34 Weeks Holy Crap!

If I were to go into labor right now, this very instant, the doctors wouldn't stop it.  We'd call the doc about our regular contractions, have to hurriedly pack up our hospital bags (I really need to do this, what am I waiting for?), drive the 15 minutes to the hospital, be monitored for who knows how long, and then they'd start working on prepping me for surgery. No stopping it.  No trying to slow things down.  They'd go ahead and bring these two children out into our world. They'd feel good about how long we'd made it.  That's TODAY!

I have two weeks and six days until our scheduled c-section. 

Who knows what will happen in the next two weeks and six days, but I'm thinking a whole lotta nothing.  I'm feeling like these kids are pretty ok in there- fine with the cramped quarters, and looking forward to an 11/02/2011 birthday.  And so it will be.

Unless I have cholestasis and need to get them out early.  Or my blood pressure spikes to unhealthy levels.  Or Little Lady won't do what she's supposed to do on the monitors and they decide to pull the trigger early. 

But like I said, while I have no idea what will actually happen over the next few weeks, I'm thinking it's gonna be me sitting around feeling uber-pregnant, totally amused by our offspring and their crazy movements, and trying not to complain about my last weeks of growing humans.  Growing humans!!! In my belly.  How utterly and undeniably fascinating.  Since the very beginning I've been baffled at the thought of there being two humans in there.  And now that they are at the stage where they could very well be on the outside, looking just like "babies" and not at all like "fetuses", it's an even more baffling thing.  I'm blown away that my body could do this (even if it was touch and go there for a while...and yes, even though it couldn't get this way "naturally"- I put those things aside). 

Speaking of infertility.  Like how I throw that one out there like that?  I don't know what it is, but lately I've been feeling incredibly proud of our infertility battle.  The scars that B and I share, both physically and emotionally, are badges I'm wearing with honor right now.  I have no shame about them.  I don't know if I've ever felt "shame" about my infertility, my lack of ability to do as "nature intended" and get blissfully knocked up all on our own.  Maybe it's because we were, in a weird way, very lucky to not have to go through a year (or more) of trying and being let down every month.  It's so strange to think of my ongoing health issues, those horrible things that led me back to the hospital far too often, those diagnoses that changed my life and turned our worlds upside down, in a "we're lucky" sort of way.  But in this case, I had the diagnoses early that told us we would need to do IVF.  There wasn't a question about it for us- even though we tried for a little while to deny it and even sought out a second opinion when we felt the first RE was far too "definitive" about this plan.  Every RE would be definitive about this plan.  I ain't got no tubes.  At least not functioning ones.  Can't get much done in the old fashioned way with that staring back at you.  Plus, the stage 4 endo, the hashimotos, the questions about the Cushings diagnosis at the time...it was all just too much.  We saw our first RE before we were even married. Who does that?  haha This girl. Good lord, I'm a lucky woman my B didn't run out of that room screaming.  He's been by my side since the moment we said "I really like you...like a lot...like, no, really."  (The before "l.o.v.e." talk- one of my favorite memories). 

So maybe it's because I've had a bit of a different infertility journey.  My infertility journey started when I was 18 years old and a doctor told me that I shouldn't wait too long to try to have kids...my Dad woulda been pissed if he knew that back then.  Don't worry Dad- I wasn't taking his advice literally.

Oh, pause.  One of the babies has hiccups.  Love.

I don't know if there is shame out there after successful IVF for other infertiles.  Sometimes there's a bit of something that will creep in when I tell someone we did IVF and they say "oh" in a weird way.  But most of the time, it's just a happy "we had to work real hard for these miracles and we were so blessed" type of feeling.

I think of Petri sometimes and hope that my health issues had nothing to do with how short his tiny life was.  Then I feel even more blessed by the miracle of these twins- that they made it this far.  We are so incredibly lucky, and I'm wearing my infertile badge with all kinds of pride right now.  I want so badly for all of you in this journey to reach this place.  It's by no means a finish line, but we all deserve this.  I hope this next year brings all kinds of infertility babies into the world- happy and healthy.

I pray that all continues to go well while I have these two so close to me- protected from the outside world.  And I pray that once they're here and I can see them and squeeze them- that they have the strength to weather whatever it is that comes.  And I pray that B and I have that same strength.  We've been through so much, these scars are here for a reason and I'm not going to forget their incredible meaning.  We've battled through it all together, just the two of us.  We'll continue to battle, the four of us together, no matter what comes our way.  Because that's how we do. And I'm so, so proud to be able to say that.