Happy Full Term Baby Day to Me (and Drake, and I suppose Damian)!

I've made it to a full 37 weeks pregnant, and the baby is not considered full term and can come whenever he wants and be totally great. I have reached the point where I cannot wait until he comes. The anticipation, the worry about labor, the stress of becoming a mom are all very present, and the sooner he comes the sooner I get to worry about new things. We're basically all set and ready to go; we're just waiting on Mr. Drake to honor us with his presence. Here's some pictures for fun!

Not exactly professional photos here, but it's cute, and much cozier feeling in person. Damian and I decided on a broadly "animal" themed room. Sure I loved some of the themed sets that Babies R Us had, but it certainly wasn't financially practical for us to do one of those. I figured lots of baby stuff comes with animals on it, we like animals, most kids like animals, and so we just went with the basic animal concept and rolled with it. Got a bunch of stuff as gifts and a bunch of stuff on clearance.

And here's a picture of me, looking ever so 9 months pregnant, and trying to smile so that Drake doesn't one day think I was anything but happy about his arrival. I just have one of those faces that isn't good at looking joyous. I always just end up looking constipated.

34 Weeks into Pregnancy and Totally Not Ready

The count down begins! Six weeks to go. If I'm a little late, it is possible that my baby will be born on Labor Day. As a pun-loving person, this excites me. Here are some pictures of the progress. I look pretty beat up in both of them, but I know you'll forgive me.  This first picture is my attempt at smiling for the camera.

And here's a good one of the belly, but I look totally miserable and slightly confused.

Some of my friends from work threw me a lovely baby shower (that's where the balloon is from). It was great and I got to see so many friends from far away. It was touching.  I look a little more myself here with Damian. Although I wish I had the sleek look of Princess Kate. How does she manage to not look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

So the baby is coming soon, and we are not ready in the least. I have maybe a quarter of our hospital bag packed and a million things on my to do list. There's a bunch of shopping that needs to be done to pick up things we will need in that first month, but my paycheck is already spent, so that's not going to happen for another two weeks. There's a lot of deep cleaning and organizing that I want to do that just hasn't happened. It's really time to get busy getting some of this stuff done. The problem is that I'm a whale, a tired whale, and I'm participating in Camp Nanowrimo and writing like a fiend with many of my spare minutes. I just hope that I get that burst of energy that comes with nesting early.

In other news, I hit a life milestone today! I went for a visit with the social worker at the doctor's office I go to. It was a routine visit to check on mental health and to tell me about resources in the community for women with babies, and she said I seemed to be a very well adjusted individual! After years of battling depression, anxiety, and body image issues, this was the best thing I'd heard all week, although in all honesty, I also consider myself to be pretty well adjusted. 

Thirty Two Weeks Pregnant

It is official. I am in my 8th month of pregnancy. It is getting difficult to remember a time when I wasn't pregnant. What was that like? Remember corned beef? Remember sleeping on your stomach? Le Sigh. Here's me last week (31 weeks). 

I wouldn't say I'm a miserable pregnant woman, but I am by no means the happy, tons of energy, feeling fantastic, don't want to tear peoples' heads off and eat their brains pregnant woman. There are a litany of complaints like not being able to walk up the stairs to my apartment without getting winded, not being able to stand on my feet a work without pain, the fact that this baby might actually be a radiator because I am HOT, my carpal tunnel acting up. I want to eat all the time, and it goes on, but right now there are two things tied for the "worst of it" title.

1. My left hip is killing me. It doesn't hurt all the time, but if I'm sitting for twenty minutes, and I get up, I can barely walk. It doesn't want to move and it hurts to put weight on it. 
2. And secondly, Drake is getting to be very active at night. I'm not sure, but I think he's kicking my bladder, and pretending he's the ball from Pong  at the same time. Some times it's just uncomfortable, and sometimes it's even cool to feel him, but then there's the times when it down right hurts! Why you beating your mama up Drake? It seriously feels like there are two babies in there!

Also this might be TMI, but hey, I'm a prego woman, I don't know the meaning of TMI. My body is not my own. Today I sneezed and peed my pants a little. It is as if my body has decided to give up the good fight and have given the last thing I had control of over to pregnancy - my bladder control.

A funny thing happens when your pregnant though, or at least it is happening for me. There's a (huge) part of my brain that says "Pregnancy sucks,"  and I'm fully aware of this and in agreement with this part of my brain, but then there are these tricky emotions, I would assume they're caused my hormones. They are the "ooey gooey' hormones that make me feel all this mushy mom feelings, trying to trick me into believing that pregnancy doesn't suck. But I will fight the good fight! I will not give in. 

• Well maybe a little because there are some cool things about being pregnant. Let's list them.
• People are really nice to you (this might be a survival instinct)
• You don't have to carry any of the heavy groceries
• You can sit down at work more and have an excuse
• You can ask for back rubs all the time guilt free because it's partially his fault that it hurts
• You can rest your hand on your belly-shelf without feeling like a hippo
• Midnight snacks are encouraged
• You can be lazy all day, and it's okay because your exhausted

In short, the pampering is nice and you feel pretty special and people are all happy for you, but the fact is that you NEED the pampering because you feel like you've been run over by a truck.

My opinion on these matters is a little bias. I didn't have the best beginning to my pregnancy and just last month I had to go for blood work for both gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, both of which my doctors thought I might have due to some other tests, but turns out I don't. So, it's been a little stressful even though things are, in fact, going smoothly. I've gained only about 10 pounds or so from my prepregnancy weight (16 if you start it from the weight I lost with being sick at the beginning of my pregnancy). It certainly feels like I've gained more than that.

Anyway, baby will be here soon! We haven't packed our hospital bag and we don't have half the stuff we need, but either way he'll be here soon. Ready or not!

Prunes

I tried prunes for the first time this week. I just happened to see a bag of individually packaged prunes as I was walking through Shop Rite and thought "let me give these a try." Damian has had them before and he said they weren't bad, and we typically like the same foods. I was pleasantly surprised. They're kind of like raisins, but not so sweet. I can't say that I love them, but they aren't bad at all. It took me a couple of tries to get over their look. They kind look like giant cicada bodies. Sometimes I just close my eyes and take a bite. Maybe this is TMI, but I'll just say that they're been helping with the problem I bought them to solve.

Also, Drake's been very wiggly lately. It's been fun, but every once in a while, I think he must do a somersault or something because it is the weirdest sensation! He responds to music, especially piano. I'm not sure if this means he likes it or not. We have about 80 days left! Oh dear.

(Not) Managing Stress

There are some uncertain things going on right now with my job. Things that may mean I will be on the market soon. It has nothing to do with my performance, and there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing is settled yet, but it should be by the end of the week, for better or worse.

As you can imagine, this is not good timing for me. The position was perfect for my life as a new mom as it is a steady (benefited) part time position, and not only that, who on earth is going to hire a 7 months pregnant woman? I know there are laws saying that I can't be turned down just because I'm pregnant, but that doesn't mean people won't do it. And I can understand why, I'd start working and two months later be out for at least 6 weeks. 

The stress is getting to me, and I can't really talk to any one about it. I don't want to stress Damian out along with me, and other people just say "don't stress about it" or "stress isn't good for the baby." That second one really makes me pissy. If I could just turn my stress off, I would, wouldn't I? And it being bad for the baby doesn't make it any easier to calm down. It assumes that some mother instinct that I don't have will rise up and squash the stress. But in reality, just thinking of having the baby and not having a job makes me start to hyperventilate.

So I've been distracting myself with video games and books since I found out. I can't think about it. As much as I enjoy games and reading, I realize that I'm not actually dealing with any of the emotions, I'm just hiding from them. I should face them and confront them, but I just can't. When I give into them in that way, I spiral. It's not pretty. There are things I can let myself feel fully, things I can let myself feel a little at a time, and things I just keep tucked away. This stress right now is one of the things that needs to stay in hiding (although it keeps trying to escape).

By the end of next week, I'll know if the stress battle will continue or if I'm in the clear. The waiting and uncertainty of it all it just as bad as the stress. Should I be looking for work? Will I be eligible for unemployment? Where should I be looking? Will my supervisor help me pick up some hours here and there? Do I know anyone who could connect me to employment? What if I can't find anything? Will we have to move? Where on earth would we move? Should we get rid of one of the cars? Can we manage only one car with (eventually/potentially) two working people? 

Then there's the uncertainty of Damian's schedule, which just throws a kink into everything, and makes planning very difficult. There's just too much uncertainty and too many questions. I would like the wait to be over so that I an start figuring out which ones are important.

Eat, Poop, Sleep

Damian decided to pick out a book to read about babies. I'm going the traditional route with What to Expect: The First Year, but it is far too long and detailed for him. Plus, it doesn't make sense for us to read the same book. Divide and conquer! After scanning the baby section at Barnes and Noble, we were a little disheartened. Most of the books were either textbooky or written for women, which wouldn't be so bad, but certainly wasn't ideal for him. There were some books written for fathers, but they weren't written for the kind of man that Damian is. They all assumed that that their reader would be a "dude," and tried to use humor to hold interest, which doesn't say much for the opinion the writer had of their readers. Damian is certainly just as much a dude as the next guy. He likes beer and football and would love to drive a fancy sports car (if only his wife would let him), but he also likes Bach, documentary films, and is a bit of a feminist (what can I say, I rubbed off on him). He is also genuinely interested in fathering, not to mention excited by it. Just at the last minute, we found a book called Eat, Sleep, Poop: A Common Sense Guide to Your Baby's First Year. It was written by a pediatrician and proud daddy, and combines his medical experience with his parenting experiences. It is practical and straightforward, but also more on the personal side when he brings in stories about his daughter. It struck just the right note with Damian, at least so far. 

That being said, I can tell you that it is not as unbiased as the book I'm reading, but I think this comes from his stance as a doctor. Doctors are biased about all sorts of things, and that is why we often get second opinions on the important things. So it is a good thing to look into alternative view points on things that are most important to you or you know the least about. I know there are a lot controversies about vaccination and circumcision, but I'm not going to spend hours researching these topics because I already has a strong bias for what I plan to do, and there are a lot of conflicting opinions/studies about them, so I go with my gut. But the topic of helping my baby sleep through the night is a different story. My gut is confused by this topic. It tells me that I won't be comfortable letting my baby cry it out, at least not for long periods of time, but it also tells me that I can't go running at it's every whimper  So I'll definitely be looking into all kinds of philosophies on this topic.

Pregnancy Belly and Baby Wiggles

I looked in the mirror the other day and thought "Oh dear!" This was followed by a minor freak out about how much control I'm losing over my body. It is a strange to feel your body change so rapidly. It starts to feel like it isn't your body, like you're living in someone else. I'm starting to like my belly though. In a world where weight gain is usually a bad thing, it is hard to remember that what is happening to me is a good thing. At first the belly changes weren't that noticeable  but now it feels like every week I am significantly rounder. I honestly don't know how much weight I've gained. The last check was 6 pounds, but that was almost a month ago. I don't weigh myself at home, only at the doctors.

Drake has really been wiggling around in there too. Sometimes when I watch my stomach, it twitches with each hop. Damian still hasn't really been able to feel him, but I think he must not have feeling in his hands, because Drake is certainly trying his best to give high fives in the womb.