Insanity

A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

According to this definition, I really will be pregnant forever.

I’ve had lots and lots of contractions this pregnancy. I swear the contractions started before I started feeling fetal movement. I get contractions nearly every time I stand up. Walking up or down stairs (and I live in a 3 stairway house) is almost guaranteed to initiate contractions. Pretty much every afternoon I start getting contractions, and they are worst while I’m getting dinner on the table. By the time I sit down for dinner (nearly every day this week) I’m mentally packing my hospital bag. 

Then they go away. I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning, still very very pregnant and feeling slightly foolish about the night before.

You see where I’m going with this?

SOMETIME in the next, uh, 18 days those contractions will actually be for real. And they will be going somewhere. And I just know that by then I’ll have subconsciously learned my lesson and completely stopped paying attention to the damn things. By the time labor pains get truly unambiguous, it’s really pretty late in the process. With Grey, labor was only for-darn-sure maybe 3 – 4 hours before he was actually born. And second babies come sooner. And this time around, we have to get someone to be with Grey while we’re gallavanting off to the hospital, so we NEED the time more.

So every night, when I get the contractions, I think of saying, “Oh, here we go again.” And then I think, “But what if this IS the night?”

Insanity.

In other pressing, important, critically interesting news, I decided yesterday that something had to give. Something simply HAD to change.

My hair was pregnancy-thick and just past shoulder length. It was heavy enough to laugh off most barrettes and hair bands, but too short to braid.

Now, it is much shorter and rather more layered. I don’t think this is my Platonic Ideal of a haircut. I dare say it looks a touch too mommyish. (What? Just because I have a 3 year old and am 18 months pregnant doesn’t mean I have to THINK of myself as mommyish.) But it is also a vast improvement over what came before.

And yes. I am still pregnant. Yes. Still.

No, I have not given birth yet

I promise you are not as disappointed by this as I am. (I’d forgotten that about this stage of pregnancy not only do people get *really excited* when you call them, but if you — heaven forfend — do NOT contact them they get all excited.) But no. Still pregnant.

I do, however, have significantly less hair than I did this morning. I just washed it, and I’ll let you know tomorrow if I like it. But it needed to be done — I couldn’t do anything with it but put it back and it failed to please me. To the headsman! Or the stylist! Pictures will be forthcoming.

One of my cats has gingivitis. Let me tell you how excited I am about paying for full anesthesia for appropriate dental care. I increasingly suspect these two felines are the last freeloaders I’m going to have for quite some time.

These and other FASCINATING events are the substance of my life. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some terribly exciting things to do. Like pay bills.