Birdy,

Back on magnesium last night. No tattoo for you.

Let’s talk about drugs. I’ve never touched a recreational drug, not even marijuana (though many have suggested I could benefit from doing so). In all my pregnancies, I have erred on the side of caution with all substances: I have given up skincare with ingredients that actually do anything for my skin, forgone nail polish, limited my caffeine, and subjected those around me to switching to a non-aluminum deodorant. I have even had a cavity filled without anesthesia. On a spectrum of Gwyneth Paltrow to Lindsay Lohan, I’ve been pretty GOOP-approved.

Until 9 days ago.

Now, we are druggies. Now we are on so many drugs that I am losing track. Like, if Amy Winehouse and Chris Farley had a baby–that level of drugs.

Currently there are two that control my blood pressure. Then there is the evil-but-life-saving magnesium, of course. And because the mag is increasingly inhumane, I’m taking whatever they offer me to manage those symptoms: Zofran for nausea; Tylenol for the headaches; Unisom and Benadryl for sleep. Most of these I don’t even have to swallow; they can just shoot them up right into the vein. Real authentic.

When it comes time to deliver (I always hated that term, deliver, and preferred “birth,” but the designation of putting the job completely in someone else’s hands does make deliver feel appropriate now), it will not be a question of drugs or no drugs, as it was with your brothers.

Nooooo, noooo, nooo. When you are delivered it will only be a question of which drugs from the pharmaceutical wheelhouse here we get the privilege of getting pumped with. Will we get some ghastly amount of Pitocin cocktail to artificially evict you, weeks or months earlier than either of our bodies were designed to do? Will we get a lovely epidural or spinal shot (bonus: we could have both!) into my spine, as a strategic move to lessen our chances of opening door number three? Or do we get to go all the way behind door number three to a full-blown, knock-out round of general anesthesia?

It all depends on the severity of our situation at the time. Again, the name of this game is, Zero Control.

I sound bitter, and I am, but I am also grateful. Grateful that while I was galavanting in England and taking barre classes and drinking the GOOP koolade, the gifted, giving medical professionals at this world-class institution spent years in education and research and practice to, hopefully, save our lives.

Please be good on the monitors. I need a break to restore my grit for whatever these weeks bring.

And, grow, Birdy, grow.

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