11 Weeks... to go.

I had lunch with a colleague this week who is 36 weeks pregnant. She reports that her OB has begun doing internal checks and she is already showing some effacement and dilation. She told me that this made her feel a little sad, as she's not sure she's "ready to not be pregnant" yet. She likes being pregnant.

I am not one of those people.

My goal of infertility treatments was never to be pregnant, it was to have a baby. From the stories I've heard, I have not had a very difficult pregnancy by far. But I wouldn't go so far as to call it enjoyable.

I think I was secretly hoping that what they say about the second trimester being so much better than the other two wouldn't apply to me. It turns out that I am very stereotypical. Up until a last week, my "bad hours/days" were far outnumbered by the "good days/hours." Now, my sleep is disrupted significantly nearly every night, making my days a constant fight against ever-increasing fatigue in an effort to continue being a productive working member of society. Interestingly, the disruption is different every night. It's like trying to plug a water leak with your finger - every time I figure out how to manage one set of symptoms, another pop up.

I had several nights of not being able to get comfortable and find a good position, but getting a pregnancy body pillow has helped with that overall. Intermittently, the heartburn still takes over and will keep me sitting vertically for half the night. Then there was the night that I felt itchy all over and started feeling a little psychotic that there were bed bugs biting me. When I do fall asleep easily, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night with horrible leg cramps. And finally, I am still prone to getting pretty nasty bloody noses right before bed, which requires a good half-hour of care to keep it at bay.

I know, cognitively, that the best place for our baby to be right now is in my body. She is not ready to be born and will be much better off with some more time to grow in this nurturing environment. I truly want was is best for her. However, if some new science came out to convince me that she would be considered full-term by next week, her birth weight would be six pounds, and she would be fully developed enough to not require any medical intervention... heck yes I would want this pregnancy to be over!