Today...

Today was supposed to be my last day of work at JCFS, my emotional, bittersweet goodbye to the students and so-longs to my coworkers.  My plan was to spend, then, the next few weeks relaxing and preparing myself physically and mentally for childbirth.  

Boy, do plans change.  Instead, today is one of my last days of bed rest.  Beginning Monday, I'm looking forward to being more active instead of less active.  I'm not going to be trying to bring on labor or anything, but I'm really looking forward to being able to take Mico out by myself, doing some grocery shopping (with help loading and unloading the car, of course) and then cooking (I'm in the mood for homemade cookies!), and running last-minute errands before the baby arrives (we still don't have any wipes, for example).  I'm also looking forward to returning to my prenatal yoga routine, which always made me feel so much better physically.  I'll still be taking it very easy and doing my best to rest up for labor.  After all, 37 weeks is still early, even if we're no longer pre-term.  Plus, I have the added incentive of tickets to the Bob Dylan concert on October 30th... Baby Girl, hold on another week and you'll get to hear a legend perform!

It's not uncommon for pregnancy to be the source of strange dreams, especially late in pregnancy with the anticipation of the baby's arrival.  I've been having lots of dreams about our Baby Girl and childbirth recently, including one very vivid dream in which I delivered in the Alternative Birthing Center, my water had to be broken, I had a water birth, and Tyler put her on my chest (although he didn't catch her).  She was beautiful in that dream, and we even named her (but I'm not sharing what we named her!).  

Last night, I had a dream that reminded me much more of my pre-pregnancy dreams.  For some reason, my whole life, I've often dreamt of tornadoes when I feel very out of control in some area of my life.  It's as if my lack of control is represented by a natural disaster, and I can see the imminent destruction heading my direction, literally spiraling out of control.  Last night, for the first time in a long time, I had a tornado dream.  I dreamt that I was watching live television footage of a tornado that was heading towards the high-rise building that Tyler and I were in, and we had only seconds to run downstairs to safety.  When we got downstairs, we searched desperately for a safe place away from the windows.  While we were still searching for a safe haven for ourselves and my pregnant belly, the lights in the bedroom went on and I woke up.  

As I emerged from sleep, I realized, Yup, I'm definitely in a situation right now that feels out of my control.  For the past 3 weeks, I've been told repeatedly, "You can't do that," and "Stop, you shouldn't be doing that."  That's in addition to the list of things I've been told not to do, which feels like it's limiting my ability to be completely prepared for bringing Baby Girl home.  Even though I am looking forward to everything that the birth brings, apparently my subconscience is interpreting the upcoming birth as a huge, looming, swirling mass for which I'm not prepared and which may or may not leave a path of destruction.   

In some respects, there are similarities- I can't predict the timing of the birth or the details surrounding it, and I'm sure that life after the birth will leave me feeling less in control than ever before.  This pregnancy has been a lesson in faith and patience from the very beginning.  We had to wait to get pregnant (not in our control), wait for the ultrasound to confirm a uterine pregnancy (as opposed to another ectopic one, and also not in our control), wait to see if we were having a girl or boy (also not in our control), wait to see if my contractions were causing me to dilate or efface (again, not in our control), wait for fetal fibronectin test results to see if I would go into preterm labor (not in our control), wait every single day to be sure we made it through the day without progressing into actual labor (same issue- not in our control).  The waiting has paid off, and now we're waiting for the greatest out-of-our-control event yet... waiting to give birth.

Today was supposed to mark a very different milestone than it is, but hey... Some things are just not in my control, no matter how fast I run from the tornadoes.