Suddenly a stay-at-home mom...

...at least in the short term. I made a big decision this week. I decided to take the upcoming semester off from school, possibly the whole year.

My contractions have continued since last Friday... now that I have been able to rest a little, it seems like they only start up when I'm active, which stinks because I like to be active, but at least I don't feel like I'm constantly on the edge of going into labor. It's more of an uncomfortable thing, instead of a dangerous thing. I've seen my OB three times this week (getting a little sick of that!) and she says that some women just contract throughout the last part of their pregnancies due to an "irritable uterus", and although she can't predict when I'll deliver, it is likely to be somewhat early and I will just be very uncomfortable for the remainder of my pregnancy. She said I should stop working if I can, so that's what I'm going to do.

Okay, uncomfortable. I can deal with that. Pregnancy isn't exactly a walk in the park anyway towards the end, right? I'll take uncomfortable with my baby still inside me any day over comfortable with my baby in the NICU. I do have the terbutaline, but it doesn't work unless I take the maximum dose, so I just try to rest as much as I can to keep the contractions from starting in the first place.

(Side note: "irritable uterus". Haha. Hahahahaha. Doesn't it just make sense that even my uterus is grouchy?)

So, back to my leave of absence from school. I don't think I'm as happy about it as I should be. I should be thrilled that I can sleep in, and get the nursery done, and read my parenting books, and most of all I should be ecstatic that I get to spend more than 6 weeks with my baby. And don't get me wrong, I am, but it's hard not to feel anxious about missing so much school when I've worked so hard to get where I am. I feel sad about the fact that most likely I won't graduate with my class, and I'm going to miss my friends and just being around people, because this means I'll be alone in the apartment a lot since Tyler doesn't get home until 7:30 at night. I'll miss taking care of patients and being in clinic, because even though it's stressful (too stressful for me at this point, with these complications), I do enjoy it and it really is what I want to do with mylife. I never saw myself being a stay-at-home mom for any period of time because I've always been so focused on my career, but I know that this will be time with my baby that I'll never get back, and I don't think I will regret taking this time to be home. I definitely know that I have to do everything I can to try to keep my baby from coming early, and since it doesn't really matter exactly when I graduate and we don't need my student loan income to live, this is the right thing to do. Tyler is relieved that I won't be running around in the clinic anymore, and as he pointed out, it certainly will make things easier for him now that I'll be home! We won't need the very expensive daycare, for one thing.

I guess this is just one more lesson for me in the School of Things Don't Always Go As Planned. I've always been such a control freak about my life. I don't believe that anything is "meant to be", I've always believed that it's you and the decisions that you make that determine what happens to you, but honestly I'm starting to wonder...

I did need to learn that sometimes you have to work around things that happen rather than working to make things happen, and I have definitely learned that by now! I wonder what else I have in store for me.