The Final Countdown & creepy things on our lane.

If you want to skip a pain fueled pregnancy rant, skip to the pink at the bottom. It has nothing to do with hormones, pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, or the like.

One week from right now, I should be in the recovery room having just delivered Bitsy. I cannot believe we're this close...and sometimes I cannot believe we still have a full week to go! Some days it feels like just a few weeks ago HT was born & I was in Tennessee to see him. That's when I found out for sure that we were going to be blessed with Farm Hand #4. If you want to read about that, go back to here....it's the beginning of this trip. Then there are the times (like most of the day) when I feel like I've been pregnant forever!!

Queen Mother is here to help out with the kids, so I don't have to worry about being left alone with them in the evenings. My suitcase is packed. The crib is made. The clothes are ready. I'm preregistered at the hospital. I know which door to use when we get there. I'm making a list of "B.B. Speak" for QM to refer to while I'm gone. I've started filling out what I can in Bitsy's baby book. There is really nothing left to do....except put up the playpen....unless I decide to shampoo the carpet, but I promised Art I wouldn't.

Now I feel like I'm in the midst of "hurry up and wait." Everything is ready. I have nothing left to do but the day to day cleaning. Isn't that enough? I guess I've lived with the undercurrent of panic so long, that now that it's gone I don't know what to do with myself. Really, I should have learned to knit. I could've made 10 pairs of socks this week!

There are times I find myself standing in at the island in the kitchen willing my water to break. I know in the long run I'd rather wait for my scheduled c-section....I don't want to make an hour and a half drive while I'm in labor....but I want to get this over with. Not to mention I tested positive for Group B Strep & it would be better for Bitsy if my water doesn't break. I want to move on from my pregnancy obsession to the new baby obsession that comes next.

I'm tired of living in this odd kind of limbo. The last time I really felt this way was when I was expecting BabyGirl. For some reason I don't remember being quite this on edge when expecting the boys. Maybe it's a girl thing. All I know is that I need a new hobby, but I don't have the energy or stamina to take anything up. Seriously, what am I going to do? Jog? Spin? Write haiku? Guess I'll have to stick with reading obsessively. I'm almost done with The Jane Austen Book Club (not on my side bar yet). Then I can move on to the other 4 books Art brought me. I'd go for a walk, but I don't like walking on gravel when I'm having balance problems. Ugh!

Oh, wait!!! I had an adventure yesterday on the way to the mail box! I got almost to the end of our lane (we have a fairly long driveway & we call it a lane...most country driveways around here are called lanes) when I noticed one of our young tom cats circling something. As I got closer I thought the something was either a dead bird (the cats have been killing birds that are getting into the goat feed) or a dead rodent. It wasn't until I was nearly on top of the lump on the ground that I realized it was a bat (dying I thought)! Great...bats carry rabies...the cat won't stay away from it....my kids won't stay away from the cats....not to mention I'm terrified of bats, rats, mice, & anything like.So I did what any self respecting City Gal does & I screamed for my FarmBoy husband. I shooed the cat away (as much as you can shoo a cat), and headed to the mail box.

When I came back, I stopped a safe distance from the bat to get a better look. That's when I realized it wasn't just a dying bat....it wasn't dying at all. It was nursing 3 pups. Laying on her back at the edge of my driveway, wings spread, nursing her young. No, in my pregnant state this did not appeal to my maternal instincts. It freaked me out even more. When the bat was just dying I was OK with it...now it was multiplying. Ewww! Gwoss! as B.B. would say. I hollered for Husband again & he, being the defender of the estate, brought his shovel & disposed of mama & her brood. I still have the heebie-jeebies.