A Day in the Hospital Life

I still can't believe I'm only slightly over a week away from being considered "full-term."  Who wouldathunk?  I'm now experiencing the uncomfortable part of pregnancy - the extreme weight gain, swollen fat feet, a belly that hurts from being stretched to the max, and a funky walk that my dad said resembles a penguin.   No wonder the nurses are always smiling when they see me waddle by twice a day. 

While I like getting out to go for walks, seeing the activity around here can be somewhat depressing and makes me want to stay holed up in my room where I have no clue what's going on.  After the full moon last week, things got crazy here.  The Mother/Baby unit was still full due to a ton of C-Sections they had the day or two prior so when babies started coming left and right in Labor/Delivery, they couldn't move the delivered moms over to our area yet.  So Labor/Delivery also became a Mother/Baby unit.  In the meantime, the NICU got filled up so I actually was praying Lil Mac didn't come because there would have been nowhere to put him.  (Or me, for that matter - one poor woman was laboring in the hall because Labor/Delivery was full.  Thankfully, they were able to find room for her somewhere).  So on February 10, this hospital had already delivered over 50 babies this month.  Crazy!  It's not easy watching the other bed-rest moms who arrived after me leave before me.  It's hard seeing and hearing all these babies, knowing not one of them is mine.  I keep wondering when my turn will come.

I was telling Eddie yesterday that I feel as if I wasted so much time in the hospital, now that I've come this far.  It seems rather pointless, but he reminded me that if Mac had been born when this all started at 29 weeks, he would still be in the hospital and the stress of that situation would have been so much worse than the stress of our current situation.  He's right (but don't tell him I said so!)

One of the problems with having this much free time is that I have TOO much time to think about childbirth.  The closer we get to full-term, the more I realize this could be a "real" labor and I could be in for a rude awakening.  Because we have been unable to attend childbirth classes with both pregnancies, the nurses gave us a video to watch to help provide some insight and guidance.  Unfortunately, the video was from the early 80s, and Eddie and I had a hard time getting past the feathered hair, short shorts on the guys, and mullets to fully pay attention to the recommended birthing techniques.  I have already forgotten at what counts I'm supposed to "hee" and "hoo".  So I spend every morning watching back-to-back episodes of A Baby Story, which seems more realistic anyway.  But admittedly I'm still a bit freaked out knowing that this time it will feel like I'm giving birth to a toddler in comparison to my experience with Adalynn.  I just wish we could get this over with!