Ponderings of a Scientist

Okay I’ve been officially “disabled” for two weeks now.  Meaning my disability insurance company (not health insurance - another thing entirely that I’ve been paying into) is paying me 80% of my salary to stay at home and wait for my baby to arrive.  You might think, oh what a sweet deal, but trust me its not.  As I’ve ranted before our country’s policies on maternity and paternity leave totally suck.  Refer below to some post I don’t feel like finding and linking to, to see those stats.  My disability insurance will consider me disabled for 8 weeks, of which they will pay me 80% of my salary for 6 weeks, starting either 1) when the baby arrives or 2) at 38 weeks gestation (for those of us with physically demanding jobs, who commute, and don’t want to go into labor at work, in front of 50 10 year olds).  In a few cases, c-section or when prescribed by the doctor, you can get a few more weeks covered - up to 11 weeks max with 9 weeks paid.  What all this means is if you can’t afford to not work (thank you Zipy for allowing me to afford to not work) you have to go back to work 8 weeks after your baby is born - or potentially sooner if you have a late baby and have been out of work since 38 weeks!  Legally, a child can’t be put into daycare until they are 8 weeks old - so I guess you go back to work with the baby!

But I shouldn’t be ranting about that, because that is not my problem.  I get to stay at home for a year once this kiddo is born, thanks to my sugar daddy Zipy.  What I need to rant about is my quickly deteriorating mental condition.  Like I said I’ve been home now for 2 weeks and in those 2 weeks I’ve had contractions almost everyday, all sorts of signs of impending labor, a terrible time sleeping at night and still no baby.  I’m thankful I had such an easy pregnancy up until 38 weeks, so I shouldn’t complain too much, but boys and girls this really sucks.  These are the three scenarios my days follow:  A) Imagine getting up everyday wanting to accomplish something, but then feeling too shitty to do much more than walk around the neighborhood, watch TV and sleep.  B) Or perhaps you feel great, you start to get things done and then you have contractions that won’t stop, you get all excited, your about to call your husband home for work and they stop.  Now your way to depressed to continue with your productive day, all you can think about is the baby or lack there of, and you go back to plan A (walk, sleep, TV, books).  C) In either case, as much as you fool yourself into thinking you have important things to accomplish, you are spending 8 hours a day home alone.  You can’t start a big project, in case the kid comes, you’re leary to leave the house alone in the car, in case the kid comes or you water breaks or you have a contraction that pins the baby’s head against the nerve that runs down your leg while your driving, causing your leg to spasm and come off the brake….
So let us all hope that today is the day; this is her due date after all (I think something like 5% of all babies are born on their due date).  On the good news front, I did find out from my midwife on Monday that I’m now even closer to giving birth (meaning the intermittent contractions of the past few weeks have been working) and she even tried to do some natural inducing, but that didn’t pan out.  However, serious progress has been made, which should lessen the length and severity of active labor.

Thank you all for reading about my trials and tribulations.  I’m sure days from now, when she is here, I will look back on these weeks and laugh.  But for now,  I will continue to share my journey with you, so you can all laugh at me!