There was a moment in the middle of last night when Abby was kicking gently, rhythmically, inside of me, and my husband was kicking less gently, restlessly, beside me in the bed. I was sitting upright in the dark, with my wedge pillow on its end, staring out into the darkness. I smiled at the parallels between my two sleepy, busy loves.
Why precisely my night was largely sleepless is rather a mystery, in that I'm not sure why sometimes I sleep well and at other times everything is too uncomfortable. Last night was a conspiracy between absolutely raging heartburn (I am even refluxing when lying on my slanty pillow) and pain in my sides, where the tension between my spasming back muscles and my contracting uterus appears ready to rip my abdominal muscles (or maybe it's the ligaments?) right off the bone. I keep thinking of a weightlifting competition I attended in high school (as a spectator; never fear), where I witnessed a man's pectoral muscle detach from whatever once anchored it in the middle of a bench press. There was suddenly this big bulge where the left side of his chest used to be, and he passed out from the pain and shock. Come to think of it, the whole thing bore certain similarities to uterine contractions.
This day will be over before I know it, and tomorrow is full of doctors' visits and pre-admission blood testing, so I assume it will fly by, too. Before I know what's happened, I'll be headed off to Sibley in the very early morning Friday (I'm to be there at 5:30 am) to have this baby. I don't feel scared right now -- I feel more excitement and anticipation and curiosity than anxiety. All I can think about on the negative side is IVs, which I really loathe, and otherwise I am just full of mental images of a beautiful new baby girl cuddling with her daddy and me -- the most precious thing that anyone could spend so many months working and praying for. God bless her. God bless all of us.
p.s. I can't wait to wear real clothes! I am craving silk charmeuse blouses like I have been known of late to crave chocolate ice cream . . . .
