    Believe it or not everything will come naturally when it comes to taking care of your baby. And he won’t break. When mine was about 6 months old or younger I had her on my knees feeding her with a bottle and a wasp somehow got in the house and flew in my face and I screamed and I jumped up with her falling on the floor. She was just fine. I was more upset than she was!

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