In the Still of the Night

February 11, 2012

In the Still of the Night

It’s 3:30 AM right now. I woke up starving about an hour ago and have been laying in bed playing solitaire on my phone and listening to Matt sleep peacefully next to me ever since. (I got a snack too, obviously. I’m not a masochist.)

This sort of scenario is not uncommon in my late pregnancy, as I know I’ve mentioned before. I’ve had quite a few nights where I’m up for at least an hour or two right about now. Sometimes I try to get myself to go right back to sleep, sometimes I’ve just played games or read things online, and sometimes I’ve just taken the time to think.

It seems like there’s plenty for me to think about these days. I don’t always do a good job of keeping my mind focused on the positive things (which is where my nickname GHE, meaning Glass Half Empty, came from) and tend to end up feeling overwhelmed more often than I’d like when I just lay around thinking.

Now that I’m 5 days past my due date that overwhelmed feeling is easier to arrive at than ever before.

I understand that it’s only 5 days, that most first babies come late, that really the date they give you is basically arbitrary, and so on. I have been told all these reassurances from multiple sources and understand them. It’s still been difficult for me to deal with this however, especially with words like “induction” being used more and more every time I have an appointment at my doctor, which is more and more often the more time passes with no baby.

(Weird/funny side note about one of those times “induction” was discussed: I had to have an appointment with someone other than my doctor since mine was sick. This doctor was going through the various induction scenarios with me and inevitably arrived at c-sections. She didn’t have a stellar bedside manner and so when she attempted to reassure me of the likelihood of a c-section not happening she failed. Miserably. She said about 50% of the time inductions are successful and end in a normal birth. Then she said about 20% of the time they don’t do what they’re supposed to and the mom ends up getting a c-section. Matt and I didn’t say anything at the time, but later discussed these figures and how they fail to add up to 100%. What is going on with the mystery 30% we wondered? Do those women just die? Obviously it was most likely either a wrong estimation on her part or she thinks we can’t add percentages but either way, it was an interesting prenatal moment.)

Thus far, my main method of dealing with the varied emotions that I find myself filled with has been to let them get to a breaking point, wait until I’m alone or with Matt only and then cry. A lot. He’s been the most wonderful husband and support I could have ever hoped for and really has done a great job of helping me through times when that happens.

I’m the kind of person who will seek out a million different opinions when it comes to so many things. Clothes/shoe options, books I’m considering, classes to take, presents for other people, etc. etc. etc. But when it comes to really personal and emotional things like this I tend to play my cards close to my chest and not seek much support outside of a very small circle. I’m just more of a private person than most of my friends would expect me to be or are themselves, as I’ve learned in abundance during this pregnancy journey, and prefer that a lot of things not become general knowledge. Also, I know that when I’m dealing with something emotional, seeking out many opinions usually means gaining far more advice than I could ever imagine/want which results in the overwhelmed situation described above.

This period of my life has been a unique one because everyone knew that February 6 was the due date. So without me even volunteering anything I’ve had people reach out and ask me what’s going on, how am I doing, is the baby coming yet, and offer suggestions on things I could do to get her here. Obviously, it’s wonderful to be loved and have so many people in my life who are excited about my little girl, I don’t mean to sound like that’s something to complain about in the least. The part that’s hard has to do with me being a more private person not used to being in the spotlight for something emotional like this and so what we end up with is me feeling like a watched pot.

I took a day last week and decided to ignore all incoming communication about the baby. It was helpful, I felt more peaceful that day than I had before. I will admit that I’ve been tempted to keep that going and become more and more of a hermit until the birth. However, my late night musings tonight have got me thinking about a technique that I use in so much of my life and have pretty much failed to do in this one.

Being thankful.

There are three little verses in 1 Thessalonians that are so easy to read and remember and so tough to put into practice consistently:

Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.

I really could do with applying all of these to what’s happening now, but being thankful is the one I thought of tonight. A teaching I listened to awhile ago on thankfulness and forgiveness taught me that “Thankfulness does its best to remember, forgiveness does its best to forget.” and so I started remembering. I thought back on the last nine months and considered all that God has done for me and for Matt that has been so great.

I remembered how quickly I got pregnant and what a blessing it was to not spend months trying, growing more anxious with each one. I remembered how some women can’t get pregnant and would love to be in my position. I remembered how overall I didn’t have to deal with a lot of the physical issues I’ve heard other women deal with in pregnancy. I remembered when my uncles offered to sell their house to us with so much included it was unbelievable and now we will bring a baby home to our house with plenty of space. I remembered how supportive my work was of my leave and how much time I get to spend off work being with my daughter. I remembered how great it is that I love my doctor and her assistant. And I also remembered how there are plenty of women who go through this either alone or with very little support and that I was not one of them.

This doesn’t change who I am or how much information I’m going to share with the world. I’m still private when it comes to details of this, and won’t be letting everyone know everything they’d probably like to know (last weekend I had a friend obviously trying to get me to tell her if I was dilated at all and I wouldn’t. That’s not changed!). This also doesn’t mean that I’ll be looking forward to any future messages that mention labor or give unwarranted advice but it DOES mean that I can move forward with perhaps a little more grace than I’ve shown these past two weeks or so when I’ve been faced with “support” from different sources.

Life is better when I rejoice, pray and am thankful. This part of my life is certainly a time to rejoice, it’s certainly full of things to pray about as the days go on, and it’s certainly to my benefit to take my mind to a place of thankfulness before I let anything else get in there.

My parents taught me those verses first. I plan on teaching them to Genesis and one of the best ways I can prepare to teach her is by putting them into practice as much as possible in my own life.

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