Forty One Weeks!

Here I am, friends. Still pregnant. I never imagined this.

But I'm doing very well. I feel tons better than I did a week ago. My energy is much better, my feet don't hurt, I'm sleeping great... no cause to complain, really.

It's sort of impossible to believe, in other words, that I'm going to have a baby in the next few days. It all feels a lot further away than it did.

Yesterday, after days of deliberation, I finally asked my mother if she wanted to join me at the birth. With my sister gone, I thought it would be nice to have that feeling of roots, if that makes any sense? My friend A will be there, but she's been in my life only a few years... and of course, my mom will have a connection to my child as well as to me. And finally, I thought I would be offering my mom a precious gift, to be there when her darling grandchild enters the world.

My mom turned me down.

I'm simultaneously incredulous and amused.

My mom has ADHD. She doesn't like changes in plans. And her plan was to be in MA this week. She is looking forward to seeing my (uncommunicative, bookwormish) almost thirteen year old niece (just to contrast her with all those extremely communicative thirteen year old girls out there!) after she gets to MA from summer camp and before they move to Florida two days later. Then, too, my mother feels like she can only take a week off from work (she owns her own law firm, but has two other attorneys working for her), and she would be more use to me when I am ready to come home from the hospital. Especially if I have a C-section -- she would "just be sitting around NYC with nothing to do."

I am quite sure that she could help me, even in the hospital, if I had a C-section. And I am pretty sure that I could convince her that taking more than a week off of work might make sense in this situation. And that skipping this is missing out on the experience of a lifetime.

But I'm not going to argue with her. This is her call. And it's too important to me to try and convince her.

I shared this story with Scott (my 59 year old best friend with the prostate cancer -- you remember, right?) and he immediately offered to be there.

The original plan, a while back, had been for him to be there, but then I had stricken him from the roster because I felt like he wasn't excited to be there. And I didn't want anyone there who wasn't 110% enthused (like my mom, see above). But now he seems more excited about being there -- excited to be there to support me, at least, if less enthusiastic about witnessing the miracle of life (it's not that he's against the miracle of life... it's just not as exciting to him as it is to me... even when I'm not the one giving birth).  

And while he may not have the relationship with my child that my mother will, he is my family, too. In some ways, more my family than anyone blood related to me.

So I'm pleased with how it all worked out. It will be great (hopefully) to have my mother here when I'm ready to come home from the hospital. And it will be, I think, magical to have Scott there. Going through this prostate cancer situation together has brought us even closer together. This will be one more thing to cement our bond.