The 8th Nerve

I was doing paperwork at the computer at work on Monday when I looked down and realized that my belly seemed lower.  Then I realized: Hey, I can breathe now!  Then I felt all excited like it was Christmas or something. Between the belly drop and the frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions, I can now check off two things from the “signs that you will go into labor sometime” list.

Thirty seven weeks= full term.  You can come out anytime, baby.  How about now?  Want to come out now?

The craving for milk continues.  I average drinking half a gallon of milk a day.  I’m now up 3 to 4 times during the night to pee.   The kicking is less frequent and the baby is now all squirmy squirmersons.

Just look at this 37 week picture.

Where the hell did all the organs go?  The liver?  The kidneys?  The pancreas?  They’re GONE, that’s what.  Flattened like pancakes against the spinal cord or bunched around my esophagus maybe.

We are watching a DVD called “Laugh and Learn about Childbirth” where a perky wise cracking woman educates several couples on couches.   Between this video, talking to my doctor, and making my way through several books, I’m now more educated and more confused than ever.    Basically I can’t think about this too much, because everyone’s opinion and experience is different.

Plus, childbirth isn’t about thinking in any way whatsoever.  The less thinking I do, the better.  The body will know what to do.  I hope I won’t need medication or an epidural but I don’t know because I have no concept of what it will like.  I’m a bit unsettled about this whole part right now but my hope is that by the time I go in I will be in a peaceful, excited, positive mindset that will also be connected to the baby.

We lucked out on the beautiful sunny weather and had a BBQ and baby celebration at Sand Bar on Saturday.   Thanks to all family and friends who made it!

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Jul 30th 2009pregnancy

The second ultrasound managed to be relieving, a little disappointing, and astounding slash shocking all at once.

I was relieved because the baby was head down.  I wasn’t keen on the idea of having to be put on an IV drip while someone manhandles my belly in an attempt to force the baby to turn around to the tune of a 50% success rate and the chance of tearing the cord so that the baby would have to be born immediately.  Oh, and she’s still a girl!   No last minute penile shocker.

There was some disappointment because it turned out this ultrasound was just to see if the baby was head down and so I did not get lots of pictures and a DVD like last time.  The baby was also upside down with her fist on her forehead so we couldn’t get a clear look at her face.  And no 4-D stuff at all.  Who puts her fist on her forehead?  My baby, that’s who.   I did ask if they could see how much she weighed.  I was just curious.

So the tech guy did some measurements and then he disappeared for a while and then the doctor came in.  “Well,” he said “she’s above average.”   Are you ready for this?  I’m still trying to absorb this myself.   They estimated her weight to be EIGHT AND A HALF POUNDS.  Eight…and…a…half.   And week 36 starts tomorrow.   Just to give you an idea, the average weight at 36 weeks is 5.78 pounds.

I asked about what could be contributing to something insane like that.  I’ve gained a normal amount of weight and I don’t have gestational diabetes.  Essentially we’re talking genetics.  Then the doctor and I turned to Steve and tossed him out the nearest window.   No, just kidding…   The doc was also clear that ultrasound estimates are not always accurate with a large margin of error.  When I researched online I found several accounts of ultrasounds overestimating the weight of babies by 2 pounds or so, but of course there were also accounts where it was accurate.  I don’t feel like I’m carrying above average size or weight, still feeling comfortable.

I asked if there was anything I should do differently.  Like LAY OFF THE ICE CREAM.  But doc said no.

Who knows.  I bet she will have long arms and legs though.   Steve’s mom tells me he was a skinny ten pounder with long arms and legs.  I was reading that the size of the baby at birth does not always ultimately determine size as a child or an adult.  The scariest fact I came across is that one’s first baby tends to be the smallest.   Ha!

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Jul 22nd 2009Uncategorized & pregnancy

Yep, face bloat is here! One day I look fairly normal, the next day I look like Garth Brooks in a wig. Except I don’t have a goatee in an attempt to give my jawline any definition.

Or better yet, Britney Spears. Awesome.

Face bloat, face bloat, wheeeeeeee!

We had a great vacation. It never ceases to amaze me how immediately our dog Lucky knows what it is all about. As soon as we get there, he does a prolonged joyful dance and then plunges into the lake. His intuitive response seems to deepen his (and ours) unconditional joy the whole week there. I especially craved swimming in the lake, which was smooth and clear as glass.

It didn’t even feel like a week to me. It was suspended time where we existed in a different mode punctuated by sun and water and the call of the loons. A mode interrupted only by the twenty minutes of sheer terror where we tried to follow google map directions to Littleton, NH and ended up on “Old County Road” which actually translates to “being thrown wildly back and forth on a narrow unmaintained mountainside ATV trail in the middle of nowhere with mud and boulders that make horrendous destructive noises underneath your vehicle.” Steve, however, thought it was great fun and suggested that we take it on the way back too, in the rain and the pitch dark. To which I half- jokingly gave him the Wifely Stare of Death.

More than once I thought about how little time remained before we have a new being in our lives. One that will fundamentally change our routine, our amount of free and quiet time, and just about everything else. However, it seems like at this point in the pregnancy, this close to the end, the reality of it becomes blunted. I can conjecture about these things but it feels like there is a wall there that keeps me from fully and completely getting it.

While on vacation I dreamed that I could feel even more detail through my belly. I could feel her hands and fingers and deepen my connection with her, even though we are still separated by skin.

The other day I got some baby head to toe body wash and lotion and imagined washing those hands and limbs for real. For a second, I almost, almost got it, with help from the memory of the dream. But the mental boundary is persistent. Perhaps it is there to not get hopes up or because it is an unknown experience so far removed from any other in your life to date and the mind can’t be wrapped around it. There is also the deepest down fear that OTHER people’s babies might be normal and cute and healthy and human, but YOURS on the other hand.. don’t dare hope too much. Don’t fully believe it until it really happens.

I bet the ultrasound tomorrow will help. I just hope she’s turned head down!

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Jul 20th 2009Everyday life & Pets & pregnancy

We have an ultrasound scheduled on the 21st!  I can’t wait to see what she looks like now.  A part of me wonders if they will say, “hey wait a minute, that’s not a girl, that’s a BOY.”   And then I won’t know what to do with all the pink.

Some vacation is coming up!  My favorite kind: Steve, me, a dog, and a lake.  See you on the other side.

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Jul 10th 2009Pictures & pregnancy

Onesie from my friend Monica.

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Jul 8th 2009Pictures & pregnancy

The cleavage, this new phenomenon that behaves like my own personal baseball mitt,  catches the crumbs and the ice cream sprinkles, and on one horrifying day, a spider.   (Yes, go ahead and laugh at the image of me in the woods, flapping my bra wildly and screaming!)  The belly catches everything else and is also capable of supporting my arms and other objects, a personal shelf at my disposal.

Ah yes, 33 weeks… when you are nearing 30 pounds more than you have ever weighed in your life and the baby only weighs 4 of it!

I’ve gotten batches of maternity clothes from people.  Invariably, as I sort through all the nice reasonable-looking maternity items, there is one monstrosity.  There is THE garment of horror that makes you cringe because you instinctively know that this was used at the very end, past the point of all caring and decency.  When you are big and there’s no possible way you can get any bigger, but then you do.  You are huge and you have no choice but to put on this tent and to back it up with the enormous gaping stretchy denim bottoms that sumo wrestlers must wear outside the ring.

I think today was the beginning of the breakdown toward the ultimate lady sumo wrestler outfit.  Today I put on a big ol formless shapeless t shirt that billows around me.  Just so I don’t have to tug at the bottom of a shirt all day.

The baby will be here next month.   Three weeks ago I started calling around about birthing classes and found out they are all full!  The class meets weekly for six weeks, 2 hour sessions each.  I don’t think I need 12 hours of information about a natural process that has been occurring for hundreds of thousands of years, but I do want to feel like I know SOMETHING.  I think going in comfortably and confidently vs being full of fear and tension makes for two very different experiences from beginning to end.   The mind has a lot of power in this matter.   I’ve got some good books to read and maybe we’ll get some ‘how to’ videos off the internet or something!

Summer has been really good so far.  I’ve gotten in trips to Lake George, New Hampshire and Connecticutt.  I’ve already gone swimming in Lake Champlain one sunny hot evening.  I’ve had great meals and conversations with friends and family.  I begin to marvel at how Steve and I are suddenly in this whole new chapter in our lives and how it has already impacted my perspective, values, reactions and experiences.   I don’t think I have ever been so comfortable, in all the ways that a person can be comfortable.  This new place in our lives is going to be the best one yet.

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Jul 3rd 2009Everyday life & Uncategorized & pregnancy