Home Stretch, Mark

At my last prenatal appointment my only complaint was that I'd lost six pounds due to the Martian Death Flu, otherwise known as a gigantic sinus infection, which sucked the life out of me at the same time the fetus was sucking my life into itself, making it a big double whammy. I got over that just in time for the dreaded Final Month; playing idly with my ring one day I noticed that I could no longer get it off. Then I noticed my ankles looked larger than normal. Then I broke out in a rash. Then I got this weird phlemy thing in my throat. Then I bent down to pick up the tiniest sliver of wood and my lower back threatened to go on strike.

Oh yeah, I thought. I'm pregnant.

The nice thing about ignoring pregnancy until your feet swell up is that you really aren't all that uncomfortable for most of it. Your mind is clear. Your energy is good. So you have to remember not to eat deli meat in front of strangers who might object and sometimes you might have to endure dumb comments, but for the most part it just goes along like the rest of your life except for the funny alien kicking and the fact that every time you look down your belly seems to expand at alarming rates. It's just that last part, where the body finally starts to tire of the whole endeavor and the fetus is beginning to wonder if there's more to life than darkness and amniotic fluid, that things start to get tedious.

Fortunately I don't also have to deal with doulas, childbirth classes and dumb questionnaires this time. I can say with confidence that I am due on May 10th. I can even be fairly certain that the birth will occur around 7:30 am or possibly noon. After thirty hours of labor which ended in a c-section the first time, I am wisely opting not to do that again and just go with the c-section part.

"But," a wise old soul informed me, "You do know that you can still give birth vaginally after a c-section? It's just society telling you you can't, you know."

Listen honey, the first time I let society tell me how to do anything, you'll be the first to know. In my estimation, while natural childbirth is certainly an option (the only option for millions of years) it is not the only option, and the thing is that you can have your drug free hippy natural home waterbirth with the thirty hour labor option and certainly a birth will result, but there's no parade afterwards. No one gives you a medal. And a complications-free c-section is just as safe as a complications-free vaginal birth so... you know, get over it. I'm doing the cut-me-open birth thing. If nothing else, I get an extra two weeks of disability leave out of it. And there's an incentive if there ever was one.

I just have to make it through the next few weeks without killing my nosey co-workers and without scratching my skin off.