Me & My Due Dates

Next Tuesday. Here we are, less than a week away from my "due date", and I am doing what I have told myself for the last 3 years I wouldn't do. Just 5 more days. Tops.
I am telling myself I am almost done. I'm ignoring everything I painfully learned about this the last
time around, and I'm telling myself that this time, it will be different. This is the baby I'll laugh about,
and say, "Yeah, his older brother came almost 2 weeks late, but he actually came early! And the labor was quick, and easy, and totally pain-free!" Power of positive thinking, right?

It's been easy ever since Dayen was born to tell myself I wouldn't do this when I got the chance 

again. It's been easy to say, you are just a person who has long pregnancies. You should always 

plan on that. After all is said and done, what's two more weeks? 

It's been easy, until the last month or so. We sold our house faster than expected, and we have to be out 11 days after my due date. (I had Dayen at 12 days past my due date.) And I forgot that by this point, your patience is basically gone, along with your sanity. That’s the problem with going over: it’s not just a longer pregnancy, it gets exponentially harder every single day. You get bigger, and crabbier, and more uncomfortable, so you can’t help but spend at least a chunk of everyday thinking, “It would be really great if this baby would be born now.”

I was determined not to let it get to me this time, but of course it has. One of my friends went 12 days
past her due date last summer, and she posted asking people for natural induction methods. She got
all the advice you always hear: spicy foods, bounce on a yoga ball, curb walking. But I, with all my
birthing knowledge, told her, “Give up, go relax and tell yourself the baby is never going to be born.
That is the only thing that worked for me!” She later told me it was the only thing that worked for her,
too! See how smart I am?

But am I following my own advice? Um, no. I haven’t even reached my due date yet, but my
overly-controlling nature has me casually pushing the pressure points in your hand that supposedly
induce labor, and bouncing constantly on a yoga ball, and going on walks that do nothing but make
me more uncomfortable.

This is, by far, the hardest part of pregnancy for me. I know I’m in the home stretch. I know, logically,
every day I get closer to meeting the little guy. But it's still hard waking up every day, still pregnant. It's
hard every time someone asks me why I'm still pregnant.

And I won’t get on my soapbox about it, but no I’m not planning to be induced and no, I’m not scared
of another big baby. The only thing I can say is, with everything that felt out of my control the last time
around, I am forever grateful that I let my baby choose his own birthday. And that isn’t to start an
argument around inductions, or how anyone else’s birth went. You do what’s right for you. I’m going
to sit over here, eternally pregnant, doing what’s right for me.

Even if I completely lose my mind in the process.