Still Waiting

Let’s face it. I know we’ve got family and friends anxiously awaiting a phone call or an email that declares the happy news that we’ve just had the baby. But I have no such news just yet. In fact, a doctor’s appointment today let me feeling a bit disappointed at the news that “it could be another week or two.” Yet again, I’m 39 weeks pregnant, and this is my 6th child, so things could change rapidly. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a few tears at that news today. Either way, I’m trying to resign myself to the idea that I am going to be waiting for awhile.

All of my nesting and hard work was replaced after last week with a feeling of total exhaustion. I spent most of last week reading, napping, having back, aches and contracting. In fact, on Valentine’s Day, Scott and I ended up venturing out for an impromptu, laid-back date which we almost thought was going to take us to the hospital. We went to see a movie, and part way through, contractions started up that were definitely real. Only they ended up tapering off after about 45 minutes of steady contractions that were definitely getting more intense.

Since then, I’ve been fluctuating between feeling “normal” and being extremely uncomfortable. Over the weekend, I ended up working on phase 1 of the big living room project. I had cut the boards to make the frame of a window seat bench on Thursday or Friday, on Saturday I assembled the frame and attached the front face of the seat. Yesterday, I added the side faces, built a box to direct the heating vent out the front of the seat, and put the first piece of trim on the box. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I came up with a solution for the top of the seat which I wanted to be flip-open lids, but because it was the middle of the night, I couldn’t work on it. As soon as everyone was up for the day, I got started cutting the pieces for the seats and assembling everything as well as filling in screw and nail holes in the sides of the seat with wood putty.

I’m hoping to have enough energy the remainder of this afternoon to sand down the wood filler, do a little finessing on the seat, and priming the whole thing. The kids are already enjoying the seat and are very excited for me to finish it all. I’m pretty sure it’s going to end up being a new favorite place for them to sit and read, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for!

Knowing that the baby might take awhile longer to get here, I’m hoping to at least have the energy to cross off the final items on my to-do list. Nothing is important or necessary at this point, but if I’m not going to be having a baby yet, I’d rather be productive than exhausted. Being tired just makes waiting harder.

I’m really hoping that we can spend the remainder of this time without anything breaking or otherwise going wrong… It just seems like every time I fix one issue or complete some task, something breaks or goes wrong. We had to call an electrician after having two random electrical issues in the same week, Scott had three teeth pulled, and I got our big van stuck at the end of the driveway when I was returning from my doctor’s appointment this afternoon. It’d just be really nice to finish out this pregnancy on a high note… no more health issues, no things breaking, getting stuck, or otherwise causing us extra work.

I’ll share pictures of the bench soon, and if I get enough time or another round of nesting energy, I’ll be sure to share pictures of whatever it is that we work on. What have you been doing to pass the time this snowy month?

Love~Danielle