Today is my first day...

... on maternity leave, although since I have been working Mon-Wed for a while now, it won't really be a new schedule 'til Monday, assuming we make it that far. Everything labour-related seems to have just halted in its tracks; I barely have even had Braxton-Hicks. I have an ultrasound this afternoon though, so that might show something.

My obstetrician is on call at the hospital today and then away for a week. I was sort of hoping to go into labour last night, to be honest: show up on his shift and the day after work ended and everything. It would be perfect! Apparently baby-timing doesn't work that way though. Quel surprise!

I admit that although we're only at almost-38-weeks, I am ready. It would probably be good for Noah to stay in and gain some more weight, and I'm at peace with that to some extent. I'm appreciating the feel of him moving inside me, something I will miss later on. I'm appreciating my DINK lifestyle for the last little bit: today after the ultrasound I'm hopefully getting that dinner out that Carl had to cancel on Tuesday. I'm taking child and infant CPR tonight without having to get a babysitter. I can go shop easily any time. I slept hours and hours last night, perhaps most preciously.

But the tension between memories of Emily's birth and death and this pregnancy is getting higher and higher. I will be glad to move to the next phase. Although physically I actually do feel better than I have for most of the pregnancy, emotionally I'm running out of steam a bit. I know that it won't be the end of fear; it will probably be the beginning of fear in a lot of ways. No - I want to know what happens, I think. That's very me. I would like to know which way to jump.

My original plan for if this baby didn't make it wasn't a very good plan. I know it's awful to make contingency plans for these things in one's mind; I don't believe it affects bonding or creates negativity that isn't already there, or anything like that. I do think it demonstrates a lack of faith, and a lack of faith is definitely a loss.

But anyways, my news contingency plan is that if this baby dies I'll get a Vespa. I know how ridiculous and bad that sounds; bad mother! How could a Vespa substitute for a baby! It sounds horrible and materialistic. Well from personal experience I already know there is no substitution. Nope. None. So, chers readers, it's not about a substitution. It's about an image of me that could possibly come through that fire again, alive.

And a few weeks back I saw a young 20-something woman, a beautiful brunette, dressed in a very nice stylish suit, and a cute helmet, sitting on her Vespa waiting for the light. It was around 5:30 and most people downtown look a bit downtrodden by then, but she looked radiant, in the summer evening glinting light. She was smiling and healthy looking, somehow. And free: if you could capture an image of free that includes corporate attire, this would have been it. And just briefly, I was envious of her, or at least what she represented to me in that moment. I felt the opposite: exhausted, dressed in worn maternity clothes, tired, stretch-mark covered underneath, and burdened with worry about Noah's weight.

There is nowhere for a baby seat on the Vespa.

I said a few times last summer I think that what was saving me from complete disaster was finding that part of myself that is totally unconnected to parenthood (and I mean that for myself, not in the multiple sense of the word; everyone in our system had to do that for themselves). And this time, this pregnancy, I have occasionally felt like that portion of my spirit that rose up last time just well, wouldn't if something happened this time. But the Vespa incident, that flash of envy and desire/respect for freedom, made me feel it again. So that's why the plan.

I have a birth plan this time, and a death plan. I am sad that I need both, but I have both in hand. So I guess I'm ready.

Shandra