I Can See It From Here

My due date, you know. February 11th. Exactly FOUR WEEKS from today. Now would be the appropriate time to say "Begin the Countdown!" but in truth that started about two weeks ago. Am I excited? Oh hell yes! Am I nervous? No, not so much.

But I do have a couple of niggling concerns.

#1) If my water doesn't break, how will I know when I've begun labour? I've heard that it feels similar to bowel cramping, so if that's true then how will I know the difference?

#2) I've heard that for the first week or two, new parents (specially moms) don't want to deal with any phone calls or neighbours, regardless of the reason. If that's the case, and that's me, how do I diplomatically say, "I'm sorry, I don't want to talk to you or anyone right now. Call me back in about a month."

I used to be concerned I wouldn't hear her crying since I was/am typically a heavy sleeper. I've been told by so many of my new-mom friends that this goes away, and your sleeping patterns change so much that you will wake up all the time and possibly get out of bed to make sure she's still breathing. Since I had a little "incident" at Mamalas the other week, which I did not post about then but will now, I am quite convinced I will not sleep through her night cries and be able to get up and feed her or cuddle her or change her, or whatever.

Okay so now the incident I referred to... Well if you're a fairly regular reader, then you will know of my aversion to spiders. Particularly Huntsman. (Just as a warning, you may not want to click that link if you're at all squeamish about looking at spiders, particularly big ones) For the record, and I think I have mentioned this before, Huntsman are not venemous and therefore will not kill you if bitten. But I have heard their bite feels like someone's just punched the ever living crap out of you. Owwie.

Okay but I digress here. Some of you have seen some of the spiders we have around our house, and they're a bit further down on the right on my FlickR badge if you'd like to have a look. Only one in the spider set is a Huntsman and it's a baby, so it's going to be a wee bit hard to describe just how big the one I'm going to tell you about, was.

Take a look at the palm of your hand. If you're an adult of average size, then it's legs would have dangled OVER your palm and on your fingers. I hope you can appreciate the size of which I'm talking about, even though if you're not familiar with them, you may very well be having a hard time with that. Trust me when I say I am not exaggerating.

Now... Knowing how big that spider was, I shall continue with my story. This happened a couple of weeks back when I headed south to visit Mamala one of the weeks I had my antenatal appointment at the hospital. Mamala had given up her bed to me, and was sleeping on the single spare bed in the spare room (she's so nice!). Because it was so stinking hot that night (at least to me) I chose to sleep without any covers on, which is very normal for me these days.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I woke up around 130am after feeling what sort of felt like a very strong wind across my feet. My eyes snapped open, I flicked on the light and I stared at the bottom of my bed, and at my feet and tried to wrap my brain around the fact that while it may have felt like a strong wind across my feet, or perhaps even blowing the sheets across my feet, somewhere in my head I knew MUCH differently.

Panic did not yet set in, but I knew instinctively what it was. Yes, it was the aforementioned LARGE spider. No, it was not down near my feet at the bottom of the bed, but I knew it was down there somewhere. My heart was pounding, my limbs were a little shaky and I leaped out of the bed (after carefully checking the floor and walls beside me to make sure said monster was not there) and stood at the head of the bed, staring down at the end of the bed, as though by some miracle I would grow xray vision and be able to see through sheets. And a mattress.

Since this didn't happen, I leaned slightly forward, ever so slightly, to peek around the bottom edge of the bed. And then I stood bolt upright for I had seen it. Not all of it, mind you. Just the tips of it's legs. But it was there, on the edge of the bed and IT HAD CRAWLED ON ME.

I needed to make my escape! But how? There were only two ways out of her room and one of them involved walking past the monster clinging to the edge of the bed. The other involved walking (or sprinting!) across the bed and onto the floor on the opposite side of the room. I wasn't sure I wanted to do that because any movement I would make, might very well cause The Beast to leap onto the floor and run in my direction (because that's my luck), or, turn and run UP ONTO the bed where I would have been standing. I also knew that if I chose to run across the bed, though thankfully with my leg span it would have been one step onto the mattress and one step onto the floor, even though she's got a queen sized bed, then I might have ended up coming down hard on the floor, thus waking Mamala up, and scaring the (literal) crap out of Nanna who lives below on the ground floor.

During all of this thought, maybe half a minute passed and I knew the longer I stood there, the more chance I had of The Beast crawling up toward me. Or onto the floor and then around toward me. (Huntsman run incredibly fast as a general rule and will also jump a little) I had little choice. I sprung across the bed (not a bad feat when you're 8 months pregnant) and lightly landed on the floor on the opposite side of the room so I didn't disturb anyone. I should mention at this point, I have not screamed. (I'm very brave you see)

I got to the door, actually just outside it, and it was a battle of wills against myself: Turn around! No for gods sake don't turn around, you don't want to know! TURN AROUND! NO! I ignored the angel telling me not to turn around, and instead listened to the devil who was cackling gleefully on my left. I turned around, slowly.

And sucked in a giant gobful of air which created a minor vacuum in the immediate vicinity where I was standing. There it was, ladies and gentlemen. On the end edge of Mamala's bed, on the quilt, hanging out in all of it's magnificently huge glory, staring at me. It's entirely probable that this spider was as terrified of me as I was of it. Moreso probably, because I'm six feet tall and it's what, half a centimeter tall?

Anyway, so I woke up Mamala and made her come and kill it for me. (Remember my previous braveness? It was a sham. A SHAM!) I spent the rest of the night with the light on and waking up every hour to make sure I didn't have another one on or near me. The good thing about Huntsman is that they're not terribly social spiders, so they do not generally roam around in small groups. This means that it's very rare to have more than one in your house at any given time - this is a GOOD THING.

Okay, so! This is why I am of the firm belief that I will no longer have any problems waking up to hear my baby fussing or crying. If I can wake up to a light spider touch, then I will certainly wake up to a screaming human. I am no longer worried of that. Maybe I should be greatful that The Beast chose to teach me that lesson.

You know what else though? I'm going to miss being pregnant. As much as I want my little demonic parasite here with me, I'm really going to miss having her inside me and watching her bounce and jiggle and wrestle with my organs until she got comfortable. I'm going to miss the hunger pains and dizziness she used to cause me if I didn't eat every couple of hours. I'm going to miss her hiccuping and the way she responds to D's singing and his conversation. In as little as four weeks, and as much as six weeks, we will have her here with us, drastically changing and improving our lives.

Of course, there are some things I'm not going to miss, and actually will be quite happy they're done with.

I'm not going to miss my swollen feet. (My brother lovingly refers to them now as "squish bags") I'm not going to miss peering over the watermelon to tearfully stare at the fat little piglets attached to my bubbled up feet and ankles.

I'm not going to miss the pelvic aches and pain. Oh dear lord no I AM NOT!

I'm not going to miss struggling to get up off the couch from a horizontal position; or needing help to get up off the floor when I so stupidly think how wonderful it would be to lay down and rest on it. (You'd be surprised how often I choose the floor over the couch or bed, particularly at Mamalas)

I am not going to miss the leg cramps! Oh my god those are annoying. To wake up in the middle of the night with a severe charlie horse gripping your calf is not a pleasant experience! And it's infinitely WORSE when it's in both legs at the same time!

I'm so not going to miss the itchy skin and wickedly itchy boobs/nipples. I'm so sick and tired of constantly scratching them and not being able to find very much in the way of relief.

But at the same time, as much as I'm not going to miss all of that stuff, I think somewhere inside me, in a weird way, I am going to miss it. These things have been symbolic in a pregnancy I was so positive I would never experience, and yet here I am, experiencing it to the fullest. After all, taking the good with the bad is all part of it, isn't it?