Ambergontrail – Trying to get through life without dying of dysentery

I am 30 weeks now. I also would like to apologize for a lack of a belly shot for last week, my energy level is crazy lately. I’m exhausted upon waking, exhausted at work (no camera anyway), and when I get home I’m exhausted. Until I have to get ready for bed, when it’s apparent I am not tired. It’s insane, I tell you.

So many things left to do, with only 10 weeks to do them. I need to find a pediatrician, I need to make an appointment with a new asthma doc to get more advair so I don’t die when Piper is born, I need to figure out how to work my maternity leave- do I leave for six weeks and get paid by my boss or get paid by the state? Is that disability or Paid Family Leave? WE have to finish the nursery- I still have to fix the trim and touch up a few blue spots. We have to clear out the nursery, clean out the closet in the nursery, put the crib together, put the dresser together, get decals for her wall, wash all the clothes we have, finish up all the work I’ve NOT finished at work for the past oh… TEN YEARS. And sleep.

Needless to say, I’m freaked out. At this point I’m not scared about labor and childbirth. I’ve seen enough videos and read enough books to know that you can never really KNOW exactly how it’ll turn out. I just know that eventually I’ll have a baby, whether or not the nursery is done, the work is finished or I’ve filed for disability.

Now, although I know I should be resting, I went to the L.A. County Fair this weekend. Luckily it wasn’t too hot, definitely wasn’t crowded, but boooy, I had to pee every three seconds. Rather, I felt like I had to pee every three seconds. I did fine for most of the day, until my old friend sciatica hit, then it became a nightmare. Still, I hobbled along for six hours, managed to eat fresh potato chips and have a root beer float. On the way home we stopped off for super tasty Greek food. All in all, the day was a success.Yeah, I did sleep from 10pm until 10am the next day, and take a two hour nap after my tiring breakfast, but who is counting?

So, today I sit with tired legs, an achy back, and a belly that seems to have it’s own gravitational pull. Oh the joy. Still- STAY IN FOR TEN MORE WEEKS, PJ!

For the third night in a row I have been crippled with heart of fire. Since my bedtime routine is now a series of different positions that are determined on these criteria:

* Can I breathe in this position?

* Is my back hurting?

* Is my stomach hurting?

* Is Paul’s sweaty arm mooching off my cold part of the mattress?

* Will Paul huff his breath into my face should I stay in this position?

* Am I able to get up to go to the bathroom in this position?

* Crap, I have to go to the bathroom NOW.

* Can I see the TV from here?

* Do I have plenty of room for my body pillow and I to roll around?

Eventually, I sit back with my two pillows, my body pillow under my legs. That’s when the games begin. PJ undulates below the surface of my belly like Nessie the Loch Ness Monster, either doing The Worm or trying to get mommy to stop poking her. The sides of my belly bulge with her movements and I’m entertained… until I get a sharp poke to my bladder when she’s gone back under (to wherever it is she goes when she’s not turning me into a camel with her humps). Man, those sharp pokes are agony. Not only does it sting to be kicked there, but the immediate need to pee is bad. Even if you JUST peed.

So, after debating which position to sleep in (it really changes every night for me), I finish watching The Simpsons or Friends, whichever has the least horrible episode, then turn on Everybody Loves Raymond. FINALLY, when I am just starting to get sleepy, I turn off the tv and go to bed. *Note: make sure you pee (yes, again!) before you get too comfortable and sleepy while still watching tv. Nothing worse than getting sleepy and having to walk across cold tiles to pee again.

As per usual, I wake at 3am to pee. I then get back into bed, and have horrible heartburn. I debate whether or not to try to fall back to sleep or get my tums (which are now beside the bed), which grosses me out in the middle of the night. Yes, even if they are the Tropical Fruit Smoothies version. One night this week, Paul got the tums for me. The next night I got them myself. Finally, I wised up and moved them next to the bed.

I get heartburn from looking at a cinnamon roll, I get it from orange juice, iced tea, chocolate, CROUTONS! It’s agony. Tomorrow I’m going to the L.A. County Fair, so I’ll have my tums in hand, believe you me!

She puts her left foot up, she puts her right foot down, she puts her left fist out and punches all about… she does the hokey pokey and sticks her tush right out… that’s what it’s all about!

Honestly, I have gotten so used to the feeling of having something puttering around my internal organs that it’s not really as magical a feeling as it once was. No doubt I’m in awe of growing a small person beneath my rib cage, but as she gets bigger the movements start to hurt. She is still fond of sharp pokes to my bladder, as she’s head down now. When I roll over onto my right side for a reprieve from left-side only, she protests with a hearty shift in equilibrium, causing my insides to shift along with her heft. To be honest, that feeling is slightly nauseating, knowing she’s MOVING AROUND MY INSIDES.

How crazy is that? I’m growing and sustaining a life, INSIDE my body. This life is blinking and moving towards the light, she’s starting when she hears a loud noise (That’s YOU I’m talking to, Woofie), and starting to practice breathing- inhaling amniotic fluid. Now, her constant rolls and punches are becoming common-place, something for me to rest my hands on to guess where she is at that moment.

Hm, something is moving simultaneously on both sides- is it a hand on the right and a foot on the left? There is a small dome poking out beside my belly-button, it’s too high to be the head, it is a heel? Her tush? After the ultrasound last week, we know it’s her tush, and it’s tiny. Now I tap a small, soft beat on her tush, to get her used to how much we’re going to be cupping it in our hands because it’s the SMALLEST TUSH IN THE HOUSE which we all know = CUTEST THING IN THE HOUSE. Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly excited, I give it a tiny nudge, to see if she’ll nudge back.

Gradually, as the weeks pass, the movements begin to creep higher. One day they’re at my bellybutton, the next they’re  an inch or so higher and so on. She’s like my very own rollercoaster encased in my ribs. twirling and dropping, flipping and rushing about.

At one point during the ultrasound (we have it on DVD- I have NO idea how to show it online) she tucks her arms down and PUSHES OFF her placenta. She’s like superman in there, diving around while she still has the room. When I noticed that for the first time on Saturday, I was in awe. She’s PLAYING in there. She’s having FUN in there, shooting around, stretching her legs and arms. It makes it all the more real- she’s a little tiny human being who will soon laugh and cry and grab.

Since I’ve gotten so “used” to her movements (“used” isn’t the correct term, I just can’t think of something better to say what I mean), I wonder: What will happen when I have me an Outside Baby? No more little punches and thuds between just the two of us (unless Daddy lays a hand on my belly), I’ll be rolling over in the middle of the night without getting any kicks in response to my change of side.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be sad when I realize that closeness is gone, now I have to “share” our baby with everyone else!

I passed the one hour glucose test!

YIPPEEEE!

I just got the call, I’m not anemic (my hemoglobin levels are at 11.8) and I passed the test with great numbers- 124 when something like 145 is the cutoff. Thankfully, this means no more blood tests, no three hour test of torture involving needles and high glucose drinks, which in turn may have led to a very strict diet.

Yay! I am so excited I can almost forget about the massive sciatica pain I’ve been suffering from today, and the fact that I got less than three hours of sleep.

Today isn’t such a bad day.

As a kid, so much of our lives was spent whining about what’s fair and not fair, “Shawn got one more scoop of ice cream than I did!” As an adult, you grow out of it, or learn to keep it to yourself.

I was that way, until I tried to get pregnant. It’s easy, you think. Teenagers and idiot pop stars can do it by blinking their eyes, how hard can it be? Well, months go by with no pregnancies. You begin to regress to your childlike mannerisms- “She got pregnant on her first try without even temping?! SO not fair.” The more months that pass by are years you begin to regress, “How the hell is SHE pregnant? What’s wrong with me? SO. NOT. FAIR.”

You have the good friends who are supportive and are wishing just as hard for you as you are, and if one should accidentally become pregnant you think, “Wow, really? Lucky bastard. I wish that was me.” Since she’s a friend, you don’t want to say it’s not fair, because well, she’s your friend, but still, that little ugly troll in the back of your mind says, “Yeah, you love her, but it’s not fair that you’re doing everything possible to get pregnant, and nothing.” You feel ugly, but can’t stop thinking that.

Then again, there are those friends who put off trying to conceive so you can be pregnant first. You again feel lucky for such wonderful friends who are rooting for you. Finally, finally finally, you get pregnant on your 12th try. Now you can root on your friends! The circle has come ’round and things are as they should be.

Until.

Something happens and your friends can’t get pregnant either. Or they get pregnant and something horrible happens, in which case you start cursing the gods and feeling guilty about your own growing belly. Your friends say they’re glad for you still, since you should have always been first. You love your friends for this, and start regressing again.

Someone new is pregnant, all of a sudden. “It’s not fair”, you tell your friends. This time, it’s not fair for THEM. “YOU deserve it”, you say to them. You think about how hard it was to watch others getting pregnant while your uterus collected dust. Still, you feel guilty for being in the family way, even though you know your friends would never, ever hold anything against you. Apparently, they are better people overall. Still, you always knew this.

Upon thinking of this, you think they deserve to be pregnant, too. In fact, upon thinking of how good and kind these friends are, how hard they’re working, how great a parent you know they will be (and their husbands, too), you begin to question yourself. Do YOU deserve to be pregnant? You try not to complain, but when you do you hope your friends know how lucky you know you are. Yes, my stomach aches from the extra weight- but I KNOW how badly I want this, don’t think me ungrateful.

Day after day, new announcements come out, and you shake your fist at them for the sake of your friends. You know they’re not commenting on these announcements because it hurts, and in an act of solidarity, you too refuse to comment. For those friends who took the safe route and refused to divulge their news too soon for fear of something terrible happening (and Christ, it did happen *heart breaks for them*), you try to tell them, again and again, that their baby was special, and will always be special. You know they feel ripped off of the chance to be the one congratulated, and that their baby, while only here for a short time, deserved to be celebrated every bit (if not more, if I may say so myself) as those other new announcements.  Again, you find yourself thinking, chanting, saying, “It’s not FAIR.”

What else can you say? Those three words, although juvenile and seemingly petty, say it all: When can it be her turn? You know, of course, that it WILL be her turn. You know that as much as you know anything. Still, that can’t lessen the pain of seeing constant Facebook status changes regarding other people’s children, pictures posted of bellies and ultrasounds. The same thing, going through your mind again and again, “It’s not fair.”

How far along? 28 Weeks 5 days as of the picture
Total weight gain/loss: Another 2 pounds, a total of 6.5 gained up to now.
Maternity clothes? Si senor
Stretch marks? I think Wolverine got to my belly in my sleep
Sleep: Always tired, never enough sleep.
Best moment this week: We got to see her again on the ultrasound. Gosh she’s cute.
Movement: More than enough, she pissed off the ultrasound tech mightily!
Food cravings: Oranges and macaroni and cheese.
Gender: 100 % vag!
Labor Signs: None
Belly Button in or out? Still in, but getting pretty shallow.
What I miss: Eating cookie dough
What I am looking forward to: Getting her room ready
Weekly Wisdom/ Snide Comments: “Well, she looks larger than average.” Glancing at Paul, “Well, that’s not surprising, look at him!”
Milestones: We had our last monthly appointment, now onto two weekers.

Pics:

Is it just me, or is that gigantic?

Now, uncovered

It looks like a camel's hump

More stuff:
I took my gestational diabetes blood draw on Friday. Wow, the drink was horrible. only ten ounces yet 50 grams of glucose. I was given the choice of fruit punch or orange flavored and I chose fruit punch. I was given the drink  at the last appointment, and told to keep it refrigerated until a half an hour before my appointment, at which time I was to drink it. They are supposed to draw your blood exactly an hour after drinking to test how your body reacts to the massive amounts of glucose. We’ll be finding out the results on Tuesday.

As I said above, I’m up 6.5 pounds overall and measuring nicely. She’s large, but measurement-wise is only a week ahead. Time is flying!

All is well in our world, aside from the discomfort and inability to get up on my own. We had our 28 week perinatologist follow up to check Piper’s kidneys on Monday, and luckily everything is just perfect. Well… except for one thing- she’s “growing larger than average”. Of course, when he took a look at Paul (who is a big guy) he said, “Not too surprising”. That, coupled with how small I am, makes Paul assume I’m going to go early. I don’t have the heart to tell him that it might not be that easy- a friend of mine is also carrying a large baby and is currently in her 39th week, so I guess you can never tell.

That’s one of the biggest things about pregnancy- you just don’t know. Everything is an unknown. Will I deliver early? Late? On time? Will she be breech or head down? How big will she be? What will she look like? As a person who absolutely has to KNOW EVERYTHING, this is quite a struggle for me. On one hand, I’d really rather she come on her own because the idea of choosing a birthday for my child is overwhelming. I’m already choosing her name which will follow her for life, add choosing her birthday and it’s like she had control over nothing (yes, I’m aware she’ll be a newborn).

As I said, everything at the appointment looks great, she’s still 100% a girl! She was moving all over, which made it insanely difficult for the tech to get a good shot of her face. At first the tech said, “Eh, it’s nothing I can’t handle”. Then, it turned into, “Okay baby! Stop moving around so much! Ha ha!” Finally, it turned into, “Please be a good baby!” It was pretty entertaining watching her lose it over a baby who was moving quite a bit. I did feel badly for her, though. It wasn’t too pleasant having them press down super hard to get her to stay in one place, though.

Tomorrow I have my one hour glucose test- SO not looking forward to it. My appointment is at 8, and I am to take the drink a half an hour before the appointment, so I’ll have to start my dad off with sugar water. Just the thought makes me gag. I’m not a fan of sugary drinks, I avoid sweeteners in my iced tea, don’t drink soda (aside from a few sips of coke here and there) and drink lemonade on the sour side. So starting off the morning with a bottle of “Glucola” is just not my idea of fun. Follow that with a blood draw (for gestational diabetes and anemia), and my three day weekend will go off with a bang! I just hope I don’t faint this time.

That’s the update! I’ll leave you with a crappy pic of Piper from her appointment on Monday. This was the only time they could get a semi-face image. I really do think she’s frowning.

Semi-Profile Shot