36 weeks, 6 days

Tomorrow, I am officially considered "term." This means they can induce me or schedule a c-section any time in the next three weeks without there being a concern. At my last appointment, last week, the doctor very briefly mentioned inducing at 38 weeks, but it was no elaborated on and he's on vacation this week, so who knows?

The non-stress tests have been going beautifully; baby is perfectly healthy - and apparently big. 😨 Our final growth scan was last Thursday. As the tech was measuring the baby, I asked if that measurement showed that baby was measuring at 38 weeks (two weeks ahead). She said, "I didn't look at it, but I can tell you from eye-balling, the baby is big." Long arms, long legs, big head, apparently. Measuring 6 1/2 pounds at 36 weeks, which means we're looking at an 8-pounder by week 40. Inducing at 38 weeks sounds lovely. Save me a pound.

At my appointment today, I was told that I tested positive for Strep B. I'm not entirely sure what that is other than an infection. The doctor reassured me that it is no danger to me, but that it could pass onto baby during delivery and result in severe pneumonia. As long as I am given antibiotics during delivery, all should be well. Still makes me anxious.

I very much want this pregnancy to be over. It's been one headache after another; one person not respecting my wishes or stress after another; one appointment after another. I'm exhausted. I'm stressed. I'm overwhelmed. I'm in enormous pain almost all the time. And I'm terrified. I'm no longer as confident about this whole motherhood thing as I used to be. When I became pregnant with our first, I remember telling my friend that I was nervous about being pregnant, but that I knew I'd be an awesome mom, so I wasn't worried about that. I no longer feel that way. And I have felt this way the entire pregnancy. I will say, however, that I'm more confident than I was in the beginning. Therapy has been helping, and seeing things come together has been helping. But, I still feel like there's so much to do. And goodness, if they really do induce me at 38 weeks, that means I have barely a week to do it all.

Besides the usual pregnancy stress, if you've been following along, you know I've been on daily blood thinner injections since week 6. Starting tonight, they will increase to twice daily until delivery. Aside from that, I've had an ultrasound every 4 weeks, and now the non-stress tests twice a week. So,  I've been overwhelmed with that. On top of that, just weeks after I told my employer that I was pregnant, they put me on a performance plan. I remained on it until just last month. So, I spent the majority of my pregnancy not knowing if I'd have a job when the baby comes.

Ben has been beside himself freaked out. Part of it is him feeling the need to sow his wild oats before he becomes a father, without realizing the toll it's taking on me and the worry it's been adding to my daily life. I also know that part of it is just the fear and the anxiety that goes with a pregnancy after loss. And ours wasn't just your "run-of-the-mill" loss (for lack of a better term). I almost died. It was perhaps more traumatic for him than it was for me, because he remembers it all. He remembers them saying that I might not make it. He remembers standing by my bedside waiting for me to wake up. He remembers seeing me hooked up to all the tubes and wires and not breathing on my own. I remain blissfully unaware of most of it. So, yes, I know that part of his freaking out is because of that as well. Despite the care I've been given and how closely monitored I've been, the fear does not go away. I've found myself having some flashbacks to being in the hospital. I find myself wondering how much of that will come back to me when I go to deliver this baby. It's a unique experience and not one that many people get. So, yeah, that part has been difficult and scary.

And to top it off even more, I'm barely speaking to my father. I have alluded to this throughout the blog several times, but have not gone into detail about why. When I was pregnant with our first baby, my father asked me repeatedly if we had names picked out, and I told him repeatedly that we did not (because we didn't). We had a boy's name solid, but not a girl's name. And right before we lost her, we found out it was a girl. So, by the time I ended up in the hospital, she still didn't have a name. The first question my father asked me when I was finally coherent after three days was if we were going to try again. Not an okay question by any stretch, but whatever. The next question was, again, about the name. I told him that we didn't have a name, but we had been floating one around; Lillian Ryleigh (or Riley), and we were going to call her Lily. He didn't make much comment on it. He then asked about the boy's name. And I should have simply said, "well, it wasn't a boy." Instead, I told him the name that we had chosen, which paid homage to my late stepfather (I am not sharing it here, because it is still on the table for any future children). He said he liked the first name, but wanted to know where the middle name came from. I told him. I saw that he was upset, but to his credit, he said nothing. I heard nothing else about it until three months later.

In January, my mom let me know that my father had called her to tell her how upset he was about the name we had picked out for a boy. Despite the fact that the baby was not a boy, therefore that name was not used and was not going to be used, since the baby had died. He went on and on bashing my stepfather, which he has done for the last 30 years, and burying my mother in his self-pity. From what I understand, they rehashed their 20-year relationship and then some. In short, he treated her terribly while they were dating and while they were married, and he knows it. But, for some reason, he still seems to blame my stepfather for their divorce and can't get over my mother moving on with him.

In any case, after hearing about this conversation, I was livid. My child died and all my father seemed to care about was what the name would have been if that dead baby had been the opposite gender. The fact that this conversation happened three months after the fact made it that much more unbelievable. He couldn't get over it. He'd been sitting with it for months and couldn't let it go, despite the fact that that baby was gone. It was the final straw in an already strained relationship. For my whole life, I have given my dad the benefit of the doubt. I've been told, "but he's your father," and "he can't help it" and "he doesn't know any better," and I held onto those excuses as reasons to let his behavior slide. Not anymore. And once I got over the guilt of missing an important doctor appointment (he thought he had melanoma, but he's fine), and an important surgery (shoulder surgery), and missing his birthday, I couldn't go back to where I had been before. I was done.

BUT, because I am who I am and he is who he is, I invited him to lunch for father's day to let him know I was pregnant again. I was nearly 10 weeks and didn't know the gender yet. I told him I was pregnant and let him know that the same names were on the table (the girl's name has since changed). He let me know that he's engaged now (though, it turns out that's not entirely true; he just doesn't like to be the only one without news). He said he didn't think I'd try again after everything that happened last time, and then commented that he couldn't say anything about the names. I told him no he could not and that he absolutely could not stress me out during this pregnancy, because I needed to remain calm - literally a matter of life and death (an exaggeration, but only slightly). He made a random comment a little later in the meal about how he's surprised I don't like to wear jewelry because most women do, and this set me off. It was one too many sexist comments on top of all of his other ridiculous views and opinions. This naturally snowballed into another fight about the baby, to which he said "you tell me to forget about Sonny (stepdad), but do you know how hard it's going to be to look at my first grandchild and know that he has his name?" Now, 1) not his first grandchild - that one died; 2) I never told him to forget Sonny - I told him to let it go; 3) remember, at this point I didn't know the gender, so he was already getting himself upset again about something he had no confirmation on. My response was "that's your problem." To which he responded "I didn't say it was a problem." Right.

So, I left that lunch livid (again). Thankfully, I had kept my expectations low, so I wasn't upset. I figured in a best-case scenario he'd keep his mouth shut and we'd just pretend it hadn't happened before. The worst-case scenario was that we'd remain where we were with our relationship. And that's the one that happened, and I was okay with it. If he thought it would be so difficult to look at my child simply because of the name we chose, then he didn't need to look at him/her. That simple. At this point, it made no difference to me what the actual gender of the child was. His views repulsed me and I saw clearly how conditional his love would be.

In any case, that was a surprisingly short version of things, because this has suddenly turned into a bitch post about my dad. He has not left me alone. He will not accept me not speaking to him. At one point, I wrote him a 3-page letter letting him know what he did and why I didn't want to speak to him. He never issued an apology, and at this point, is back to blaming me for "hearing what I wanted to hear." So, on top of the pregnancy anxiety, Ben's anxiety (and frankly poor behavior), my mom trying to cram everything into the final three weeks, nearly losing my job, and being a general emotional wreck, I've also been trying to figure out how to maneuver this relationship with my father. To say that I am done with being pregnant and with everything in general is a massive understatement. I would very much like everyone to leave me alone and let me live these last three weeks (or less!) in peace. I have been slowly able to get more excited about the baby coming. The more the room comes together and I unwrap gifts and put things together, the more excited I get. But, inevitably, something or someone pulls me back to reality and reminds me that just about everything else is still shitty. I am trying not to lose it. I am trying not to scream at everyone. I am trying not to punch holes in walls and give this baby my anxiety in the final days. I am trying. And I suppose that's the best I can do.