bleh

Uncomfortable. Can't sit. Can't lay down. Everything gives me heartburn. My attention span is getting shorter by the day. Cranky. People annoy me.

It's hard to think or write in complete thoughts and sentences these days. Days that go a little something like this: *Alarm goes off at 7:30. Despite essentially being awake since 5 a.m. and the by now excruciating hip pain, stay in bed until about 8. Go to the bathroom. Guzzle a tall glass of water. Straighten up the living room from the night before, which included two to three hours of watching t.v. in as many different positions with as many different blankets and pillows. Open blinds and curtains. Make the bed. Decide which of three high-fiber cereals to have this morning, along with half a banana that will hopefully keep fingers from swelling into little sausages. Check e-mail. Surf the Internet for about an hour. Do the dishes. (This is tricky lately due to my enlarged abdomen. I stand in a slightly forward subtle squat position, just able to reach the faucet and twist from dirty dish to sink to drying rack. My lower back aches after 15 minutes.) Take a shower. Enjoy the sensation of hot water on my back for a few minutes before the shower curtain liner starts to billow inward, making it difficult to maneuver my belly in what is already the world's smallest tub. Scrub lower half of body in shifts, resting and catching breath in between. Try to wash feet. Repeat strategy during dry and lotion cycles. Put on "daytime comfy" clothes. Make lunch (it's 11). Finish getting ready and head out to run errands/interview pediatrician/go to a doctor's appointment/meet with single, childless friend. After three hours, manage to check one task off to-do list. Go home. Have snack while checking e-mail. Begin working on something on the computer but lay down for a nap instead after about a half-hour. Fall asleep for two hours, rolling over first time because my back hurts, second time because my hip hurts. Wake up to Baby G's hiccups. Check e-mail. Have dinner. Wash dishes...again. Settle in for primetime t.v. Take two or three tums. Perform yoga stretches and breathing during the 10 o'clock news. Go to bed around 11. Sleep soundly for about an hour and a half to two hours. Get up to go to the bathroom. Curse bedroom furniture as I waddle past and into it. Fall back asleep but wake up every half-hour thereafter to rotate. Wake up around 5 a.m. to go to the bathroom again. Have some water. Go back to bed but stay awake thinking about stuff. Scold cat for jumping into bassinet. Stay awake worrying about how cats will take to baby and vice versa. Eventually doze off. Begin again from * and repeat for about 13 more days.

How anybody works right up until their due date is beyond me. Besides going to work in sweatpants, between naps at my desk, I'd surely be snapping at my co-workers for no good reason. So I guess I shouldn't complain. And I do have good days, when I don't need an afternoon nap and I manage to get several things done. I was starting to feel impatient, reading about all these women on the message boards having their babies early, but then I read a little article about elective early inductions in the latest issue of Fit Pregnancy. Not surprisingly, turns out it's not such a great idea to induce before 39 weeks. I had no idea so many women were given the choice. I'm happy to let Baby G start his journey south when he's good and ready, so long as that doesn't take another 3-4 weeks. And at that point, induction won't really be elective.

262 days down, 18 to go...give or take

It's crazy to think Baby G will be making his grand entrance (or exit?) any day now. Of course, it's equally crazy to think it could be another month, if he decides to hang out until week 42. I thought I should do some documentation before the big day, whether or not that falls on the 9 month mark, so here's the standard profile at 37 weeks and 3 days, or a bit over two weeks from the last photo update. The top in this photo is not actually a maternity top but one of several tops I bought last summer, giving in to the extra long t-shirt trend. Is that still the fashion? I wouldn't know...

Maybe that's part of the reason why (knowing I can still technically fit a few pre-pregnancy tops), but for whatever reason, I feel a little better with these latest images. The pics from my grad school graduation last weekend left me feeling like I look more like a female gorilla than myself lately, but I guess that goes with the territory. I don't know if it's related or not, but I've also felt better in terms of general discomfort and sleep deprivation over the past few days. A solid 20 minutes or so of stretching every night, including sitting on a balance ball for awhile, seems to have helped with the hip pain at night, allowing me to sleep for more than a half-hour before rotating. I still feel sleepy at times during the day (and, despite enjoying the new Indiana Jones film more than the third in the series that we re-watched the night before, could have totally fallen asleep about halfway through the matinee yesterday), but I'm hoping this change from last week continues to the end.


It probably didn't help that we were left with half of this cake to finish after my sister-in-law, nephew, and niece went back home after the festivities. I'm not even a cake person, really, usually preferring baked items like cookies and brownies (although I do love buttercream frosting). The cake is from Sweet Maria's, a bakery in central Connecticut (and not Boston, fortunately) that makes some of the best cupcakes around (in addition to not being too dense or dry and their yummy buttercream frosting, they fill each one with a mousse filling of some sort). A cake or a few cupcakes from this place has become a staple of the family visits lately, regardless of whether or not anyone's celebrating a birthday. And the little shred of willpower I might have had pre-pregnancy has completely vanished by now.

Added to the list of unusual (for me) cravings, but consistent with the breakfast theme, is a sudden interest in IHOP. I hadn't eaten there in years, extremely disappointed with my last meal there, but for some reason I suddenly had this urge to go and gave in to that craving yesterday after the movie. I was somewhat disgusted initially but ultimately intrigued by their omelet description, which boasts a dash of their pancake batter thrown in to the egg mixture to make for an extra fluffy concoction. I couldn't taste the batter but my omelet and pancake combo was much better than I remember during my last visit there years ago. And I was full for a solid 6 or 7 hours after.

Anyway, the gorilla comparison is fitting, I think, not only physically, but temperamentally (look at her expression!). Even on my good days, I feel so cranky at times (and this coming from someone who's always been a little on the irritable side, even sans watermelon). I know people mean well, but I have to say, I'm really tired of the whole "your life is going to change forever" line, especially since it almost always comes from someone without children. Duh. Give me something I can use. Offer to bring me a home-cooked meal after my baby's born or sign me up for some maid services. I like what another friend told me recently, a gal with a now four-year old daughter. She said I'll never get everything done in time, I'll never be ready to have this baby, but life will continue. And with that wisdom, I've started prioritizing my to-do list by tackling first the things that freak me out most when I consider the possibility of going into labor in the next hour.

full term

According to my baby ticker, the bun in my oven's been cookin' for 37 weeks as of today, which means I'm officially considered "full term." Which means if I went into labor this afternoon, Baby G would not be considered premature. Which means I should probably try to get more than one or two things done each day from my long list of pre-baby tasks. Actually, we've made a lot of progress in the past few weeks, but even when I have a productive day, I lay in bed (when I wake up at about 5 a.m. every morning, like clockwork) thinking about all the things I still want to get done, about how if I went into labor the next day I'd be freaking out about x, y, and z still being on that list! I know it's unrealistic to think that I'll get to everything, especially considering much of what I'd like to do is not necessarily baby-related but in anticipation of several weeks, perhaps months, of baby-related craziness that will keep me from getting certain things done in time for the fall semester, for example.

Having officially finished the business of the spring semester last weekend, I'm essentially already on (unpaid) maternity leave for the summer. So in theory I have lots of time every day to get stuff done. But having a lot of unstructured time to work on a list of non-time-specific (well, other than that June 12th due date) tasks is tricky for me. On top of that, the fatigue of the first trimester has returned. It's not quite as consistently bad as it was those first few months, but there have been many days when, despite being in bed for 9-10 hours, I wanted to lay down for a nap by about 10:30 in the morning. Granted, those 9-10 hours are not exactly quality sleep. I tend to sleep pretty well until the first time I have to get up to use the bathroom, usually 2 to 3 hours after I go to bed. I'm so tired when I wake up the first time that I have no problem getting back to sleep (and the thought of feeding an infant in this sleepy state seems impossible), but the past few weeks I've spent the next 3 to 4 hours switching sides every half-hour or so due to some pretty intense hip pain. Keeping in mind, of course, that it takes me several minutes and a few low moans and grunts to flip from one side to the other; needless to say, I'm awake for most of these rotations. Something wakes me up around 5 every morning - I eventually notice Baby G squirming around, but I'm not sure if this is what wakes me up. It could be the birds chirping outside (why do they chirp so vigorously right before the sun rises?). At any rate, by the time I'm almost fully awake, I realize I have to go to the bathroom again, and I'm parched, and by the time I get back to bed, in a somewhat comfortable position, I'm wide awake, staring at the cracked paint in the ceiling that I'm just certain will fall right into an unsuspecting Baby G's mouth one day, post-partum. The other night the hip pain was so bad I decided to try the couch for a bit. It was like heaven (the cushions allowing me to sort of lean back without rolling over completely) for about an hour and a half until my bottom hip started hurting. Turns out getting up and flipping over on a couch is even more tedious than rolling over in bed with a uterus that feels like a sack of potatoes hanging on to my front by a couple of threads attached to my lower back. This must happen for a reason. I can't imagine having to feed a newborn on top of all this, but the sleep deprivation must be practice on some level, right?

I've also had very specific cravings lately, much more so than during the first trimester. Nothing too unusual (although I was thinking how tasty pickles seem to be lately), but very specific and sudden. A frosty and fries from Wendy's, for example, or Honey Smacks cereal. I haven't given in to either, but I have indulged in my sudden obsession with Quizno's a few times. I think it's because I miss sandwiches with cold cuts and since they toast their sandwiches (which the nutritionist told me was sufficient to kill any Listeria bacteria that might be lingering there) I feel pretty safe indulging in an oven-roasted turkey and cheddar or turkey swiss ranch sub.

What else is new? I can no longer wear my ring at all, not even first thing in the morning, when I'm usually least puffy. I'm wearing a "friendship ring" instead, which used to slide right off my ring finger. Most of my shoes still fit, although I do have one pair of black ballet flats that are awfully snug. Have my feet grown or are they just temporarily swollen? Time will tell, I guess.

Anyway, all that said, I'm not feeling too anxious to have this baby before he's due. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help but read the What To Expect message boards from time to time, especially now that some "June Mommies" are having their babies a bit early. I'm obsessed with birth stories and pictures of newborns. But so many women seem to post about how they're 37, 38 weeks along and making no progress as of their latest doctor appointments. Yeah, I'm getting to that point of feeling physically ready to not be pregnant anymore, but I can't see feeling too impatient until I'm overdue, or 39 to 40 weeks, at least. Maybe if I was still working full-time, as I'm sure many of these women are, I'd feel differently, anxious for my maternity leave to kick in. As it is, I'm not ready just yet. And on that note, back to that to-do list...

my how you've shrunk

The past couple of days I've been going through the baby clothes we've received as gifts (and let me tell you, our friends and family have been very generous!) and today got around to washing some stuff and putting it all away in our recently assembled dresser/changing table combo. We have a lot of 0-3 month items, some of which look impossibly tiny to me as it is, and even some "newborn" outfits (Carter, at least, has a "newborn" and 0-3 month categories, the former being for babies between 5 and 8 pounds). Unless I go into labor early, I'll be really surprised if we have a baby under 7 or 8 pounds, just based on my stature and our combined family histories (I was 8 pounds, the father was well over 9, as were my brother's two kids).

So imagine my dismay when I started pulling clothes out of the dryer looking even smaller! And I'd washed them on cool and dried them on medium! I have a few duplicate outfits, so I was able to compare the washed version with the unwashed version. Granted, they probably weren't exactly the same size to begin with, but look how much smaller the outfits on the left are!




At any rate, the clothes sorting and washing process was something I'd really been looking forward to as I've spent the past few weeks reluctantly putting the finishing touches on the last, lingering requirements for graduation this weekend. But I have to admit, I felt incredibly overwhelmed by it all when I dove in over the weekend. I felt better today, though, opening the drawer a few times this afternoon to stare at the collection of tiny little outfits. Onesies and PJs with feet...they get me every time.

8 months

That's more like it (see post below, if you haven't already read it). Here's the official 8-month belly pic. I thought it might be nice to take this month's photo in the same top I wore last month (that and my wardrobe's pretty limited these days). Sometimes I feel like I've expanded greatly in the past four weeks and other times not so much. Outside response is like that, too, with some people telling me I look "small" (I'm pretty sure they just mean in the belly region) for eight months and others warning me about the 9-pounder I'm surely carrying. Here's a close-up:


Notice in the top photo how I'm not wearing my ring? That's because although I can still usually get it on first thing in the morning, I can hardly get it off by the end of the day. I haven't experienced too much swelling, so I guess I shouldn't complain, but I couldn't help but notice how the skin around my ankles was ever so slightly bulging out over my socks last night. It wasn't full-on cankles but it was enough to make me cry just a little.

What else is new? Not much. Baby G seems to be back to the morning workouts, while he's a little less active in the evenings lately. Mixing it up, as usual. He seems to have the hiccups at some point almost every day, usually if I haven't eaten in awhile (i.e. more than 3 hours ago), although I'm not sure if this is related or just coincidence. Speaking of food, I keep forgetting that I can't eat as much in one sitting as I usually would, unless, of course, I want to feel miserably stuffed for the next several hours. I'm still craving sweets in a bad way. And breakfast foods. And ice cream. I could just alternate breakfast and dessert several times a day and be quite content.

I've been starting to fantasize a bit about life after pregnancy, which usually involves a margarita from this place. That and a good, sweaty workout of some sort. I haven't missed intense exercise as much as I thought I would (even if I wasn't losing weight because of it, I usually felt, pre-pregnancy, that I needed to work out at least every 3 days or so to relieve stress, if nothing else), but I am looking forward to dusting off my exercise step or going for a nice jog...eventually, of course. It's funny how you kind of forget you're not going to be pregnant forever. Unless, of course, you're married to Jim Bob.

135 months

I don't even know what to write about this. I guess I'm a little shocked that people still have enough children to make up two baseball teams. I just can't imagine...on so many levels!

book smarts

Since the semester finally wound down a few weeks ago the baby's co-creator and I have been hitting the books, so to speak, catching up on the free classes offered by the hospital where we'll labor and deliver, and a two-weekend intensive class through a maternity center designed to prepare us as best as possible for a natural childbirth. The hospital offers a half-dozen classes, on the logistics of getting ready for the hospital stay (what to pack, when to call, etc.), the stages of labor and birth, breastfeeding basics, infant care & behavior, etc. We attended the latter class today, which involved looking at pictures of "normal" newborn appearance (cone-shaped heads, blue extremities, baby acne, etc.), watching a video, the content of which already kind of escapes me because I was so transfixed by the babies they showed from only days old to 3-6 months or so, and a sponge bath performed on a newborn. It just so happened that the newborn belonged to a couple in the labor & birth class we took a couple of weeks ago. It still amazes me that one day you have a nice, round belly, and the next you have this fully formed, perfect little person...

Anyway, I was pretty amazed the new parents were so generous with their little one, letting us watch as she received only the second sponge bath of her life. Especially considering how obnoxious one of the audience members was, interrupting the nurse, talking loudly even when the baby started fussing, standing a little too close to the bassinet, etc. This particular couple arrived 30 minutes late and interjected one crazy pregnancy or parenting myth or old wives tale after another. I realize having a baby is a huge, overwhelming feat but most women, by the time they're 7+ months pregnant, as she was, have some of the basics down, at least in theory.

So we're feeling a little "classed out", so to speak, at least as far as the hospital workshops are considered, and we made it to most of them, anyway. Our weekend intensive class, on the other hand, I really enjoyed and look forward to its conclusion this Sunday. The first day flew by! Like the shorter classes we've taken at the hospital, this one was accompanied by various props, including a couple of baby dolls, a plush pelvis, and even a knitted uterus with a removable vagina. I don't know what it is about those dolls, but every time an instructor pushes one out through the plush pelvis, my partner and I can hardly keep ourselves from laughing out loud. Especially the first time, when the instructor was demonstrating how babies have this incredible ability to raise their head up as they wriggle their shoulders out (and then of course, their necks go back to their wobbly states for the next three months). We were sitting at the opposite end of the table, this baby doll looking straight at us, its body still fully contained in the imaginary uterus represented by the instructor's hands. It was like the baby doll was about to take flight, right over the table and into our laps. But I digress...before I knew it, we were concluding the more recent, day-long class with yet another birth video. As usual, I managed to keep it together for most of the footage, until the moment the baby was actually born. Gets me every time. If I'm not laughing inappropriately, then I'm the only one in the room crying.

Anyway, I'll be back this weekend (or so) with an updated (8 months!) belly pic...

eating chocolate as I blog...

...about this recent study from Yale on the relationship between eating chocolate (particularly dark chocolate, like the 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips I'm enjoying as I type) and a decreased risk of developing preeclampsia. Excellent. The article does conclude by warning that this doesn't mean you can eat all the chocolate you desire, what with excess sweets leading to weight gain and the like, so I guess I should stop while I'm ahead but it's good to know that my daily fix might actually be a good thing.

In other news, we had our usual check-up this morning and scheduled the rest of our appointments (going to weekly visits after our 36 week appointment in a couple of weeks) through the week after my due date (just in case...if I haven't gone into labor on my own at that point, the doctor will likely recommend scheduling an induction by about June 22nd). That's just crazy! And Baby G seems to be progressing according to schedule. The doctor again felt pretty confident he was head-down based on external palpation. He was really active throughout the appointment. Just when I think he's got a pattern down, he mixes things up. So we're lucky to get any "baby belly time," as I like to call it, first thing in the morning this past week or so, but he makes up for it all afternoon and evening. Maybe this means he's not a morning person, sleeping in late after he makes his grand entrance. Wishful thinking, you say??

All things considered, I'm still feeling pretty good. I've definitely felt more emotional lately; sometimes, I'm not even sure why I'm crying. I go through all of the potential reasons in the little bit of my brain that's still functioning rationally but nothing seems to warrant the kind of sobbing I'm doing at the time. I've had a cold this week so my already pretty modified exercise routine has taken a back seat. The third trimester modifications for my yoga routine pretty much put me to sleep, but it still helps with the hip and lower back pain, in particular. My blood pressure has been higher than it had been the past couple of visits but the doctor reassured me today that it's still in the normal range. And my weight gain has not exactly slowed, as they say it usually does in the third trimester. According to my scale at home, I'd only gained about a pound since my last appointment two weeks ago. But according to their scale, I've gained five pounds! I find that hard to believe, since I find it difficult to eat a full meal without suffering the consequences of the worst heartburn I've ever had and a sleepless night. On the other hand, we were the lucky recipients of Haagen-Dazs' viral marketing scheme, which delivered three pints of ice cream, one pint of frozen yogurt, and four "snack-size" ice cream bars to our door last week. Unfortunately, I'm not at all lactose-intolerant.

midnight train to George

Being pregnant introduces an entirely new dynamic to most relationships, I've found. And I'm anticipating the summer months will bring even more changes and adjustments. With the primary partner (or DH, i.e. "dear husband" as the message boards seem to favor), I think it's easy to forget that you're two parts of a team. For me at least, I think this is because so much of the pregnancy rests on the woman's shoulders, or rather, bladder, pelvis, tailbone, etc. The love I feel for this wriggling little creature in my belly is already pretty intense, and I haven't even met him yet. I think sometimes I fear I won't be able to protect him as fully as I'd like once he's outside the protective walls of my uterus. I know that sounds ridiculous, but if you've ever been pregnant before, I'm sure you can relate. So it's not surprising that in my heightened emotional state, sometimes I can be made to feel like simply the carrier for this child that will fulfill other relationships to other people. The non-pregnant partner, I suppose, must have a tough time negotiating and mediating between his pregnant counterpart's possibly unjustified fears and the desires, wants, and needs of others.

But there's nothing like a short business trip to reset the relationship a bit. With the "DH" gone last night, I honestly thought I'd sleep better, as awful as that might sound, having the entire bed and collection of pillows to myself, and no one to worry about waking up the couple of times I got up to use the bathroom or grunt as I try to roll my pregnant belly over to the other side because my hip bone feels like it's popping out of its socket. I went to bed around 11, but didn't fall asleep until after 1 a.m., only to wake up less than five hours later. I stayed on my side of the bed and only used the one pillow I usually keep tucked between my knees and under my belly. I felt anxious in that big bed all alone.


And earlier in the evening, I made the mistake of listening to the collection of songs we put together as a memento for our wedding guests three years ago. We've been doing a lot of spring cleaning lately and I came across a couple of extras we had in a pile of other CDs. It's a pretty romantic collection to begin with; add nearly eight months of pregnancy on top of that and you can imagine the tears welling up in my eyes not 30 seconds into the first track. As a kind of comic relief, though, I noticed while reading the list of songs on the paper insert we included, that there was a minor typo on track 6 for Gladys Knight's Midnight Train to George...I mean, Georgia. I think that CD will be a good one to listen to from time to time over the next few months.

Needless to say, I look forward to sharing the bed again tonight, and the back rub that's become pretty standard each morning as we ignore our hungry cats a few minutes longer.