Another Day and No Baby Got You Down?

I'm not too bummed today, but last night I was beyond frustrated.  I am realizing that I don't "wait" very well.  I felt trapped last night, like I hadn't left our apartment in weeks.  So, Nate and I decided to head to Lapham Peak Unit of Kettle Moraine State Forest and hike around this afternoon for a couple of hours.  Walking is one of those kick start labor methods.  We did about three miles, enjoying the weather and fresh air, even though the wind was fairly chilly.  I was comfortable, but Nate was cold.  I don't think he fully grasps how much of a heater this fetus is.  Mr. Belvedere is my personal wood-burning stove.

Anyway, we took some pictures:

Week 40 

Those sunglasses are $2 at the Milwaukee County Zoo, if you're wondering...

Free birthing in the Kettles!

Looks like we'll be having a May baby...  A stubborn Taurus, as my cousin put it.

Still Here

It's 40 weeks and 2 days and no baby yet.  I'm honored that Mr. Belvedere is loving being in the womb.  However, my patience is wearing thin.  I am in the majority, though.  Apparently, 25% of babies come early, 5% on the due date, and 70% come late.

In an effort to move things along and keep some sanity, I went to the gym this afternoon, and some woman saw me and said, "Oh, congratulations!  Are you about 7 months?"  I smiled and replied, "Nope.  I was due two days ago."  She looked at me like I was crazy.  Throughout this pregnancy, people have constantly told me that I'm not that big, but let me assure you, all my measurements are fine and the scale doesn't lie.

The longest the midwife will let me go is May 10, which is 41 weeks and 5 days.  That seems like such a long way away...

Zero Days to Go

At least that's what the floating baby widget says...

As I thought, I didn't pop today.  I guess I can do only one thing--keep waiting.

Someone Else's Birthday

Today is Nate's 32nd birthday!

Excellent frosting detail, no?

Tomorrow is Mr. Belvedere's alleged birthday, but I'm pretty sure that we're going to have to wait awhile.  That's okay.  I had a minor meltdown yesterday after my prenatal appointment, mostly due to the fact that I'm tired of seeing the numbers on the scale climb to numbers that I was hoping to never reach.  Perhaps someday I'll wear my weight gain during this pregnancy as a badge of honor.  Just not at the present moment.

As for other birthdays, yesterday would have been my cousin Tom's 31st birthday.  We went down to Illinois today to celebrate my cousin's life at his funeral and luncheon.  It was wonderful to see so many people who loved him, and as with any funeral, I saw people I hadn't seen in years.  It's still hard to wrap my head around his passing, as it is for most everyone else.

Preggo Portraits

Several months ago, my friend Angie (of frontporch photography: 414-640-5250) offered to take some pregnancy portraits of me.  I agreed, but I never set up a time, I think because I was unsure of the whole ordeal.  Angie's low key and non-threatening, so it had nothing to do with her; it was just me and my plethora of insecurities about my hijacked body.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, we set a date and she came over to our shack.  I tried to explain that we lived in a pint-sized hovel of an apartment, but she didn't care, explaining that part of the shoot was having the ability to reflect on the photos years later and think about how nice and easy it was to take care of such a tiny place.  For those of you that have been over to our place, she certainly made it work!

Happy Easter

I don't really know how much bigger I can get.  Mr. Belvedere, aren't you cramped?  Aren't you just itching to get out of my belly?  Don't you want to stretch out a bit?

I've been up since 5:30 this morning, did some yoga, and cooked breakfast for myself.  Nate's still sleeping (the NBA playoffs are on, and who knows how late the game went last night), and I'm rather bored.

• I cleaned the apartment in its entirety last night.  Miraculously, I was even able to get down on my hands and knees and wash the floor.  It took me a little longer than usual, but I did it.
• I've read everything I possibly can about labor and delivery.
• Nate birthday present is wrapped (it's this Wednesday).
• I bought my mom's Mother's Day gift and card.
• The bag is packed for the hospital.
• I have email drafts saved for the big announcement.
• The laundry is done.

What else can I do???  I suppose I could go to the Pick 'n Save and do some grocery shopping.  I could cook some more meals to throw in the freezer.

Charting the Belly: Week 39

Well, I think I've dropped:

I can breathe again!

Sorry for the bare belly pictures, but the other ones were less than desirable.  I had just woken up, and my photographer thought that my bed head was "sexy."  I disagreed.

News update: Mr. Belvedere's cousin was born two days ago!  My brother, his wife, and their son welcomed Liam Reid into their family.  He's a peanut--6 lbs. 4 oz. and 18 in.!  Now the family is just awaiting grandchild numero seis...  April or May?  Mister or Miss?  Chub or lightweight?  Only one way to know--WAIT.  My appointment last Tuesday revealed I wasn't hardly effaced and only a fingertip dilated.  There are all sorts of ways to naturally induce labor, but I'm not so desperate that I want to try Castor oil yet.  Ask me in a week.

Life Goes On Part 2

I really should be taking a nap right now.  I'm exhausted from the past few day's events.  My dear cousin, Tom, passed away yesterday afternoon from a terribly aggressive and rare cancer, neuroendocrine carcinoma.  His mom is my dad's sister, so this has been a very emotionally-charged year for this side of the family.  He was diagnosed two months ago on February 18 with cancer, and was given a couple of years.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, it turned into six months to a year.  Friday night, he was in liver failure, and had about a week.  My mom and I went to Chicago yesterday morning, and he was given a few hours.  He passed about an hour and a half after we got there.

I don't get life.  To be honest, I felt very awkward yesterday at the hospital as we shared my 30-year old cousin's last breaths while his siblings and my aunt and uncle sat by his side.  Perhaps the awkwardness came from the fact that I have this life growing inside of me, waiting to make its entrance into the world, while my cousin was preparing to make his exit.  It is inconceivable for me to understand what it would be like to lose a child, and I feel as though I went completely numb.  I couldn't cry, and still haven't really.

I'm reminded of this Buddhist thought that I learned in India when I was there six years ago: There is a paradox in relationships--once you meet someone, you are also preparing for the end of the relationship at some point in time.  Death is absolutely inevitable.  It just sucks when it's someone so young.

Bowling for Belvedere

Last night for date night, Nate and I went bowling at my suggestion.  At the shower a couple of weeks ago, my cousin's wife told me that she went into labor with both her boys after she went bowling, so away we went.  My mom came with us as our "chaperon."  It was loads of fun, even though I had a horrible first game.  It took awhile to get used to how my center of gravity has shifted.  After my hips opened up, I came back in the second game like a champ and ended up with a 163.  Apparently, my mom had the highest bowling average of her career while she was pregnant with my sister and me back in the days when she was on a bowling league.  Go figure.

Dropping Mr. Belvedere

No, I'm not talking about not being able to hold on to the baby after it comes (although that sometimes is a fear because I can't seem to hold on to anything lately); I'm referring to that desirable lightening that is supposed to happen sometime soon when the baby "drops."

Come on down!

Almost every woman I talk to looks at my belly and says, "Oh, you haven't dropped yet, so that baby's not coming out any time soon."  That's really not the news I want to hear, but that's the reality, I guess.  Some people said that when it feels like you're sitting on the baby's head, then you know you've dropped.  I'm guessing that I'll have some major relief to the rib pain that I've been experiencing these past few days.  Last night, my ribs ached so bad that I felt like I had been repeatedly kicked like this poor dude:

Charting the Belly: Week 38

This weekly plan with the midwife is time consuming!  I have appointments every week now, and I've only scheduled them up until April 19, which is next Tuesday.  I'm just hoping that's my last one before Mr. Belvedere makes his or her debut...  Yeah right--I'll probably go until 42 weeks and deliver a 10 pound baby.

Hopefully no more than 15 days to go!

I am beyond anxious to meet who this little critter is that's been jumping on my bladder, kicking my ribs, making me cry these past nine months for seemingly ridiculous reasons, and having me countdown the days until my next appointment with my hair stylist.  As a side note, I cannot get over how much hair is on my head or how thick it is.  Normally, I have to clean out the drain after every shower I take or sweep up my hair from the bathroom floor on a daily basis.  Since about week 20, I haven't had to do any of that, which means that after this baby is born, my hair loss will be indescribable.

How Many People Love This Baby?

I had a conversation with Mr. Belvedere this morning about how many people are so excited to meet him or her.  It's been rather quiet as far as its movement goes these past few days, and I thought maybe it was lonely, so I gave it a pep talk.  It's got to be awfully cramped in my uterus right now because all it does is roll back and forth, kind of like how I feel when trying to sleep at night.  I mentioned that it could come out any time it wants to; we're ready for it!  I think it felt better after our talk, because then it got the hiccups.

My dear mother threw a baby shower for us yesterday afternoon at Sheridan's in Cudahy, and I am still overwhelmed at my family's generosity.  Everyone who came lives somewhere else besides the Milwaukee area, and many people drove several hours to come and celebrate this little fetus.  It was so fun to see the women that are in some way related to Mr. Belvedere.

Our apartment has completely exploded after yesterday's shower:

I cannot wrap my head around how much stuff a baby allegedly needs.  I'm sitting next to the car seat and stroller that my mom, sister-in-laws and sister got us, and it's really intimidating!  I feel like I have no clue what we're about to get ourselves into, despite the fact that I've spent a decent chunk of my life baby-sitting, working in day care centers, teaching, and being around babies.  But it's way scarier when it's my own, and no one's coming here to relieve me of my duties at the end of the day.  I feel like I did right before our bike trip last summer--nervous because I didn't really know how it was all going to unfold.  I'd never ridden my bike for 60 days straight, nor had I ever been in the wilderness that long.  I had an idea of what it might be like, but it's impossible to know what it is that I don't know.

Charting the Belly: Week 36

We're nearing the finish line...  Child-birthing class number 8 of 8 is tomorrow.  Most of the baby clothes are washed.  My third quarter grades are submitted.  Mr. Belvedere is head down and on my left side (left occiput anterior).  The apartment is clean (at least for today).  I've made a list of what needs to be packed to go to the hospital, but I haven't put anything in a bag yet.

The fetus within...

I haven't had the nesting urge yet, or at least the final one where I start tearing apart the pantry and alphabetizing all the food after I've dusted, vacuumed, and painted the walls.

Staying at Home

Needless to say, these past nine months have been nothing short of stressful.  Being pregnant has this way of intensifying everything else that goes on in my life.  We ended the bike trip in Colorado early last August, and I was fully expecting to go back to my former job at the elementary school I taught at just a few weeks after finishing the trip.  Unfortunately, I was involuntarily transferred to a middle school for reasons I'll never fully know.  I cried for weeks about this, which probably should have been my first clue that I was pregnant.  Then in October, my dad passed away, leaving me with this indescribable loss in the midst of something so exciting in my life.  I think about him lots, and his picture is on our fridge, right next to the ultrasound pictures of our baby.

All the while, this year at work has been the most stressful thing I've experienced yet.  Being at a new school, teaching curricula that I haven't taught since my student teaching days, and dealing with the craziness of middle school students brought on feelings of complete inadequacy.  I ended my 7th hour class on an almost daily basis feeling utterly defeated, trying hard to fight back tears and compose myself before 8th hour began. I tried everything I could think of to make my 7th hour class tolerable, and I got nowhere.  Almost the entire staff knew about the yahoos that were in that class, and they would just shake their heads in sympathy.  Administration wasn't much help, either.  I continued to try so hard to rise above it, coming home and bawling to Nate about my frustrations.  To relieve the stress, I'd follow the guidelines that were suggested: exercising, eating well, getting enough sleep, etc.

Months of this, coupled with not sleeping at night, turned into a nasty cycle...  I routinely woke up at 2 or 3 in the morning to go to the bathroom, or for no reason at all.  And then the thinking would start...  What else can I do to make work better?  I couldn't turn the thinking off, despite trying to fall back asleep.  I'd be up for a couple of hours, occasionally falling asleep right before I had to wake up to go to work.

In early March, Nate had had enough: "Why can't your turn your brain off?"  Good question--I didn't know how to answer that.  He suggested that I talk to our midwife and let her know what was going on at work.  I really didn't want to; I suppose because that meant that I wasn't tough enough.  But what was I trying to prove?  That I could make it through to the end?  I know about opinions, and I didn't want people forming one about me and my "inability" to work.

But, at the urging of Nate and my mom, I told the midwife at my last appointment (I actually started bawling even before I could say anything), and she talked to me about the risk of preterm labor for women who are stressed during their pregnancy and not sleeping enough.  She put in orders for modified bed rest, which basically means that I'm supposed to take it easy and not work.  I was off all last week, and will be until the baby comes.  And guess what?  I slept through the night after my last day of work.  I've been feeling well-rested and less anxious about the birth.  I'm calmer, which is a wonderful feeling to have.  Sure, I've had to endure some people's comments and opinions about this: "You think this is not sleeping?  Just wait, honey."  Ultimately, it's the best decision for me and the baby, and I'm glad I did it.

Charting the Belly: Week 34 (almost 35)

I. Am. Feeling. Big.

It'll be 35 weeks this Thursday, and I suspect like every other pregnant woman at this point in her pregnancy, I am ready to get this baby out.  But I've got some time to go, and some room to grow.  I had Nate take some pictures this morning, and I was disgusted with every one of them.  I couldn't bring myself to post them because it looked as though my face was pumped up with helium.  So, we tried again this evening, and I didn't look at the camera.

I'm picking lint off of my shirt

I have read everything about the next five weeks in preparation for light at the end of the tunnel (before the next adventure of parenting).  The highlights?  Read on:
"Your baby will spend the next few weeks putting on weight."
Awesome.  As if topping the scale at 200 pounds isn't exciting enough.

"Your ballooning uterus is crowding your other internal organs."
Like my lungs, my bladder, my stomach, and any muscles that used to help me put on my shoes and pick up stuff off the floor.


"You may have trouble sleeping at night."
Really?  No kidding.  

Rocking Chair

In the hopes that we can continue to use our rocking chair as a functional piece of furniture well after the baby (and its subsequent siblings??) is/are grown up, Nate and I decided to purchase an Eames Case Study Rocker from Modernica.  It's not an original, but it's as close to the original as you can get.  It's a fiberglass shell with the same molds that Ray and Charles Eames used in 1948.

At this point, I don't fully appreciate nor understand how cool this chair is.  I don't come from a design background that would help me wrap my head around our purchase, but Nate and Jeff both think it's a great start to what could end up being a sweet furniture collection.

Daddy-to-Be

Registry Fun Times

The other night, after hearing for the umpteenth time from my mother, "You need to add more to your registry," my two cousins (who are both moms themselves), offered to register items for me.  Because the biggest problem with figuring out what I need for this baby lies in the fact that I simply don't know what I need, I jumped on the offer and quickly logged them in.  In a matter of thirty minutes, Cindy and Angie had gone through almost every category at BuyBuy Baby, asking me questions along the way, and filled up the registry.
"Get as many receiving blankets as you can from the hospital.  Those swaddle the best."
"Don't register for any more newborn sizes."
"You'll be doing laundry all the time, so get as many burping cloths as you can."

It was way less stressful than the hours I had spent thinking about what I needed and agonizing over of the fact that I simply had no idea what I needed.

April Showers

Last weekend, my "family" from the elementary school I worked at for three years (before I was unexpectedly and involuntarily transferred last August) threw me a baby shower.  It was still March, so the title of this post is a bit misleading...

Anyway, it was so much fun to see the many amazing teachers that I spent most of the past three years of my life with.  They all took time out of their weekend to celebrate the fact that I'm having a baby--a baby that no one's even met yet, but is truly excited about.  Being the emotional person I am these days, I came home from the shower exhausted and weepy.

Nate: "Honey, why are you crying?"  This seems to be a standard question from him these days.


We were surrounded by onesies, toys, receiving blankets, leftover cake, and mounds of tissue paper, and I was sitting there with tears pouring down my face.  I blubbered, "This past year has been stressful being in a new building and away from the work family that I had come to know and depend upon.  I miss them!"

Sure, it's sad being away from them, but I think I just had this tremendous feeling of gratitude for the fact that even though I don't work with them anymore, they all chose to be a part of such an amazing time in my life.  Thanks, Pershing.

Aches and Pains

The past two weeks have provided some phenomenal insight into the world of sciatic nerve pain.  One website describes it as coming on suddenly, causing immediate distress.  I would say that's an understatement.  I have woken up in the middle of the night on several occasions in agony, as if my entire left side were on fire.  Thankfully, it doesn't happen every night and it seems to be only when I lie on my left side.  I spoke to my midwife about the increasing pain I was experiencing, and she referred me to a physical therapist.  I was able to get in last Monday, and she spent about 45 minutes with me, giving me several exercises to do to strengthen my hips.  The weight of Mr. Belvedere puts pressure on this nerve, which causes the irritation.

I also have a small hole in my abdominal muscles (diastasis recti), which is a common symptom in pregnancy, so she gave me some exercises to do to correct that.  I've been pretty diligent about doing these simple exercises and so far, I've been feeling better.  I haven't awoken to the excruciating pain in the past six days, but I do notice that I'm sore in my hips in a different way, perhaps due to the exercises that I'm doing.  Who knows.

Those Braxton-Hicks contractions are happening more and more frequently, in preparation for labor.  They are so weird--like my belly is tightening up in a giant abdominal crunch.  They don't hurt, but they can be uncomfortable.  I almost always get them right after I stand up from sitting down, which makes for some awkward first steps when trying to walk.

Body After Birth

I hope Nate sends me this card: