38 1/4 Weeks (But Who's Counting...)

The estimated due date is in less than 2 weeks folks! Of course, the reason its called estimated due date is it certainly isn't an exact science. As our midwife says, babies pick their own birthdays, we really can't control the process. So basically we could birth this monkey anytime between now and 3 1/2 weeks from now. Umm, I'll take now, please? The stats as of our midwife visit last Friday (for those of you in the know as to how women's bodies work) are as follows: 70% effaced, 1cm dialated, and the LFM is at -1 station. For those of you to whom this sounds like a science fiction novel, it basically means that the process has begun. We're not in active labor yet, but my body has begun doing the work it needs to do. This could last 2 weeks or more, however, so don't get your hopes up. Our midwife says that the more work my body does now, the less work it will have to do in labor so I shouldn't want to rush this period. Good point.

The annoying thing is that my body seems to be doing the majority of its work at night only. While the contractions aren't painful (they're like very mild menstrual cramps at this point, accompanied by some back pain and the occasional stabbing pain, but really I'm more uncomfortable than in pain), they do wake me up all night long because with every contraction comes the extremely urgent need to pee. Does this mean I'll spend labor on the toilet? (which is great for letting gravity help move the baby down and put pressure on the cervix to open, but I hadn't envisioned all of labor in our bathroom...) So I sleep in the mornings and generally feel in a bit of a fog these days. I'm exhausted, huge, uncomfortable, and I swear to you I STILL LOVE IT! Every single moment! I must be a masochist.

What I am not enjoying is the interweaving of birth and death. The two are so closely connected now, each so much a part of the other. I was telling Kindness Girl, who's name could not be more fitting and who's kindness work has touched the lives of many (including myself) in huge huge ways, that one day I will see this as a beautiful experience but that day isn't today. Now, in the thick of it, sometimes its a struggle to get through the day. This weekend was definitely like that. The car broke down on the side of the highway on the way to pick up the birthing tub, prompting a massive waterfall of tears and a phone call to Dad to pick us up. As he was driving me to get the other car while WB waited for the tow truck, he told me that Mimi had fallen again that morning. She had fallen several times in the past week and a half, and had even been stuck on the ground for an hour and a half unable to reach a phone and get help.

Last week I talked to her about hiring someone to come help out, because she really can't be left alone now. This conversation happened right after I had stupidly driven her home alone, and had to catch her as she was going up the porch stairs and her body decided it couldn't support her anymore, and basically carry her up the rest of the way. Nine months pregnant. That's not doable at all, physically speaking. When I proposed hiring someone, she said "But the only person I want around all the time is you!", and I had to tell her that I couldn't do it. You have no idea how hard that was to say. But the truth is that I physically can't do it right now, and then how would I take care of both her and a newborn once the baby is born?

Fast forward back to the weekend, where we decide to go and check on Mimi after getting the car towed. As we pull up in the driveway, I see the neighbor leaving, which can only mean one thing...something happened with Mimi. Sure enough she had fallen again, the 2nd time that day. She fell again on Sunday. These falls are happening with the use of the walker that I made them get. Her brain is still swelling from the Gamma Knife Radiation that they used to attack the 6 new brain tumors, and that's most likely what's causing the falls. But I wonder if she's going to be able to get her strength back from this one or not. I'm having trouble staying positive the more she falls and the weaker she becomes.

Today is the first day with her nurse...I'm about to go over there and check in on her before going in to work. It will make her feel nurtured and protected. I get my nurturing tomorrow night in the form of a much needed and oh so beautiful blessingway ceremony that these amazing women from our birthing community are throwing for me. The timing couldn't be better- this is so much exactly what I need in this moment that when Kindness Girl phoned to tell me about it all I could do was sob incoherently and blubber "Thank you so much! This means so much!" I can't even put my gratitude into words.

Its unbelievably hard to have everything happening simultaneously. I feel torn between birth and death, like I haven't been able to give as much to either as I would have wanted to. That breaks my heart. This isn't the way I would have wanted either experience to be. I know deep down that this is exactly how it should be or it wouldn't be happening, but I can't say that my trust in the universe runs all that deep these days.

Full Term, Full Tank, and Rearing to Go

I was 37 weeks as of yesterday, which is officially full term. This means we're good to go at any time, even though the due date is officially 3 weeks away. I'm voting sooner rather than later, though I'm not presumptuous enough to think my vote carries any weight in the matter really. As the food source both of present and to be, however, could my thoughts perhaps be slightly considered in the decision making process?

I have turned the corner into pretty damn uncomfortable territory, and it really seems to me by the pokes and prods I am constantly receiving that the LFM ain't but so comfy in there either. There seems to be a discernible lack of room for the both of us, and of course he's little so he always wins out. I'm also getting contractions all the freaking time, most of which are benign but just uncomfortable as hell. Yesterday I got the added bonus of the feeling of mild menstrual cramps and slight back pain, but it went away, so don't get all excited that anything is happening. Nothing is happening but awkward discomfort. Lots and lots of it. And as for sleep? That's most definitely not happening.

For the record: I still love love pregnancy. I absolutely adore being pregnant. I think its a beautiful journey and I think I'll actually really miss it when he's out.

Not that I don't want him to make an appearance...soon. As in before family flies in from all corners of the globe, so that we get a little time to ourselves, just the three of us before being overwhelmed and inundated by foreign languages and filial obligations. I'm a definitely finding myself a little anxious about the postpartum period. As if standing at the gateway of both life and death while learning how to be a new mother and breastfeed were not emotionally and energetically taxing enough, I get to do all that, with crazy hormones, no sleep, and company! Yay! Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I've always been a huge people person, but I find that the closer I get to birth the more anxious I am about protecting my space; defending my den so to speak. None of this may end up being an issue at all, and how I will feel is one gigantic question mark at this point, but for right now its a definite fear I'm trying to work through. I'm sure it doesn't help that I've never met WB's parents before. It also doesn't help that my Spanish skills have sadly not progressed at all during the last 9 months and his mother doesn't speak any English. It also doesn't help that my own mother is dying. Gee, why do I feel like the china shop itself watching a bull approach? Hmmm, can't think of any valid reasons really...

Speaking of Mimi, this is why I have not written in decades. To be very brief about it all, she had been falling a lot and was very weak and we brought it up at a doctor's appointment. They immediately did a CT scan and found 6 new brain tumors...and when I say new, these cropped up since the last MRI done in October. Yeah, fuckin cancer moves fast. When my parents met with the doc upon first finding out, he was all gloom and doom and basically there was a question as to whether or not Mimi would even make it to see her grandson born.

As she now tells it, when the doctor said the magic word, hospice, she suddenly burst into action. That was what she needed to hear to get her ire up, collect her inner resources, and motivate the troops to fight. She had gamma knife radiation, which they're hopeful has killed off the new brain tumors, is now on new meds and walking with help of a walker, and will begin a new injection chemo around the 11th of Jan to help buy some time from the 50 million other non brain tumors throughout her body. Its not only her choice, but now her passion to continue fighting with every ounce of her being. Her new goal is not the birth, but 2 1/2 years from diagnosis, which will put her at next December. She's a pretty stubborn lady- she just may make it! On a very selfish note, I'm so relieved not to have to experience both new life and death at the exact same moment. While it is clearly a very definite reality that she is dying, I'm so thankful that its not simultaneous to birth. Grateful for both of us.

So now you see why I have been away for so long...it really wasn't that WB's snoring finally got the better of me. Life's challenges and grief did.

In the midst of all that, I had two amazing and beautiful baby showers thrown for me by two very wonderful friends, and got to have just a teeny tiny bit of light amidst what was otherwise a bit of a dark time. I desperately needed that, and I thank you from the bottom of my being, Coco and Muffinface. Thank you as well to all our wonderful friends who helped make us feel so loved and supported- this monkey couldn't be birthed into a more loving environment.

There was , sadly, one very horrible snafu wherein a friend felt very hurt and offended that WB and I did not get to talk with them enough and did not introduce them to other guests (disclaimer: we didn't introduce anyone to anyone else, and as we had been through the emotional ringer the previous week, which had been shared with said guest, we were understandably more than a little overwhelmed). The manner in which this friend chose to share their feelings was cruel rather than constructive (I had two witnesses to the events and conversation who can attest to that) and the friendship has definitely been irreparably damaged, to say the least. That was a very heartbreaking and supremely disappointing turn of events, but I don't even have the energy to deal with something like that amidst everything else that is going on. Its not a priority, nor should it be.

For the present moment (and I can only live in the moment right now), my priorities all revolve around birthing my baby. We've completed and organized everything we need and/or want for our home birth, I'm ruthlessly nesting (when not horrendously uncomfortable) and we're just excitedly waiting. So LFM, if you're listening, you can come anytime...Maman and Papa are ready and waiting with open arms!

Sleepless in Hippoland

The 3rd trimester insomnia/uncomfortableness is killing me here. I'm just getting over a horrible upper respiratory infection and a week of being a walking snot faucet and now I can't sleep. At all.

Also, did I ever happen to mention on this blog how WB got that particular moniker? It stands for Wild Boar...which is exactly what he sounds like when he sleeps. Seriously. I am not exaggerating at all. The first time he ever spent the night and slept (evidently he stayed up all not a few times, knowing just how terrifying the first exposure could be), I woke up in the middle of the night convinced there was some sort of wild animal in my bed. While that can be a good thing in the waking hours, when you're trying to sleep through that sound in your ear (night after night) it can try even the calmest and most patient of nerves.

I am all the way across our huge floor through apartment and he is in the bedroom behind a closed door and I hear him loud and clear right now. And even 1000 feet away (I totally made up that number, I have no idea how far it is, just far enough that any normal person's snoring would not be audible) its incredibly annoying. No, really. Trust me. I'm cringing as I type this.

Every night I wear the highest decibel blocking earplugs I can find in the drugstore and he wears a nasal snore strip and one of 3 things inevitably happens at some point in the night:
1. I ruthlessly kick him out of bed and force him to sleep on the very uncomfortable couch. When he carries the next child, he can kick me out of bed.
2. I scream out desperately at the top of my lungs "WB! PULEEZE STOP! JUST STOP! HAVE MERCY ON MY POOR MISERABLE SLEEP DEPRIVED SOUL!"
3. I try and smother him with a pillow.

This nightly cacophonous racket, compounded with an already difficult period sleep wise does not bode well for our little family. Either I will end up a Benadryl addict shivering and alone in an alley somewhere sniffling for my fix and crying that "I just need a little sleep man, just a little!" or the first ever adenoid removal surgery performed in a bedroom just might take place. I'm gazing longingly at the kitchen knives right now.



[Great! Guess who just decided that now would be a perfect time to start to use my abdomen for boxing training? If you need to find me, I'll still be here....awake and miserable all night folks. That's right! 24 hours a day of guaranteed fun!]

Whisper Soothingly Around This Blog

So I had my 28 week Centering Pregnancy appointment yesterday. The good news is that I don't have gestational diabetes! Yay! I can continue my shameful practice of mixing in strawberry quick with my skim milk. Shhh, don't judge, its the only way I can stomach milk (though the odd thing is that I never drank that pre-pregnancy, but WB loved it so much as a child that he had a stuffed animal of the quick bunny that is still lurking somewhere in Puerto Rico threatening to make its way northward).

Ok, yes, there is some not so good news that I was vainly attempting to couch with my oh-so-distracting strawberry quick confession. I have very high blood pressure. High blood pressure in pregnancy is not a good thing. Like really not at all good. Especially if it develops into preeclampsia. They're testing the amount of protein in my urine this week to make sure it isn't preeclampsia, though the fact that I gained 12 pounds in the last 4 weeks doesn't look great. Neither do the headaches I've been getting. But we're being positive and will contemplate bridges as we approach them only, and not before we even know of their existence.

So I'm taking this week and laying low. I'm laying lower than I ever thought imaginable. I'm working half the hours for now and on bed rest at home for just this week, trying to see if we can lower it by relaxation, positive thinking, and the power of Netflix. So send good thoughts and positive comments only please. Whisper gently around here, we're trying to lower the blood pressure, not raise it.

27 weeks

We're now officially in the 3rd trimester, which so far involves some discomfort, some more discomfort, and then some discomfort to ice that there discomfort cake with. The LFM's latest party trick (and clearly, its always a party in my uterus...that's the hipster spot du jour for the umbilically attached set) is to try and remove himself Houdini style, through my right side just below my ribcage. I'm not sure what he's pushing with... a head, a butt, a chainsaw, Ann Coulter...but whatever it is, it is in no way comfortable. And this happens pretty much whenever he's awake. Its become a constant battle wherein he pushes out with mystery body part and I push back in with my hand or any available blunt metal object. He usually wins though, sad as it may be. He's also been hanging with the Beckster, clearly, because his kicks now have more power than the TGV and score a perfect goal every single time...right into my bladder. This constant assault on something that wasn't that strong to begin with has been a barrel of laughs, as you can imagine, and sometimes so painful its hard to walk. My uterus feels much much heavier, and sleeping or even lying down can be quite uncomfortable if I'm, oh say 2 degrees off from optimal body placement. And optimal body placement seems to change every 2 seconds. This makes a good night's rest the stuff of which dreams are made.

And as I write this he's mauling my insides, pushing and kicking and have a grand old time in there with the roiller derby bout of the century: the LFM vs. Synge's uterus.

WB and I have been taking the awesomest birthing classes ever, which are about to end this Sunday evening, much to our dissappointment. Because of the awkward timing of the LFM's imminent arrival, what with the holidays and such, we began the classes much earlier than most other folks (everyone else is due in November)...so now, here we are, ready and willing and excited and we have 12 1/2 weeks to go! On the one hand, that seems like an absolute eternity and on the other hand, ummm...where the hell did the 2nd trimester go? How can it already be the third trimester? I haven't even ever sent WB on a midnight run for weird cravings or gotten my share of massages! I was too busy moving and readjusting and taking care of people with cancer to rteally enjoy it all and now it feels like its sped by without me even knowing it and that makes me sad.

But not sad enough to remain this uncomfortable for that much longer.

The other thing that's occupying what precious few functioning brain cells there are that haven't been obliterated by hormones is that we don't have that much stuff. We have some, and we're getting the crib this weekend (thanks RKKS!), but there's this whole huge scary world of baby consumerism that frankly frightens me to no end. WB and I went into Babies R' Us a month ago or so, and were so scared off by that beige and pastel world of unoriginal mediocrity that we haven't ventured back since. RKKS is going to go with us this weekend and help us register for all the things we don't know we need. Like the basics. I'm truly frightened. Though I think I found the one crib set in the world that doesn't make me want to vomit, so that's a start. But my one question is, where the hell are all the primary colors people? WB and I are not pastel people, and the LFM, at least judging from his in utero personality, certainly isn't either. We want to stimulate our child, not eradicate any creativity which may be blossoming in those early months by surrounding him with bad taste and nondescript color schemes! So far the nursery walls are going to be designed by our wonderful friend and incredibly talented artist Noah, and the floor is covered by an antique Tunisian baby carpet in the most vivid of colors and design that my parents got when they first met in North Africa 39 years ago. As you can see, its not your typical nursery.

Then again, we're not your typical family are we?

The Kitchen Sink and Beyond

Its 3:30 in the a.m. and I can't sleep at all. I can hear WB snoring very clearly from the other side of our very large apartment (that is after all how he got named the Wild Boar), I've already eaten the requisite midnight ice cream, and still I don't anticipate sleep arriving at any point soon. Don't get me wrong, I'm exhausted. I just can't sleep.

The Little Funky Monkey is awake too.

Then again, the LFM is awake much of the time these days, and is quite the active baby. I've been feeling movement for about 4 weeks now. It began at a little over 16 weeks when I felt what can only be described as someone tickling me from the inside, but very briefly. Just like this little tickle tickle and that was it. That progressed into what I call the "bloop" phase, because I decided that if the kicking had a sound effect, it wold undoubtedly be a "bloop!". Now it feels much more like a kick a lot of the time and its kind of also this weird dropping feeling at the same time, like when you're in an elevator and your stomach drops, only this is much more localized in the body. Its such a weird wonderful crazy feeling...it happens all the time but still kind of takes me aback every single time. Its kind of like this weird thing that's taken over your body - mysterious and wonderful and truly bizarre all at once. It also feels like this wonderful secret between the baby and I - its just us communicating solely with each other during this time, and it feels so special and sacred, this dance that's occurred between mother and child in utero throughout the ages. It makes me feel humbled, even when its slightly annoying or quite strong and distracting.

We have our first midwife appointment here in River City (not its real name) on Thursday. I'm anxious to meet the woman who will be guiding us through this process and even more anxious to schedule our 20 week ultrasound (we turned 20 weeks on Saturday) and find out whether its a boy or a girl. I'm so impatient I can't wait for the ultrasound - I don't know how I'd ever wait through the whole pregnancy! Not to mention the fact that every single person I know as well as every stranger in the grocery line keeps asking me when I'm going to know the sex. Its driving me crazy! If one more person asks me (especially my dear mother who asks me every single time I talk to her, which is often) I'm going to lose my shit on them. Seriously. I'm just as eager to know as you people are - more so, because dammit its my kid - and getting asked every 6.3 seconds only makes it worse!

And that's it for my middle of the night posting - I have much more to update considering I've been a blogging slacker, but I really should try and get some sleep. Also I just don't feel like writing - that seems to be a rather constant symptom throughout this pregnancy, at least since the big move. Then again, I've certainly been more than a little down in the dumps and having a very hard time with the whole transition, so I guess its no surprise I don't feel like writing. Its not exactly fun to write about feeling depressed, and its certainly no fun to read about it. I try and save my pity parties for truly special occasions, like this evening, wherein I laid in bed paralyzed and staring aimlessly into the middle distance while convincing myself that nothing will ever be okay. See? I told you it was really not that fun. Ah, these are the joys of pregnancy that you're not supposed to write about or talk about..doesn't really fit in with the whole glowing thing. I could write post after post about the hormonally inspired mood swings (I'm sure WB could write an entire novel)..but its late and I don't want to scare you off from ever reading this blog again.

Really I'm usually much more entertaining than this. I promise.

12 1/2 Weeks Posted at 13 1/2 Weeks With 13 1/2 Weeks Update (Confused Yet?)

So we're now closer to 14 weeks than we are to the 12 week shot I wanted to post...so much for being on top of things with this blog. In my defense, I'm training 2 people at 2 different jobs, packing (well, some packing and a lot of stressing over packing, which takes up a lot of time you know), and growing a baby. The last one's the most tiring by far.

So here it is in all its weird brightly veined glory. The scar is not recent...it was a crepe related accident incurred while trying to impress WB's borther and sister in law the first time we went to their house for dinner. That's what I get for trying to impress anyone! Though I was super tough and didn't let on for a second that I had just seared my flesh to the second degree.

Anyway....I'm definitely looking more pregnant these days, and getting fun new symptoms. I've been getting more cramps (my uterus is growing, and well, its just not always comfortable) and I was kept up all night the other night by heartburn (which was loads of fun, let me tell you. Poor WB, I finally woke him up too and made him join in the vigil of misery). My ankles and feet are swelling like nobody's business - especially my left foot. I had to take off my left shoe today because it was swelling right out of my shoe! The mood swings are no fun either, let me tell you...especially combined with moving stress.

All of which is making me want sugar as comfort. That's bad. That's so so bad. (And so so good)