Pregnancy Diary Week 29: Impatience

Week 29

This week I am auditioning for the role of Oscar the Grouch. I am starting to get major pangs of impatience and this is making me a bit of a nightmare to live with. After 29 weeks it feels like I have been pregnant for an eternity. In fact, have I ever not been pregnant? Surely I’ve done my time. Having to go another 11, or jeez, maybe 13 more weeks seems pretty unfathomable at the moment. And so the next stretch is going to require some patience, something I don’t have much of right now. As a way of coping, I have started buying things for the baby in the hope that some retail therapy will distract me from my current predicament of only being 29 weeks pregnant, and also perhaps that the lure of material goods will entice them out. Not that I actually want them to arrive yet of course. I am reliably informed by my pregnancy app that the baby is now the size of a winter squash. 2.5lbs and 15 inches from crown to heel, which is all very good but there is still a lot of growing to do during the rest of this interminable pregnancy. On the plus side, after winter squash we’re only left with honeydew melon and watermelon, then it’s a frickin’ baby. We have done 23 iterations of various edible entities from poppy seed (weeks three and four), through fig (week 11), to papaya (weeks 25-28), and now the only thing ahead of us is melons. Read into that what you will. But there seems to be a big difference between honey dew melon and watermelon. In melon terms I’m not sure that’s strictly true but in baby development terms it definitely is. Because of that I am still in that phase of wanting to meet my baby but really not wanting them to arrive prematurely. If he did arrive now he would have a very good chance of survival, 90% in fact, which is pretty incredible thanks to the miracle that is modern medicine. However, the chances of long-term health problems would be greatly increased so being born at 29 weeks is not what you wish for. This leaves me in that horrible state of feeling impatient and also feeling anxious, but on top of that feeling guilty for feeling impatient and anxious, which is making me irritable and generally a pain in the arse to be around. So I really need to sit tight, hold on, cross my legs, chill the hell out and stop obsessing about melons. Of course being a pain in the arse is my prerogative as a pregnant woman but there’s only so much slack in the system. I have found that my default response to most questions from my husband this week is an audible exhale, an eye role, and perhaps repetition of his question in a slightly sarcastic or disbelieving tone, which, let’s be honest, isn’t great. This of course depends on the question. If the question is: “would you like me to buy you some chocolate?” or “would you like me to give you a massage?” I am unlikely to respond like a gorilla being told about a banana shortage. However, if it’s: “is this chicken supposed to taste this way?” or “it’s OK that I’m out tonight, right?” I am liable to implode. I am normally a lot less of an arsehole and so my irrational behaviour has not gone unnoticed by my poor husband, who unfortunately seems to bear the brunt of most of my grumpiness. As I explained to him, it is actually a big compliment and testimony to our unconditional love, as I feel comfortable enough with him to be a complete cow. It is also excellent practice for the months to come as I suspect there may be more general intolerance once the baby arrives. This of course depends on whether I get any of the following: “the baby is crying, have you tried feeding him?”; “does he need a new nappy?”; “pasta for tea again?” Try me with these, just try me and see what you get.