coming clean

I've been ignoring you, my little blog. I admit it. The last few weeks of pregnancy have been rough. For me, there are few things more painful then waiting for a new phase of your life to begin. I remember feeling this way in the endless stretch between medical school and internship. For several months I languished in that undefinable, formless limbo as I waited for the day to arrive when my life would radically change. I had heaps of anxiety about it and wanted nothing more than to just get started and get on with it, but I could not artificially push the date forward no matter how hard I tried. Same with waiting for Siobhan to arrive, although in that case I was too excited and happy and, to put it bluntly, ignorant, to know what was coming down the pike. This time I know all too well what having a newborn baby means. What I don't know is how in God's name I'm going to do it and still give my sweet 14 month old baby girl all the love and mama time she needs.

Add another wrinkle to the plan: I just found out I'm having a c-section. This was always a possibility, since I had a fairly serious shoulder dystocia with my girl and she was only a modest 7 and 1/2 pounds. This little man is estimated to be at least a pound larger than she was. Thanks to the genetic quirk of being built somewhat like an adolescent boy in the hips department, I probably would be more suited to birthing lemurs rather than human beings. I didn't help myself by making babies with a six-foot-two man, either. So these are my choices: roll the dice and risk another harrowing vaginal delivery, or take the safe bet with the longer, more painful recovery. Guess I'll just have to suck it up.

So how does that lead me to my neglect of this blog? Well, I just didn't feel like writing, I suppose. Felt like I had nothing to say. Sort of a period of intellectual and creative pouting, as it were. Now for the five people who do read this, I'm sure you don't care all that much. You all have lives more exciting than mine which I presume you are living with joy and gusto. But this blog is good for me, helps me get the cobwebs out, and so I'm the one that's been suffering. My apologies to myself. The waiting is painful but not intolerable. There are plenty of juicy moments to savor. And plenty of ones that will be really funny in the future. Like this morning, when Steve and I were trying to assemble the new play yard and after an hour of laboring over this piece of crap (promised to assemble in under a minute), we lost all composure and had a Clark Griswold in the Santa suit meltdown. The play yard is now snapped in several pieces and sitting in our driveway. I'm pretty sure our daughter will have to be in therapy now. But hey. At least we went to Crazytown together, and we're already laughing.

It will make a good story to tell her during family week at rehab.