This is the picture I stared at for 45 minutes yesterday in the exam room at my OB’s office. What’s that bird doin’ to that baby?? And does that baby have a tail??? And, yes, of course the OB finally walked in right when I got bored enough to be standing, lower half unclothed, taking a photo of their artwork. Anyway…

Up until this point, I took it on faith that this time would be different, and I would go into labor on my own. I know I still have a couple of weeks, but now, I’m already doubting it. I feel like my body is great at making and carrying  problem-free babies and even nourishing them when they are here (lucky on all those counts), but there is something fundamentally wrong with me in my inability to get them out. AND HOW CAN THAT BE!!

What’s been keeping me up at night is how much I don’t want to have another c-section, and my inability to do anything about it. It just feels like a ticking time bomb. At 41 weeks, they are either going to make me schedule an induction or a c-section. And isn’t an induction just a slippery slope to emergency c-section?

Even though the c-section wasn’t that bad last time (and not nearly as bad as I thought it would be), it still was pretty debilitating for a couple of weeks. I could walk, but it hurt to go too far or get up from bed or a seated position. It hurt to wear pants that touched my scar. It hurt to cough, sneeze, or laugh. But all I had to deal with was a little six-pound newborn, who preferred to lay on me and nurse 24 hours a day. And now? I don’t know how I’d do it with Rosemary, too. How will I rock her to sleep and lay her down in the crib? How will I pick her up when she reaches up in the morning yelling “mama! mama!”? She’s too young to understand why she wouldn’t be able to climb on me like she usually does and ride my feet like an elevator. And though it would hopefully be temporary, it would suck. To first spend several nights in the hospital away from her. And then to come back a different person.

And that’s a best-case scenario. You hear about worst-case ones. Where even in the capable hands of great Western medical care, the baby doesn’t make it for some unknown reason or the mom dies. Ughhh. It’s really too much to think about, and how much more likely all that crap is when you have major surgery.

I guess I didn’t expect to become so stressed out about it, when I’ve been really laid-back the whole pregnancy, but I totally am. So when the doctor says, “Nope, no progress at all yet.” I can’t help but freak out a little bit. 

And there’s really nothing I, or anyone can do. I seriously tried every old wives’ tale last time. I tried reflexology, and crazy herbs my doula gave me, and accupressure massage, and walking three miles a day, and bouncing on the birth ball, and hypnobirthing visualizations, and all the food myths and everything else you can possibly read online or hear about from a well-meaning (but annoying) person. And I never thought it would come to what it did.

So…I guess I just felt like putting it out there to the universe that, no I am NOT in labor yet, thanks. And I am totally freaked out.