transcended.net

Note to self: When your nose is bleeding maybe it’s best not to blow it.

Note to reader: This is going to be one of those posts. You know, the kind where I feel sorry for myself and whine a lot.

The NST yesterday was fine, at least that’s what the nurse told me afterwards. She didn’t seem worried that there were a couple of decels because she thought they were from the baby repositioning. I had to drink some apple juice to get his heartrate up even though I did feel him moving before that, but again the nurse was unconcerned so I guess I’m going to go with the flow. I can’t believe that at 32 weeks I am still constantly paranoid that Something Bad has happened to the baby.

So here’s where I need a bit of a gut check from any of you that might be reading this. Paul is planning on attending a wedding in LA for a weekend when I’m basically 36-37 weeks pregnant. He’ll be leaving Saturday morning and returning Sunday afternoon. When he originally booked his plane tickets I felt a little uneasy about the whole thing but he said that the hotel can be cancelled 24hrs beforehand and the plane ticket can be turned into credit as long as he cancels before the flight leaves so I didn’t protest too much.

Yesterday though, I accidentally scheduled our childbirth class on that Sunday and basically had a minor freakout when I really thought about how close to my due date this is and how few weekends we have left and with my cervix shortening and all, what if he misses the birth?! He says that if there’s any doubts just before his trip he will cancel it but is that always how it works? Isn’t it possible that I could go into labor Saturday evening (when it’s already too late for him to catch a flight back) and deliver by Sunday morning (before the first flight back)?

I know he really wants to go because this is a close friend of his (who by the way, missed our wedding for a business trip, hm…) and there will be a ton of his college friends there that he hasn’t seen in years. But I’m also much more prone to hormonal meltdowns at this stage of pregnancy than I was when the trip was booked and I’m no longer feeling as open-minded about it as I was. I think it’s also the fact that my whole life is basically centered around this pregnancy now, I am uncomfortable 95% of the day whether I’m standing, sitting or lying down. My back hurts constantly, there are literally NO comfortable positions left to sleep in, even if I do momentarily find one that is slightly more comfortable I have to get up about 30 seconds later to pee, none of my bras fit (not even the bigger ones I bought during the pregnancy), I basically live at the doctor’s office (I’m up from one visit per week to a minimum of two), and the whiny side of me is remarking about how horribly unfair it is that I have to deal with all this and he gets to sleep the night away and run off to LA for a weekend when I will probably be near a peak of discomfort.

The logical side of me knows that he realistically can’t participate in a lot of what I’m going through, and I have so many doctor visits that it doesn’t make sense for him to go to all of them. He does what he can, including most of the housework, shopping, changing the cat litter, even making me breakfast in bed every weekend. He does so much and he just wants to attend this good friend’s wedding and see all his old friends, which I get.

Up til this point I have not put my foot down and said he absolutely can’t go but I have started bringing up that I don’t feel that comfortable with it and am not very happy about it anymore. Am I being totally unreasonable? I will feel bad if he cancels the trip and nothing happens, but I will definitely feel a lot worse if he goes and I go into labor by myself. I know a lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m so friggin’ emotional and hormonal right now but everytime I think about it now I want to cry. I don’t want to cry in front of him because I know it will probably guilt him into not going and I haven’t decided if that’s really fair or not.

But being that I’ve never been in labor before we don’t really know how my labor would progress or whether or not there would necessarily be any signs ahead of time.

So what do you all think? Is it unreasonable/unfair to ask him not to go? Should I just suck it up because it’s unlikely I’d go into sudden labor if I’m not dilated or anything the week before? Or is it more likely than he’s thinking?

Oh and I forgot to mention another thing that is bothering me about this trip is how expensive it is going to be. They are getting married in an area where there are only luxury hotels so the room alone is going to be $350+, not including the cab ride there and back, the wedding gift and the plane tickets. All told he will probably be spending $600-700 or more for one weekend right before the baby comes. It’s irritating me since I don’t want him to go at all AND it’s going to cost an arm and a leg blech.