Last days

Chloë's been waking up early and often this week. She often cries, possibly in her sleep, around midnight or one, and then wakes me up with screaming around four. Then she comes into our room at around six-thirty, which is hour before her usual wake-up time, saying "Chloë wake!" I pull her up in bed with me and have her snuggle down in the hopes she'll go back to sleep and I can have my usual extra hour. She snuggles, but she doesn't sleep. Instead, she says, "Mama wake? Dada sleep. Chloë wake. Mama wake? Mama up! Chloë up! Go down? Mama glasses. Baby crib [referring to the bassinet]. Baby sleep? Dada sleep? Mama sleepy? Go down!" until I have to get out of bed before I throw her out. I don't know what's causing it (the early waking, I mean; I know what's causing the chattering). Does she know these are her last days to have Mama and Dada all to herself?

I am now more pregnant than I've ever been, at least if we assume my LMP due date is accurate. (Since I was still breastfeeding at the time and my cycle was still getting back to normal, I'm more inclined to trust the ultrasound's, which is five days later.) Yesterday evening I kept thinking "This time last pregnancy, I was in the hospital." Then I started having crampy contractions and began to panic, because I've still got a few things I really want to get done before I have to drop my life in order to have the new baby. Luckily they must have been Braxton-Hicks...or else the pure force of my ire when I told Eric I felt funny and he began making faces at me convinced my body to hold off a while.

I don't feel ready for this second baby, not quite yet. I even avoided the crackers on the dinner table on purpose. Setting aside the projects I want to finish (nothing vital to the baby--we've got carseats installed and clothes washed and the bassinet set up and, aside from one piece from the midwives that they can fax in, my paperwork in place), I've been thinking about my labor and delivery and early days with Chloë, and regretting all the things I did wrong. Luckily there was no lasting damage to her, and if my only problem is a bad attitude going into labor I'm doing fine, but I still feel I've got a bad precedent. Maybe that will only make it easier for this time around to be better. I know a lot more this time, after all. And I don't think I'll really have to let the pieces of my life scatter and pick them back up afterward, which is kind of how it's feeling on this side of things (being understaffed at work, and then having my sole true peer go on vacation for a week because it's his last chance until after I get back from leave, doesn't help).

As far as the medication during labor debate goes, I've settled on a strong, firm "I'll wait and see how I feel." If I get to the hospital and am doing okay, then fine. If I get to the hospital and am panicky and despairing, I'll get an epidural and take a nap. At least while I'm at the hospital Chloë won't wake me up early.