Oh man, we’re really getting close now, aren’t we?  On Sunday my sister in law came up to me and reminded me that I have mere days left.  Days!  I’ve been so stuck thinking of pregnancy in terms of weeks that it never even occurred to me that we’re so close to the end now that our time remaining can be counted in terms of days!

This was a very vibrant week.  Squishy was in rare form, gamboling and kicking and punching.  He’s gotten rather fond of his newfound leg room (having dropped deep into my pelvis) and celebrates with surprisingly hard kicks that come out of nowhere.  His favorite time to do this is right when I’m drifting off to sleep.  It’s like he knows I’m trying to sleep.  Silly sabotaging baby.

He’s also refined his stretching techniques to point where they’re exquisite in a painful sort of way.  He stretches his legs straight up, and his head, of course, goes straight down, while I squirm and make strange faces and attempt to behave normally while all the while shouting in my head, “So weird so weird so weeeeeeeird!”

We had our last natural childbirthing class this week, and it was a bittersweet moment.  We’re glad to have Tuesday evenings back to ourselves, but will miss the camaraderie and learning opportunities.

At our class this week, our instructor had us practice pain coping techniques by holding tightly onto ice cubes.  We held the ice cubes to different body parts for at least a minute, and tried a variety of coping techniques to see which ones worked for us and which didn’t.

Wes uses music composition in his head to manage pain.  He writes music in his spare time, and it didn’t surprise me at all to learn that he coped with the pain of holding the ice cube by re-orchestrating a Bach fugue in his head.

I, on the other hand, favor the “zoning out” approach.  I fixate on a small spot of dirt on the floor, and my eyes unfocus and my mind drifts and whatever pain I’m experiencing simply ceases to exist.  We had to hold our hands submerged in a bowl of ice water for two minutes (to practice for coping with pain for the length of a transition contraction) and, thanks to a spot of dirt on the floor, Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”, and Wes’ foot rubbing, I barely even felt the cold.

We’ll see if I’m nearly so lucky in my ability to tune out pain when it’s contractions I’m feeling and not my hand freezing.

I’m still feeling pretty good, though I get more tired by the day.  Pregnancy insomnia was particularly brutal this week and, whereas I normally fall back asleep easily and quickly, I’ve spent more and more time laying awake after nocturnal bathroom breaks.  Naps are no longer luxuries but are necessities, though sometimes the insomnia prevents me from taking those as well.

Wes is so supportive of my naps, and belittles me not at all for sleeping when I could be folding laundry or helping with dinner.  I truly believe my pregnancy has brought out the best in him, and I’m so grateful for how he treats me that sometimes it hurts a little.  I would fall apart without him.

I’m also feeling more twinges and cramps and pains of mystery than I ever have before.  None of them are contractions (though the Braxton Hicks contractions are starting to feel slightly more uncomfortable than they used to) but they’re definitely curious.  I never really know what’s sending out pain signals or why, all I can do is shrug and consign the pains to the mystery file.

We packed our birth bag together this week, and when it was done we just kind of stared at it sitting in the living room.  It was done, packed, ready for a midnight dash to the birth center.  We’d crossed the final line, and we were really and truly ready.

Our days and nights are characterized by a kind of excited anticipation.  We’re so very close to the end of this pregnancy, and it makes the time we have remaining as a family of two special, sweet and fleeting.