Taking it easy

Last night was, as I'm sure you can imagine, pretty horrible, and I only managed to get a few scattered hours of sleep. Iggy was also up all night and finally went to bed around 5.

As with the last round of bad news, we have gotten a lot of wonderful and supportive comments, e-mails and phone calls. Several friends have written to say that they also experienced preterm labor and went on to have good outcomes, but honestly, I have a bad feeling about this. I can feel how low the baby is sitting on my cervix, and it really feels like he could come popping out at any minute. It just doesn't seem possible that he could stay in there for another 8 weeks.

In the meantime, I have to go to work today, but my main goal for the day is trying to minimize my responsibilities to the extent that I can. I need to meet with my boss and decide what projects are essential and who will take them on when I go into labor. I have also been teaching a class, and this morning I called and told them about my circumstances and that I basically couldn't continue teaching. They were very understanding about things and are scrambling to find someone to replace me starting next week. And then I've also been working at a third freelance job, and I guess I need to e-mail them, too.

Even with fewer outside responsibilities, the burden of what is to come seems overwhelming. Unfortunately, none of the possible outcomes of this is really a good one. And of course all this comes with the advice that I should "avoid stress," which can induce contractions and labor. There's almost something darkly comical about the fact that I'm supposed to avoid stress...as there was about being hooked up to a blood pressure monitor while a doctor told us that our baby is probably going to die (I achieved an impressive high of 160/100!).

As bleak as things seem right now, for my own psychological well-being, I find it essential to focus on something positive, and in this case it is looking forward to the future. Pretty soon, this will all be over, for better or for worse, and I look forward to Iggy and I spending some time healing, and then eventually having another baby. We'll shoot for a healthy one next time.