37 Weeks: Please Get Here Safely & Soon, Little One

Thank you everyone for your kind words of condolence on my last post. It means a lot to feel surrounded by love and good thoughts during this crappy time.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that I’m feeling, uh…crappy right now.

I vacillate between wanting to scream about my brother and feeling debilitating anxiety about this pregnancy. I suspect much of my grief is currently being channeled into anxiety — probably my brain’s way of protecting myself. Because it is just too much right now. Some days I feel like a robot that is incapable of feeling anything but fear. As I type this I am crying because I am sad and scared and just ugh. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next two weeks until my induction. I am a mess. I just feel like I can’t handle anymore.

Things have not been going smoothly with the end of pregnancy, but ultimately everything is fine. Baby continues to fail all of her non-stress tests, but then looks ok on the biophysical profiles. The maternal fetal medicine doctor assured me that this is completely fine, that baby girl looks overall great. But still, it freaks me out. I’ve been itching like crazy, so I was tested for cholestasis, which is this liver condition that is bad news for the baby. So far I’ve had two rounds of tests and they’ve both been very strong negatives. I’m getting one more round of tests, so we’ll see, but it looks like I’ve dodged the cholestasis bullet and am just having random pregnancy itching. Then, most recently, I switched from Lovenox to Heaprin a week ago and since then I’ve been getting large red patches around the injection site. They look and feel like sunburn. I went to labor and delivery on Monday to have it checked out and they tested my platelets (which is what they are most concerned about), and all was well with those. My doctor, who is super cautious, looked at my abdomen again on Wednesday and wasn’t concerned about it. She thinks my skin is just so stretched that it can’t handle the injections anymore. I was ok with this explanation until this morning when a nurse at my monitoring appointment looked at it and was like, “That doesn’t look right! It could be an allergic reaction. You need to call us right away if it get worse!” This of course made me freak despite the fact that two different doctors on two different occasions weren’t worried about it. The nurse is right, though–it doesn’t look right. Ugh.

My doctor told me that at my next appointment she’d check my cervix and make an official plan for induction. So things are moving along. Just not fast enough for my strung out self.

I can’t go to my brother’s funeral because it’s in California and I will likely be giving birth or have the teeniest of newborns the day he is laid to rest. I can’t be with my family right now, at a time when we all need each other.

Everything is just too much, you guys. I cannot handle any more right now. Not one more single thing.

I just need this baby to get here safely. Please, baby, make your way out into the world soon — healthy and pink and screaming. Please.

Something nice did happen today, though, so I’ll leave you with that. A few weeks ago, I commissioned my friend, Danielle Kroll , who is an artist and illustrator to paint a something for the baby’s room. She sent me a picture of the final piece this morning. She painted something for Lettie right before she was born, which I adore, but I think I love this one even more. Without further ado, here is is. I really needed a reminder of hope today.