I've Accomplished Nothing (Unless Napping Counts)

Time left until her due date: 4 weeks & 3 days

Things I haven't done yet:

1. Washed her clothes

2. Packed my hospital bag

3. Installed her car seat

4. Sent out thank-you cards
5. Had maternity photos taken (Do I really have to?)
+ a ton of other stuff that I'm too tired to think about.

Justin goes to the gym, I stay home and nap. He folds the laundry while I surf Pinterest. He massages my feet while I go to sleep.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that one of us is on top of things, and it's not me. He hasn't packed his hospital bag either, and he's totally going to be the one to install her car seat, but he's got energy and motivation and I have exactly none of either. The RN who instructed our birthing class said if mama starts "nesting", dad needs to shut that down! Precious energy must be saved for pushing that baby out! I love this advice and I don't love this advice. 'Cause stuff needs to get done, yeah, but nesting isn't so different from nestling when you're big and tired and ready to both meet your baby and not be pregnant.

I can sense, somewhere deep inside, that I'm about to let it go, let it goooo! (Fun fact: Customer service is not the most ideal job when you're 8 months pregnant and have had it up to *here*.) Multiple times a day, I think of all the clothes I've sorted that still need to be washed, our room that needs a bit of rearranging to fit her bassinet, the hospital bag I haven't packed and what I need to put in there, and the car that still needs a car seat so we can even bring her home. I haven't sent out thank-you cards for all the gifts we've received, but I also haven't had maternity photos done or even put makeup on most days, so that makes it okay...?

At the beginning of this post, I wanted to nap. Now, I want to get all of this stuff done right now AND nap.

We need a few key things in life at this point, and any prayers you can send up for us will be appreciated more than you know. We have been extremely blessed to have a smooth pregnancy and a healthy baby & mama. This is the home stretch, people!

Four weeks and three days is not a long time. And that's probably not even entirely accurate at this point. How many babies are actually delivered on their due date? I got distracted while researching that percentage and found a few resources that say your mother's birth history can be a good indicator for your own experience. If that's true, every baby I ever give birth to will come a week early. That will never do. Three weeks is simply not enough time. Ugh, but it's too much time! Will this be my life forever? Will I be constantly ripped back and forth from too much time and not enough time? I have a whole paragraph of things to get done in four three weeks. And look at me now. Blogging. Pfft.

I gotta go wash baby clothes or nap or something.

Pregnancy: All Its Glory

The fact that I haven't posted anything since 29 weeks is blowing my mind. That was years ago! I sit here now at 34 weeks and 5 days, which means her due date is barely more than 5 weeks away. Mentally and emotionally, I could not be more ready. Pregnancy is the longest thing I've ever done in my entire life, and I am so ready to finally hold her in my arms and kiss her little face.

These days, my rib cage and hip bones are fun toys to try and shatter. My bladder is more like a water bed or trampoline of some kind than anything else. She's probably the strongest baby in all the land, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she just burst right out of my stomach to make her debut.

So far, I've gained more weight than they wanted me to gain by the end of the whole pregnancy, but the doctor and nurses just can't see where I'm hiding it, so they don't really care. They comment on my height at every single appointment, but no one seems to take the newbie seriously when I say I'm a little concerned I could hide a 10 pound baby in this mile-long torso of mine. WELL WE WILL SEE, WON'T WE?! (This is one of times where I'm totally okay with being wrong. I mean, "I told you so" just loses its punch when I'm the only one suffering.)

My ankles had a moment where they were so swollen, it looked like I was wearing ankle cuffs. I should say that this is not the norm, thankfully, but holy cow. Speaking of cows... my stomach is so tiny now. It can't hold anything. I graze. I'm a cow, but not in the way I thought I'd be a cow.

All in all, physically, I have no idea what to think of myself. The list of symptoms is way too long to mention all the pros and cons, but the bottom line is that I feel, simultaneously, at my best and worst. I heavily rely on whatever glow pregnancy is supposed to give me, because I mostly look like crap these days. I have roughly 2 pieces of clothing that fit me. Back in December, I was all, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna live in maxi dresses all summer," which is so stupid because SUMMER IS HOT. It's hot. I don't care how late our spring rain is this year, it is way too hot for a maxi dress. All that heat gets trapped under there and I just can't do it. I need mini dresses. Sleeveless mini dresses that are soft and comfortable and that hold me together without cutting me in half. Is that too much to ask?

5 weeks and 2 days left. I have mixed feelings about pregnancy but my feelings about meeting/holding/kissing/staring at/singing to this baby are very clear. I'm ready whenever she's ready. (But excuse me while I roll my eyes because I know, I know, she needs more time. I GET IT.) Maybe tomorrow I can be selfless and who cares what I want because blahblahblah, it's all about her. But, you know what? It's gonna be all about her FOREVER for the rest of my life. I claim today, and maybe tomorrow, and the next week and maybe the week after that and the week after that. It's not a crime to want to meet my baby already, even if she needs a few more weeks to cook. I wanted to meet her in December when I learned about her and I want to meet her even more now, when she's almost ready to meet me.

ALMOST!

29 Weeks

Hello, Third Trimester. We've been waiting for you.

This is the home stretch, now. Last week in the twenties. Last trimester before we meet our baby, before I become a non-pregnant version of myself again. First and second trimesters are done, and I'll never have those "firsts" again. This pregnancy has gone so slow for me, so I'm a little bit surprised that the third trimester is here. It certainly didn't sneak up on me, but I did start to doubt if time was actually moving.

This baby moves ALL THE TIME. All the time. At my last appointment, my doctor said they want ten kicks a day. "HA!" I said. I got ten kicks just while we were in the waiting room. And another ten since we've been in the exam room. That's just a warm-up to the warm-up to her warm-up exercise.

10 kicks. Pfft. Honestly.

So, we're investing in running shoes for when she starts walking.

Some awesome news is that I passed my glucose test. YAY! I was sure I was going to fail that, being hypoglycemic and all, but now I'm questioning everything I've ever known. This changes my whole outlook on life!

Some not-so-awesome news is that I am officially uncomfortable living in this new body of mine. Heartburn is a killer. I can't breathe if I lay on my back or if I eat anything. My feet, ankles, and calves are basically permanently swollen. Almost none of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit me anymore, and I nearly had a heart attack when I put on a non-maternity tank top that looks just like one of my maternity tank tops as you can imagine because I AM NOT THAT HUGE YET. WHY IS THIS TOO SMALL?! Upon realizing my mistake, the feeling of relief lasted only a second, because then I realized something else: Normal clothes don't fit me. This is life now.

My problem is that I'm the opposite of a hypochondriac. I didn't want to assume I'd have a bunch of symptoms just because I'm pregnant. It seems good and all, not to anticipate complaints, but I took it way too far. Every symptom I've had - you know, normal, common pregnancy symptoms - has taken me by surprise. Allergies? Swollen feet? Out of breath? Trouble sleeping? Heartburn? Leg cramps? Constant exhaustion? You mean all of these are real and they're happening to me? I get to be a member of the pregnancy party?

My belly button is starting to do its own thing. Hope it doesn't get too crazy.

When my doctor told me about how much weight I should gain by the end of this thing, I thought, Okay, seems right and normal and not a big deal at all. Then I reached a weight that totally and completely took me by surprise, as if I had never actually done the math and thought about the numbers. And we still have a whole trimester left! My doctor laughed when I asked, in a very animated way, how big of a problem it was that I had gained enough weight for nearly the rest of the pregnancy.

Turns out, I'm totally ridiculous and she's not worried at all. Hey, she's the doctor. And I don't have a scale at home, so, I'll just keep eating everything all the time.

I can assure you that this baby isn't complaining about that.

"Is my belly really that big?"
"Yes, babe, and it's only going to get bigger."

100 Days

I was told by nearly everyone that pregnancy would fly by. All of these people lied. This has been the longest thing I've ever done, ever.

It's miraculous and wonderful and freaky and awesome, and I hope to do it again (and again and again) because I really love it. But I'd be lying if I said I want it to last forever, because I don't. Yeah, yeah, the physical struggles. Whatever. Those are annoying, but I can brush those off fairly easily because I know they're temporary. Brushing off the anticipation of seeing this baby - my baby - for the first time... Not so easy. Not easy at all.

Let's also not pretend that I'm not looking forward to getting my body back. I want to improve my physical form, not watch it bloat up more and more every day, right before my eyes.

I live for the next kick in my stomach, for the next time she topples over and punches me square in the bladder. I live for the next appointment, for the next time we hear her heartbeat, for the next Saturday when I'm a week closer to holding her in my arms.

I also live for the next big, juicy, rare steak I'll devour after inhaling about six Caesar salads will all the delicious raw egg Caesar dressing I can fit in the bowl. (This is where my head's at.)

100 days is all that's left in this pregnancy gig. 100 days to get prepared to come home with a baby one day. Emotionally and mentally, I'm about as ready as I'll ever be. Past ready, in fact. Like I said, this thing has taken forever. Once the ultrasounds were done, I was ready to meet her. That's the next thing? Alright, let's do it.

As it turns out, pregnancy doesn't work that way. You wait. Baby comes when baby comes. It should take nine months, i.e. forever. "It will fly by!" they say. It might not. It might be the longest thing you've done besides life, and that's barely a fair comparison.

So then, I hear "100 days" and I'm 100% torn about whether that is a short amount of time or not.

Either way, the clock's tickin'.

***

(Also, I highly recommend avoiding strep throat at any time, especially when pregnant. It is the actual worst.)

25 Weeks + some days

This baby inside me is huge. I mean, she's small for a baby, but huge for being in my stomach! I've gotten used to [not] sleeping and I've adjusted to the heartburn, but my trusty body is not as trusty as it used to be. I don't know that I'll ever really adjust to the physical issues, partly because I've been in denial about a lot of them.

You don't have to have a beach ball belly to struggle to get out of bed. You don't have to have a short torso to have fiery heartburn. Pregnancy brain is real. Swollen feet/ankles/calves are just a part of life.

As of the last week, I can't have a single thing in my stomach without feeling like my belly skin is stretched to it's limit. That's a thing now.

Also as of the last week, baby girl is official viable outside the womb! Milestones!

 

Pregnancy is weird, don't you think? You have this baby in there - a real, live baby - and it's just growing away, waiting to be born.

Spring is in full swing. Of course, it feels a lot more like summer most of the time, but I'm not complaining about that. (Yet.) Spring means it's officially time to register. I was putting off doing this until after Justin's birthday, but now that that's done, the registry lobe in my brain has totally shut down. Nesting is a real thing, too, and I blame that for the fact that I'm overwhelmed. (But I'm still in denial about that.)

Stop nesting. The nurse in birthing class said not to waste energy.

This baby girl has more clothes than I know what to do with. All I want to do is sort them and wash them and hang them up.

What does she know?

How soon is too soon to decorate a nursery?

25 weeks. The calendar on the fridge won't need to be rewritten until 30 weeks. I remember when it said 8 weeks and I wrote "raspberry" in red marker because that's how big she was then. I didn't know she was a she yet. I hadn't had my first ultrasound yet. I hadn't even heard her heartbeat yet.

Now, the calendar goes all the way to 30 weeks, and I stopped keeping track of how big she is in relation to fruit a long time ago.

We're so so so so so so close. Excited doesn't begin to cover how we feel. 

Birthing Class, the Hospital, & I need how much water?

I have a pretty hot looking selfie of me sitting under the dryer at the hair salon, and that's the only picture I've taken between my last post and now.

I haven't been doing nothing, though, because we started our birthing class! AND we took a tour of the hospital. Now I am officially stoked. I'm in full-on LET'S HAVE THIS BABY mode and I CANNOT CONTAIN IT.

Our birthing class is three Saturdays in a row, of which we have two left. It's starts in the morning and lasts until 1pm, and they have the best fruit and donuts and blueberry muffins that we all just snack on the entire time. We got fancy travel cups (mugs? glasses?) that we're instructed to drink 8-10 of a day while pregnant, which is basically impossible. Only half of that has doubled the number of trips I take to the bathroom every day, and frankly, I can't have that. I just can't. I've also decided that my bladder has a secret trap door to hold extra fluid until 30 seconds after I only thought I emptied my bladder.

The teacher of the class is an actual labor & delivery RN at the hospital. (Fun fact: My hospital has only RNs, no LPNs.) One of the models she used was a life-size pelvic bone. I'm not normally squeamish, but seeing that instantly disgusted me, and I remember thinking of my nurse friend and how she's the only person I know who would've been fascinated by it. Then the nurse passed it around for all of us to see, or touch or whatever, and I was like NO. I passed it on to the next couple by holding it with only two fingers on each edge, because I don't want to imagine MY pelvic bone or the baby - that's currently stuck in my body and is already too big to get out of there painlessly - being a full-size newborn and having to fit its whole body through that bone. How is this not disturbing to everyone?!

Besides that, the class was so fun. I have tried to stay pretty educated on this whole pregnancy/labor/delivery thing, but I learned more in this one day of class than I ever thought I would. We practiced labor positions and breathing through contractions, which was nothing like hee-hee-hoo and more like actual breathing. She let us have about 80 trips to the bathroom, which was awesome. I love classes catered to pregnant women! Leave food out all day and give us a ton of potty breaks.

Currently, Baby Girl is stretching and deforming my stomach, which is, by the way, the strangest and most amazing thing I've ever experienced.

The goal of the birthing class is to give you enough knowledge on the process of labor and delivery to take away the fear. What's funny, though, is that seeing the hospital room did that very thing. (Plus, we learned all about the details of their infant security, which really helped papa bear cope with the whole thing because he was not as immediately fearless and Let's have her today! as I was. You know, the whole Sag vs. Taurus thing we've got going on.) Our top priority is that she and I are healthy and that everything goes well, but that goes without saying. Aside from that, I'm just hoping we get one of the big rooms at the hospital instead of a small room. Hahahahaha. Really, though.

Homework for myself:
1. Take more pictures.
2. Drink more water...but do I have to?
3. Stop trying to sleep on your back. It's over.

20 Weeks

20 weeks! You know what this means?

It means we're halfway to meeting our little burst of sunshine.

Halfway to having a daughter.

Halfway to solo showers and trips to the gym. Halfway to fewer diet restrictions, to sleeping on my back again, and to Easter Sunday attire being an event in itself again.

These days, we're working on ways to increase our income and get into new living arrangements. We're trying not to buy every cute baby thing we find. We are trying, quite unsuccessfully, to get a good night's sleep before August.

I can already tell I'm going to miss this when it's over. I feel like Superwoman, being the host for this miraculous thing, experiencing it firsthand. This fall, if I feel a "kick" in my belly, it will probably just be gas, and if that's not depressing, I don't know what is. Granted, I still have 20 weeks to change my mind and beg for an empty uterus, but screw you, future self! This is awesome!

She still moves like crazy. She seems to have adopted a "late to bed, late to rise" lifestyle, and I think I can handle that for now.

20 weeks down. Here's to 20 more, filled with sun & fun & good health & good vibes.

Girl!

Yaaaaay!

Little Baby Straily #1 is a girl!

Many of you may know that Justin was on Team Boy, but how upset could you possibly be when you learn who your first baby is? You can't be upset, and he can't even pretend to be.

I only thought he had turned all fierce protector before. He's already bracing himself for boyfriends and makeup and expensive prom dresses and "Great, just what we need... a daughter with my butt." ...In the ultrasound, her little tush did look just like his. It's pretty clear to me that she has his face, too, so at this point I'm just hoping she'll have my eyes? my brilliant personality? something? anything?

I may have promised him, like, 50 boys after this girl. May have.

Remember my last post when I said how active this baby is already? Multiply that by 10 and that's what life is like now. It's getting strong enough where I don't have to be trying to feel her move. She distracts me from tasks on the daily. (More foreshadowing, probably.) AND, for the first time, I saw her moving FROM THE OUTSIDE OF MY STOMACH, like there's actually something in there, living and breathing (sort of) and peeing (gross, right?) and moving.

Active and happy. Stretching all the time and, based on the ultrasounds, training to be the athletic/hiccuping champion.

I have been saying from the beginning that this baby will be a burst of sunshine, a ray of light everywhere she goes. When I woke up on the ultrasound day on Monday and checked my Bible app for the verse of the day, it was this:

"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." John 1:9

 I should say that this verse refers to Jesus, and I'm certainly not suggesting that my kid is Jesus. But how rad is it that, on the day we find out who our baby is, we get this verse that mirrors how we feel about our active little ball of sunshine?

She's perfectly healthy, and is right on track with her growth. Now we've just gotta watch and make sure she doesn't secretly become some 10 pound monstrosity and bust out of my stomach all horror movie style.

Mini Bump (I Actually Have One Now)

It's not officially spring yet, but Justin and I started some much needed spring cleaning yesterday. Our dog, Drey, loves it when we clean. He tries to attack the broom, but abandons that effort rather quickly when he discovers the interesting pile that the broom creates. "Cool! I had no idea that all this stuff was here!" The vacuum, however, is his sworn enemy and he has apparent orders to attack on sight.

We have a very playful dog, and I think that may be to prepare us for a playful baby. It's gotten to the point where I just have to lay back and give my little belly a poke and it's like a pitter-pat party in there. The baby is only big enough for me to feel it moving, but not big enough yet for Justin to feel it or for it to cause me any pain. Haha. (Though, based on our size, I'm sure the day is coming.)

Speaking of size, I'm at 17 weeks and two days, though I don't think I look quite that far along. I started getting worried that something was wrong, so I did some research. Apparently, a long torso like mine is the cause, and I'll likely not ever look quite as far along as I am. This news was a little disappointing, but comforting in that it means I don't necessarily have an underdeveloped baby. BUT! Also apparently, I will probably be able to avoid a lot of heartburn, back pain, and general discomfort when sitting or sleeping in the later months. I'm holding onto the hope that these are true for me. I mean, a bump is kind of like a badge of honor, especially considering all the crap you have to endure. Without that... pregnancy can kinda suck.

But let's not pretend like I've had it rough. The allergy attack nearly killed me, many times, over the last 3ish weeks, but then everything froze again for a second, and here I am, alive and almost cough-free. Yay! I'm constantly tired, but I figure this is the standard of living now, so I don't bring it up much. No parent wants to hear an almost-parent talk about how tired they are. They either roll their eyes or they laugh, or they cry because they've been tired for years.

Maybe being awake for so many hours a day has made time move slower than the garbage truck that just passed by should've been going, because somehow we still haven't gotten to the ultrasound where we'll find out who's cookin' in there. We should know in a couple of weeks (or less) i.e. A MILLION YEARS. If it's a boy, I suppose that's a good thing, because we started reconsidering our choice for a boy name, and THAT was stressful. Basically, it needs to be a girl. The next baby can be a boy.

Got that, little one? Be a girl so the next occupant in there can be a boy.

PHEW. Glad we got that sorted out.

The Curse

There's this thing that pregnant women do. New moms do it, too. Not all of them, but enough of them that this is actually a thing that's been studied.

When you're pregnant, your whole body is changing. Let's not even address the bloating and the growing belly. You feel nauseous when you think that should be long behind you. You get allergies for the first time in your life. You have to cut a bunch of food out of your diet, and you have to be extra aware of the foods you do eat, just in case you can't have those either.

Maybe you never had a sense of smell because your jaw wasn't in the right place and it actually prevented you from having a sense of smell until after you had jaw surgery. But by that time it didn't matter because you'd already lived 18 and a half years without one, so you never learned to rely on it. And at 23, you still can't walk into a room and know what's just been cooking like everyone else can, and it's weird to you that others can. And then you find yourself pregnant, smelling things you still can't identify but you just can't ignore because the scent is filling up your nose and mouth and lungs and head, and you can barely tell if it's a good scent or a bad scent because it's strong enough to just be bad regardless.

There are so many things on the What Happens To Your Body When You're Pregnant list that it would be a much shorter list if it just had the things that don't change.

Things That Don't Change When You're Pregnant:
1. Your name.
2. ...Your age.
3. ?

See? Much shorter.

SO, it only makes sense that a woman (or a not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman woman like me) would want to maintain a sense of control over her body and her life when all of it changes forever.

There's this thing that pregnant women do. New moms do it, too. Not all of them, but enough of them that I'm worried I'll be one of them.

They cut their hair. They chop it off. I don't want to do that.

Sure, some days I do. Some days, I'd love to have a short style. Maybe even for a couple of days. But that third day... The third day is the killer. I'm done with the short hair thing and I'm ready for the long hair thing. PROBLEM IS, the obvious. I'm not rich and famous and I don't have a team of people ready to make my hair look long when it's not.

I'll dye it. I'll dye it red or ombre or blue or something and lust over bangs I'll never get. But I won't cut it. I can't! I just can't.

None of this would be an issue if I didn't already want to change my hair.

In all of the crazy, I may feel a bit like I've lost control. I need something I can rely on to feel like myself, right?

RIGHT?