Update and Questions

Today's appointment went well and we walked out really excited. The lion cub's fluid is good, he is moving well, his NST was good and my bp is holding steady. Our regular OB is back and we are thrilled to have him. We went over all the stuff that happened while he was gone and he was thankful that we held out until he returned. He decided that it was time to set a plan and a date! So unless we go into labor on our own this week, I will be induced early next week, at around 38.5 weeks. He checked my cervix and it is soft and about 1/2cm dilated which was great news to me. I was scared that he would check and it would have no changes and that would suck given the 36 hour contraction filled saga of last week. I wasn't expecting much and I know it doesn't mean much but I wanted some change to show for all the hard work. So in 7 days or less we'll meet our boy. Thank God.

Cecily tagged all of her readers to do this little exercise and it seemed fun and I need things to keep me occupied while we wait for this little boy to come. So here are the five most character-defining things that have happened to me in my life:

1. My parents divorce. I’m not sure when my parents marriage started failing, I just know that it did. I remember the years of fighting and manipulation and lying. I remember how often my dad found things to do outside our home so that he wouldn’t have to deal with my mother. I remember her doing things she knew would upset him, just because she could. I know that when he sat us down and told us he was moving out, I was relieved. The years after it were tough – money was even tighter and became part of their ongoing tug of war. It sucked. And like Cecily, I had some serious daddy issues when it came time to date. Thankfully I dealt with them early (by the time I was 21), and my relationship with my dad recovered. But those years completely shaped who I would become.
2. Developing a chronic illness while in high school. I got sick in the middle of my freshman year of high school and struggled for almost a year without a proper diagnosis. By December of my sophomore year I was so sick I missed two weeks of school. That finally got the attention of my family and my aunt clued my dad in to what it was (she had it too) and I was finally diagnosed and got the treatment I needed. It was a scary time. Ulcerative Colitis is no walk in the park. The thing that is still so surprising to me, even almost 20 years later, is how uninvolved my parents were in my care. I went to all my appointments alone. They never became involved in my care, even when I was a minor living at home. It was totally up to me to take care of my health and stay on top of my disease. When my brother developed the same disease just over a year ago, my whole family was involved and wanted to know what was going on and how he was doing on a daily basis. He certainly was sicker than I ever have been but by the time he got sick he was almost 30 and married with a child. The contrast reminds me how far my family has come since the years just after my parents divorced (when they were both so self involved).
3. Moving to DC to do an internship and staying for five years. After my sophomore year of college I took an internship 3,000 miles from home for the summer. I knew two people in DC – both of whom were my bosses – and I had no money and no real plans on where I would live. I was so naïve that I wasn’t even scared. That first job changed the whole course of my life, introducing me to people and places that would have been to far out of my world for me to even imagine. That first job led to all of the rest of the ones I’ve had in the 13 years since. After the internship, I got a volunteer gig on a campaign. My manager there got me my second job, and the boss from that job introduced me to my current boss. One little internship has kept me gainfully employed for a long time in a field I enjoy.
4. My husband. Meeting my husband, getting to know him, loving him, it has been a dream come true. He is everything I hoped to find in a mate and his love makes me a better person. I’m lucky that no one else saw him for the gem that he is before I did.
5. My desire to be a mother. I always knew I wanted to be a mother. I made choices in my life based on that desire. I took jobs that were less stressful so that when the time came I would have time to be at home with my kids. I moved back to CA so that when I had kids they would be near my family. When it was time for hubby and I to TTC, I worked at it from the very beginning. It was a long road, longer than I hoped or imagined, but there was never a day when I doubted that it was what I wanted and what I was meant to be.