End of Pregnancy Zen

I’m sitting here, nearly 41 weeks pregnant with my 8th baby. I’m getting asked a lot about how I feel, what my practitioners are thinking about when the baby will decide to be born, what I’m doing to encourage things along, etc. I know that this type of discussion typically further frustrates most women who are overdue, but I try to take it in stride.

First of all, I realize that I have a pattern. I don’t have babies before my due date, not even my twins. My longest pregnancy was born at 42 weeks exactly. If you throw out the twins and the two pregnancies where I feel like we had interventions that may have brought the babies early, I have a 9 day, 12 day and 14 day pregnancy. (Hey there has to be some statistical benefit to having all these kids when it comes to defining my personal due date.) So feel like this weekend is the most likely the time my baby will decide to be born.

But my goal is to be calm. Zen. Not in a rush. Why no rush, I’m asked? I mean seriously, right now people care about me and how I feel, after the baby, not so much so. Once the baby is here, I’ll still be up at night, but the difference is that I won’t be able to go back to sleep when I return from the bathroom. While I know that the end of pregnancy is rough, but early postpartum is rougher.
So I’ll sit here, patiently waiting. Enjoying my last few days of pregnancy. I’ll nap and snack. I’ll take baths in middle of the day. And I’ll continue to dream about the day my baby decides it’s birth day…

If you want to hear the good news, you can sign up for the Twitter Feed announcing Baby Ocho’s birth.