Big exhale - 34 weeks

Deep cleansing breath, peoples! Inhale...2..3..4..5.... and exhale..2..3..4..5....

Ahhhh, doesn't that feel better? I've been doing a ton of that over the past few days. And today, as it snows outside and looks pretty from my bedroom window, me-n-critter have reached 34 weeks. I feel relieved to make this first goal. And even my babycenter weekly email that tells me what is going on every week of the critter's development (I LOVE getting this email every week, it feels like a gold star for me) said that babies born from here on out tend to do very well. Just what I needed to hear.

Not that it has been all puppy dogs and rainbows around here. Yesterday I felt a lot like I did on Monday - I even napped again - and felt sort of vaguely achy, in a round ligament sort of way. Just the way it started before. But it did not progress into anything more painful, organized or anything else, so I'll just keep bed-resting.

And I may have freaked out a touch last night. I just began to feel very overwhelmed and totally unable to help myself. I feel like the nesting instinct has kicked in a bit, or maybe it's just the reality that this critter could come NOW, and I don't feel ready. We have no bed linens for the critter. Her clothes need to be washed. I had no hospital bag packed. I have no nursing bra. We had no food in the house. ETC...til I just began crying.

I think the bedrest part is way too hard at the end of pregnancy, just when I feel the need to get a bunch of stuff done. I know in my logical mind that it will all be ok, and people are around to help me, but emotionally, it is hard. I want to be able to prepare for the critter myself, and right now, all I can do for her is to keep her inside me by resting. That's enough, I know, but I feel like I'm just not ready/organized/prepared. It makes me wish I hadn't been such a scaredy-cat in the second tri, and gotten a lot more stuff done. Oh well, hindsight's a bitch.

Mr. P continues to be a trooper, and is doing everything he can to keep me sane. He even did a load of critter laundry at 11pm last night, just to calm me down. But he's stressed, with demands from work on him too, and it is stressful for me to see him stressed. He even went alone this morning to attend the infant CPR class we were signed up for. I guess it is good for at least one of us to know the info. Argh, it frustrates me I can't be there too.

So that's where I am this morning. Relieved to make it to 34 weeks. Frustrated and upset with bedrest. Feeling unprepared. Bored and antsy.

Deep cleansing breath. In and out. Rinse and repeat.