After being raised in Middle America, my husband's job brought me back to Southern California, the place of my birth ... just in time to conceive my own little one.
So we went for our 37 week appointment yesterday morning. Apparently, they don't normally "check you" until 38 weeks but when I mentioned that I've had a few painful contractions, they decided to take a look and see what's going on down there. Turns out I'm just barely dilated (1.5cm) and "thinly" effaced. The baby's head is "low," and a certain plug apparently came out when no one was looking. My Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy claims that labor/delivery can occur as soon as hours after the loss of this plug but may also wait "a week or longer." I wish the editors of the book had stopped to explain exactly how much time is meant by "or longer!"
We're convinced it'll be at least another week and probably two before anything substantial happens. I know a lot of women spend that much time waiting at 3cm dilation. But either way, things have become much more real. Neither of us could fall asleep last night and we finally pulled ourselves out of bed around 10:30 and sat up until after midnight. I had painless but strong contractions coming fairly regularly and even after falling asleep, a couple painful ones came along and woke me up. I'd really better wash some of Little Bird's things so she'll have clean clothes and blankets when the time comes.
In the meantime, my husband thought this comic strip was pretty hilarious. (You apparently need to read the mouse-over comment (something about pregnant women playing too many violent video games) to make sense of it. Good thing my video gaming is limited to Super Mario World!)
I don't know if people are a) blind, b) trying to be nice, or c) have completely forgotten how I looked before pregnancy, but when I show people how swollen my feet have become lately, the inevitable response is, "Oh, I guess I can kind of see what you mean, but it really doesn't look that bad."
What the heck? Here's a picture of my feet two weeks before I became pregnant:
Now, here they are as of five minutes ago:
My feet are marshmallows or, as a good friend told me today, like Tempur-Pedic mattresses. I take my flip-flops off and the indentation of the straps stays in place. You can't see the bones any more and my ankles look like tree stumps coming out of the bottom of skirts. I lay on the couch at night with three pillows propping my feet up and poor Craig brings me books and water and anything else I might have a hankering for. He's been a truly supportive and loving spouse.
But please, stop telling me you can't see anything wrong with my feet and that I don't "look like I've gained 35 lbs." Out of respect for my old self, please acknowledge that I do indeed look different. Otherwise, all those hours at the gym and all those cases of Slim Fast were for naught.
Preparing for baby has made Craig realize that maybe he should have taken that woodworking class in high school after all. A couple months ago, a friend of mine asked me if Craig would want to build a toy box as a gift to our little girl. It'd never occurred to me before but it seemed like an excellent idea. So I asked Craig at dinner that night if he'd like to. At first, he was hesitant. "Yeah," he said. "That'd be cool." But within an hour he was talking about what he'd like to do with the toy box and that night he dragged me along to Home Depot with him to look at lumber, hinges, and circular saws.
Well, about that time, ourmold issue reared its ugly head and we became preoccupied with moving furniture and emptying cupboards for the various construction and "deconstruction" crews. Then we were preoccupied with restoring furniture and cupboards. In the meantime, another friend gave us an old rocking chair her grandfather had made years ago and still other friends handed down an old diaper changing table. When we assembled all the baby furniture together, it ranged from unfinished pine to dark cherry to white. So we bought stain for some things and white spray paint for others and got to work sanding, painting, staining, and constructing a toy box. Our sun porch was requisitioned as a temporary workshop, as you can see in the photo, and the windows and door leading out there were kept firmly shut to keep out fumes. Craig ran into problems with top coats and had to start over again on a few pieces, but all in all, everything came out really beautifully. And today he'll apply the top coat to the final piece, the rocking chair. Meanwhile, I'll be busy moving cardboard boxes of medicine and toys out of the closet and into the new toy box and bathroom cabinet respectively. When the nursery is more complete (i.e., the rocking chair and toy box are put in their right places and the stroller has been folded up and put away), I'll post an updated picture. Until then, this is our nursery:
I really like how the brown satin curtains look with the pink walls and brown shag rug. The seashell cabinet actually will be going back to my parents' house in Middle America come July, but until then (and until our dresser comes to us from Middle America), it houses Little Bird's clothes and provides a nice place to display the diaper cake I got at the baby shower. The bird lamp is a nice touch that a friend happened to stumble upon and the white table is an old wedding present that my husband took a can of spray paint to. I've been practicing folding and opening the stroller and off to the far right side, you can catch a glimpse of the Moses basket my grandparents bought us--it'll be Little Bird's bed until her crib arrives.
All in all, things are pretty much ready. Once I pick up a value pack of newborn diapers, I'll be all set. And, given the size of my feet these days, the sooner the better!
It's been a long time since I've been heard splashing around on here. That's due in large part to having been blessed with a sudden and steady stream of actual money-making assignments. But unfortunately it's also due to the fact that this whole pregnancy thing is not quite as much fun as it once was. I don't like complaining too much, but it's been tough. I've had backaches every evening, I can't fit rings on my fingers any more, I can't fit even basic sandals onto my feet, my whole skeleton needs popped back into place anytime I stand up from sitting or laying, and painful contractions wrap around my body and wake me at odd times of the night.
The other night, I said to Craig, "And this is a healthy, normal pregnancy."
He said, "Just imagine how much worse it can be. Imagine women who have complications and how it must feel to them."
"No," I said. "I don't care about them. Don't belittle my misery."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"That's right, you're sorry," I said, fluffing my pillows and arranging the whole back/belly/knee support system we worked out months ago.
We had our 36 week appointment yesterday morning. I'd really been looking forward to this appointment as the "beginning of the end," so to speak. And it was a good and exciting appointment. But. In the two weeks since I last saw my doctor, I've gained 6 lbs of "water weight." (So yeah, all those green and fruit salads, those non-fat yogurt smoothies, passing up on that maple cream-filled long john doughnut at Bible Study Tuesday morning--it was all totally worth it. I so went straight from my doctor's office to McDonald's!)
Now I know if I were you reading this, I'd be thinking, "Yeah. Right. That's all water weight." In fact, I'm kind of thinking that anyway. But I do know that I have so much water swelling me up that it is actually painful to type this or to do much of anything with my fingers. My feet are so swollen, only my flip-flops fit any more and every time I look at them, I'm reminded of that scene in Pure Luck where Martin Short is stung by that bee. Worse, my doctor told me I need to start sleeping in a semi-sitting position to keep my face from swelling in a similar manner. Then she proceeded to tell us (and she made a point of looking at my husband as she did so) that after labor all the additional blood flowing through my body that once went to the placenta will have nowhere to go and so will swell me up even more for as long as a week, potentially making me "appear almost deformed."
Well, so last night I did. I changed my sleeping position. Craig built up a pile of 5 pillows for me, taking care to create a nice sloping surface so I wouldn't wake up with a kink in my neck. At first I "sat" there for an hour or so wondering how this was going to work. Then I decided I could "recline" on my mountain of pillows on my side and be much more comfortable. And it was much more comfortable! I may just always sleep that way from here on out. Or not. We'll see what new "side effects" come up between now and next week that may require yet another sleep position.
I keep needing to remind myself that, as close as I am, I still have one week before reaching "full term" and that even after I do reach that magical point in the pregnancy, I have a month to wait before "the due date." I've stocked our pantry with clear liquid foods like Jell-O and chicken broth, I've washed and laid out the "going home"outfit for Little Bird, I've hung nursery drapes and vacuumed out the new nursery rug, I've made a list of things to pack for the hospital. I am, in short, ready. When I had three false contractions in half an hour last night, I'll admit I was getting excited rather than concerned.
Apparently, my husband feels the same way. Last night, as I lay in bed counting numbers to fall asleep, I felt his hand reach out and hit gently against my belly. Since we were facing each other, I just assumed he'd accidentally stretched out and hit me. But no. Soon enough, a volley of light punches were falling on my belly and I had to wake him up from some sort of dream state and tell him he was punching me. He doesn't remember what he was dreaming, but I'm pretty certain it was something along the lines of, "Get out of there already! We can't take this any more!"
At a full 34 weeks along (and starting week 35, which is really how I prefer to look it), I'm starting to lose that whole "pregnancy glow." Just a few days ago, Craig's boss complimented me on how "together" I looked. How I lacked that whole "mommy martyr" look her own friends typically develop around 9 months of pregnancy. I was proud of myself. Then, not an hour later, my parents flew into town and I was whisked away on a weekend full of ultrasounds, furniture shopping, gelato, crepes, window shopping, glass-chapel viewing, drape hanging, and shower attending (my friends made and decorated the cake in this picture, by the way--I'm impressed). I don't feel quite so glowing any more. In fact, I feel flat out pooped. My ankles have swelled to the size of my calves and I saw the pictures taken of me at the shower--let's just say skinny non-mom friends are not the people you want to be standing next to for photo shoots when you're a full 34 (going on 35) weeks pregnant.
I'm done with the whole "belly picture" thing, in case you've been wondering. But here's a candid shot someone snapped of me at the shower, just so you can see exactly how much extra weight I'm lugging around.
The good news? After doing an unplanned ultrasound (my doctor's awesome; she met my parents and said, "let's do an ultrasound") and measuring my fundal height, I was told I have more amniotic fluid than most pregnant women--which, to me, means a lot of my extra weight is all fluid. The bad news? I've seen my thighs. I know better.
Sorry it's been so long, everyone! Midway through last week I realized May was (sort of) here and my nesting instincts went into overdrive. Poor Craig spent his weekend sanding, painting, and staining numerous pieces of baby furniture and attending our final Lamaze class with me. Meanwhile, freelance projects have slowly been building up, my sleep schedule is as erratic as ever (let's just say I went to sleep at midnight, woke up this morning at 5, collapsed into sleep again at 8, and just woke up a few minutes ago at 10:30), and I've been trying to finalize the upcoming June newsletter for my church (one of my "extracurricular" activities). Our nursery is nearly ready and as soon as it is, I promise to post some photos.
I mentioned in my last post how stressed Craig is about the looming due date.What I didn't mention is how sweetly thrilled he's been with the whole pregnancy process. Last night, Little Bird nearly kicked her foot clear through my skin and Craig (who managed to see it all happen) couldn't stop rubbing and talking to my belly for half an hour, even though it was 11:30pm and we had an early alarm set. But the most telling sign that Craig loves my being pregnant? Friday, he asked if he could take me on a date to see the absolute worst-reviewed movie in theaters right now: "The Back-Up Plan," starring J Lo of all people! It's all about a woman desperate for children who gets artificially inseminated only to meet "the man of her dreams" not half an hour later, falls in love, struggles with how to tell him she's pregnant without scaring him off, struggles to keep him through the hormones of pregnancy, and then (because this is after all a Romantic Comedy) struggles to make a very climactic scene reconciling with him as the baby is about to push its way out of her. It has bad reviews for a reason, but hey, we're pregnant and, having experienced the tolls pregnancy can have on a relationship, enjoyed it well enough. It was a date, after all. And, for Craig, it was a much needed break from nursery prep work.
