Saturday, May 2, 2009

All Dressed Up, No Place to Go

So it's 3:42 AM.

...the day after 2.0 was supposed to be born.

Nada.

Intellectually, logically, I knew this was a possibility; in fact, I knew it was more likely than not. Emotionally, I was absolutely convinced that MY kid would show up early. I'm sure I had some subconscious justification involving my own "ahead-ness" in most aspects of life, or some other rubbish, but the truth is I just wanted it to be that way. I'm not really disappointed - more impatient. I don't think, when the time DOES come, that I'll be nervous anymore. More excited than anything - mostly 'cause the show will finally be back on the friggin road, y'know?

Yesterday was pins and needles, but when the day ended and Amy and I went to bed, we just kind of shrugged and moved on. It's a little tough for me to judge whether or not each following day will be pins and needles or not, but I'm guessing not. Right now I'm in that groggy/grumpy/bleary-eyed-cattle mode that comes from sleeping from 10-3 and waking up. Figured I'd better get up after 45 of tossing and turning, because Amy seems to actually be getting sleep - uncommon in the last few days - and I don't want to disturb that. As much as the doomsayers (yes, that lovely clique that thinks it's fine and dandy to give you "Just wait and see how miserable your life will be" 'advice' has been at it again; and I hate it as much now as I did five months ago) remind me that I'll need every bit of sleep I can get, figure Amy needs it a lot more. So here I am, tap-tapping away. Heh.

Life very much goes "on hold" at this point. I end a lot of my sentences with "provided the baby hasn't arrived." I'd love to play some strategy card games with the guys on Friday "provided the baby hasn't arrived." Some computer games? Sure - "provided the baby hasn't arrived." Amy's brother/brotherly family came into town today and she went out to lunch with them, and I had to restrain a pretty large grumpy bone - didn't like the idea of her driving ANYWHERE alone at this point. One contraction and she's in a ditch with an airbag, I figure, but the teachers at school assure me the first contraction is neither so shocking nor painful. Eh, fine, but I'm still being overprotective. 

With us teacherly folk off for a week  - hurrah, swine flu media circus - I can now face the certainty that I will be a father before I next teach a class. (Something weird in my gut twitched after I typed that.) The upside to this is if the kid is born naturally in the next few days, I've got 3-5 days off without burning my sick days. Not such a bad deal. Having a bit of a moral quandry over whether or not to take the five days I had both planned and saved after that, though. Most people seem to feel I should definitely take the time off, but I've never in my life ducked out of my job for two weeks, and it feels...odd. I'm not the most aggressive grade-taker amongst teachers to begin with, and I figure one week sans school and then one week a la substitute won't improve that. On the other hand, meh, you only get one first birth, right? Eh.

Well. Home for a week. Kid imminent and yet still over the horizon - Amy's had no contraction twinges of any sort yet, so natural birth is still very much unknown. Me not sleeping at 4am now; part of which is probably because of all this and probably because I had too much caffiene at dinner.

Eh. Well, s'pose this means, dear blog readers, that there's a good chance I'll post more thoughts in the next few days leading up to the assured birth on Thursday if it doesn't happen sooner. 

Y'know.

"Provided the baby hasn't arrived."

-MT out

2 comments:

Amy Fletcher said...

I wondered what you were up to when I woke up at 5:00 and you weren't in bed. Great blog, babe. I love reading your thoughts on here (especially when you can't share them at 4ish because your pregnant wife was actually drooling she was so out of it.) Thanks for letting me get some rest. I totally needed it. Love you!

Amy said...

I still am happy for both of you and can't wait to see what happens next.