Just a few things...

... on this lovely Friday morning.

Okay, my recent post. First of all, thank you for all your sweet comments. I appreciate them (and you) very much. Secondly, when I was talking about being disillusioned with those who don't offer themselves wholly, it was coming from a place that sometimes feels very lonely. I like to hear the nitty gritty about other people and their lives; it just feels more real to me to know that not everyone is singing and dancing under the Rainbow of Happiness. When I am feeling sad and open my Google Reader and read yet another post from Mrs. Happiness about this and that and oh-my-goodness-life-is-sooooo-grand, I can't help but feel at least a tiny bit annoyed. (That is not directed at anyone who reads this blog, by the way, so please don't think I'm talking about you.)

I certainly do censor myself in my blog, quite a bit. If I wrote publicly about every time someone pissed me off or upset me, I would have no friends. So I do get why people hold back, because I do it myself. And I guess I understand the need for a persona while writing online, but at the same time, I don't. I don't have a persona myself. In the end it just feels fake to me.

I do have plans to wind down this blog. If it were up to the OCD me, I would finish all 40+ drafts first and then close up shop, but that is so not going to happen. I'd like to invite those of you who aren't already my Facebook friends to become so, so that we can keep in touch. So send me an email at leslie@bugweb.net and we'll get that all set up.

So, that's that. And a few more things:

I am officially 29 weeks pregnant, which means next week I will be 30 weeks pregnant, which means ZOMG, I am definitely in the homestretch of this pregnancy. I am both very excited and very nervous about this. I had some noticeable Braxton-Hicks contractions for the first time yesterday - much earlier than my last pregnancy. It was very cool to be a witness to my body doing its thing to prepare for birth.

Remember this list I made once I hit the 100 day mark? Well, very little of it has been accomplished, but a whole lot of it is in progress. I distinctly remember the giant list of things to do I made when I was at about this point in my pregnancy with Charlie. Most of it didn't get done. But the world kept on going, as it tends to do.

And lastly, we were at our Bradley class last night, and I learned that 7-10 cm dilated is considered the transition stage of childbirth. I shouldn't say that I learned this because I already knew it - but I had forgotten it and had wrongfully assumed that 10 cm until pushing was considered transition.

Last night in class it hit me that I had made it to transition when I was in labor with Charlie (I was 7-8 cm dilated when my labor stalled). And being as transition is the most intense stage of childbirth, it's no wonder that things stopped there. On the other hand, I was reminded that despite its intensity, transition is usually the shortest stage of childbirth, and usually dilation occurs much more quickly than it does in active labor.

I wish I would have hung in there.

No, scratch that.

I wish I could have hung in there. I wish the pain hadn't been so excruciating. (Thanks a lot, Pitocin!) I wish I hadn't been so afraid. (But who wouldn't have been?) I wish that I had never gone in for that damn induction in the first place.

Just when I think that I have accepted what happened, there comes that anger again.

But I'm okay, really. Anger's not a bad thing. And without this experience, I wouldn't have had this awakening that I so desperately needed to have.

So, on this lovely Friday morning, I'm choosing to be grateful. And angry. Turns out you can be both at the same time.