While the pregnancy itself went pretty great, I had a lot of emotional ups and downs.
Right when my third trimester began we left everyone and everything behind and moved to Texas.
All of our belongings fit in our minivan, and we didn't know anybody in Dallas.
And Ryan was about to start his new job.
And we decided to buy a house. The house was probably the main source of stress. Our first week in Texas was spent house hunting. We found the perfect house and we almost didn't get it. Lucky for us, the realtor gods aligned and we were able to put an offer in. Our realtor was pretty confident that we'd be able to move into the house by November (I was due January 4th), so I'd have plenty of time to get everything ready for baby. But of course something had to happen. On November 24th we found out our loan file had never been sent and it was just sitting on someone's desk. I was 35 weeks pregnant at that time.
To top it off, my third trimestre was filled with anxiety. I was so afraid that I would start itching again. At 31 weeks I had a really scary episode where I ended up at the hospital in the middle of the night with severe cramping. Turned out it was a bladder infection that was causing my uterus to contract every 2-4 min (yikes!). Going to the hospital only confirmed my decision to have a birth center birth. What a difference the sterile rooms and the hospital staff were from the nice, cozy birth center and the sweet midwives who were so nice they made me feel like I was being pampered everytime I went in for an appointment.
I would count the days to my midwives' appointments. The ladies at the birth center became my best friends. They knew me, they knew my family and where I came from. They knew Luca liked to play with the train set they had. They knew how much I wanted to give my baby a gentle birth, and they wanted it just as much as I did. They knew we were desperate to get into our house. They knew how scared I was of Cholestasis and having to end up with another hospital induction. They would even close the play room doors and do my appointments there so Luca could play with his train set.
I was 37 weeks pregnant when one night, after spending the day at Target getting the last things for baby, I started having contractions every 5 min. And that lasted for HOURS! I was so scared I was gonna go into labor. You see, at that time we were still living in our 1 bedroom apartment, absolutely cramped, and even though I had someone to watch Luca I really wanted my mother-in-law to be here when I had Eden, and she wouldn't be here until December 27th. I called my midwife (lets call her J) to tell her what was going on and she told me that if baby wanted to come that day it'd be fine, she was full term, but J thought my anxiety was going to keep her in there until we moved to the new house, and she also thought all the moving was going to put me into labor. Contractions eventualy died down, but I kept having contractions every day until the end of my pregnancy.
You see, we wanted baby to wait until we were in the new house, wait until my MIL got here, but we desperately needed her to be born in 2013 (hello, tax redemption and low insurance deductibles). So that meant baby had to come between Dec 27th-Dec 30th. But I didn't think I was going to be lucky enough for her to be born exactly when I had planned.
Fast forward a few weeks, December 26th. The day we finally moved into our new house!! We also had a midwife appointment that day. J checked me and said that my cervix was "butter soft", I was about 3 cm dilated, but baby was still high. J said my cervix was so soft she was afraid I was going to have a super fast labor. She made me promise that I wouldn't wait too long to head to the birth center or I was gonna have the baby in the car!!
We spent the day working! Packing and moving and getting everything set up. I was very very pregnant and Ryan was sick. We worked so hard that day that Ryan broke into a fever. His whole body was shaking, I gave him some Motrin and told him to go to bed. So I was left alone to take care of Luca and find and unpack everything. I was so exhausted by the time I put Luca to bed. I was praying and praying that I wouldn't go into labor that night, I just didn't have any energy left. And that was the ONE DAY that we didn't have anyone to watch Luca.
It was 1 am when I finally laid in bed. That's when I felt this water like liquid leaking out of me.
(to be continued)
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