Another Having-the-baby Post

Can you tell what's on my mind lately?

I'm starting to get impatient. Eight weeks more to go (at least until my due date). It's hard to know how long I really have left-- so far my kids have come at 41, 37, 36, & 39 weeks. I was grateful to make it to 36 with B, shocked to have J at 37, and thinking that the pregnancy had gone on way too long with M & K.

With this baby I will be quite happy if she decides to go all the way to 40 weeks. I'm not being impatient in that I want her to come early. I just wish the next two months would pass as quickly as possible.

Anyway, since it is the primary thing on my mind lately, I pulled up a packing checklist for the hospital. I keep debating whether to bother packing at all-- and some of the stuff on these lists just makes me laugh. I guess I don't make as big of a production out of labor as some people do. If I packed everything they suggest I would need a steamer trunk, not my smallish black suitcase.

When I was pregnant with M, I packed just about everything they suggested. I needed a HUGE suitcase (which my father had to lug into the hospital for me). In fact I had that suitcase packed and ready more than a month before I needed it. I think toward the end even laying eyes on that case made me groan-- just another reminder that labor still hadn't started yet. So with J I decided to leave packing until a couple of days before my due date. I was sure that J was going to be late like M, and why torture myself with a packed suitcase reminding me of that?

Maybe I jinxed myself. When I started having never-ending back pain plus vomiting just barely past 37 weeks and my OB's office told me to go to the hospital, I was at a complete loss. I remember when I got Terence on the phone, the only thing I could sob was that "They want me to go to the hospital and I don't have a suitcase packed!" I did manage to get some stuff packed before my sister showed up to take me to the hospital, despite feeling atrocious, but it was the absolute bare minimum. Some basics for me, an outfit for J. That was it. I guess it taught me that I didn't need the steamer trunk to survive after all.

With B, I was planning to take my experience with J into account and have a suitcase packed. Unfortunately, I didn't realize I needed that suitcase packed at 32 weeks. When I went into labor at that point, once again I was throwing some basics into a bag. (Actually, I think Terence threw some basics into a bag for me.) There was nothing for the baby at all. . . hadn't got that far in my planning yet. It worked out. The basics got me through that hospital stay, and once I was home and on bedrest, I had Terence pack a little more thoroughly for the next trip.

Then came K. Once again, I had planned to pack a suitcase even earlier, but my first hospital trip for premature labor was at 28 weeks. Of course, I didn't have anything packed that early, and this time I was in such awful pain (and so scared) that nothing got packed at all. Terence and I just went to the hospital without anything. I figured he could bring me something if I ended up needing it. Once I was back home on bedrest, a packed suitcase was one of the first things I took care of.

So here I am again, on modified bedrest, but I haven't bothered to pack a suitcase yet. Am I being overly optimistic, based on my previous experiences? Should I have something together already? Maybe. But somehow I just can't bring myself to do it. It's like my pregnancy with J. It just feels like I still have a long way to go, so why pack something that's just going to sit there for two months?

Maybe I should do it anyway. Just so I don't jinx myself!