NSTs are a good thing right?

I know the daily monitoring is good and I should be grateful that they are making sure the baby is doing well. But honestly, I hate it. Lying in bed all day is hard enough, but it's even harder to do so and stay relatively still for 30 minutes. It wouldn't be so bad, except that (like lots of pregnant women) I do tend to have contractions when my bladder is full. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I pee before they hook me up to the monitors, almost every time about halfway through I feel like my bladder is going to explode. And so I'll have a contraction or two, and that means I have to stay on the monitor longer. So far none of my contractions have been worrisome, it always stops when I get up to pee. Another annoying thing is that since dehydration can also cause contractions sometimes the nurses tell me to try and drink some water. HAHA! "That's never the problem" I would like to yell. Sometimes I'm up to pee every 20 minutes or so.

I'm sooooo glad the Bumblebee is still inside and I truly hope he stays there a while longer, but in all honesty I'm looking forward to the day he comes out and I get to not be pregnant any longer. I loved being pregnant with my daughter. It was easy, I felt pretty good, and I was excited. Until the 30 week mark when I ended up in the hospital. After that experience, plus several miscarriages, and failed IVFs (and other attempts to get pregnant), the early part of this pregnancy was certainly marked by some concern and worry. But really overall, I felt good, I was healthy, and I was excited. So, despite the history, I still felt pretty positive about the experience of walking around pregnant (or at least the experience once you get past those early ultrasounds). But now things have changed. This has ruined it for me.

Used to be that I couldn't relate to women who complained about being pregnant (and I'm not talking about extreme cases of severe complications or previous loss, but average women who just didn't feel good). I know several friends and relatives who had normal pregnancies with happy outcomes who did not enjoy being pregnant. And while my situation is more extreme, I get it now. I can see how someone can want the pregnancy and want the baby, but not like BEING pregnant. I wish I didn't get it, but I do. Because pregnancy has been ruined for me. I missed out on so much with my daughter being premature. I'm still jealous of baby showers, because while my friends held mine later on for me, it wasn't the same. It was rescheduled for over a month after my daughter was born and well over half of my friends couldn't come to the rescheduled party. I didn't get to go there with a big belly and a cute maternity outfit on. And because she was a preemie and on a monitor and it was cold and flu season, I couldn't even bring my daughter with me.

And now I'm missing out on more stuff. Of course being away from husband and daughter is the worse part, but again I'm missing out on all the normal baby prep stuff. While I'm grateful that my in-laws have been here alot to help my husband and for all the things they have done around the house, I'm also a bit sad about some of the things they've done. My in-laws cleaned out the nursery for us. My mom has washed blankets and crib sheets. Other people are getting my house and my nursery ready. And while I know there will be lots more to do in the nursery and around the house once I get home, it just sort of bothers me that once again I'm missing out on the preparations. And, while I'm so grateful for the comments left here and the emails and messages on facebook. I'm sad that I'm missing out (again!) on the last couple of months of pregnancy. I certainly didn't expect a shower for my second baby, but I would have liked to have gotten the chance to wear some of the cute maternity clothes that I bought (for the last time and this time) that I never got big enough to wear. I would have liked to have walked around with a belly so big that everyone asked me questions about how soon and am I ready. I would have liked to have just once experienced the growing anticipation and excitement as the weeks wound down to a due date, rather than fear and dread that the baby will arrive too soon and/or that there will be some type of complication for the baby or even me. In short I would like to have been able to enjoy and celebrate this time, rather than being miserable with boredom, fear, and the uncomfortableness of living in bed for so long.

I hate feeling this way, but it's the truth. I know that in at most another 5 weeks I will very likely be a mom to 2 children and I know how incredibly fortunate that makes me. I truly know how lucky I am, but at the same time I do feel robbed of an awful lot.