This Week in Pregnancy - Week 35

Your baby’s getting big. He weighs a tad over 5 pounds and is just over 18 inches long. Because it’s so snug in your womb, he isn’t likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products. Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he’ll spend the next few weeks putting on weight.

Midwife Appt

1pm

As the Baby Turns

Dearest Benjamin,

I was inpired by The Girl’s post to have a little misdirection discussion with you. After last week’s visit with the midwife where you were in perfect head down position, where she said you were more likely to stay put than to turn, where she grabbed your head and butt and made you wiggle (sorry about that kid, it hurt me, too), I’m sure you heard your father and I discussing how smart you were. How much smarter you were than we were when we were babies since we were both so misdirected our mothers had to be cut open. We were astounded by your intelligence. We had ourselves an incredibly smart baby. I should’ve known better.

Don’t get me wrong, love, we know you’re smart. We don’t doubt it for one second. You’re just an incredibly intelligent smart-ass. The night after the appointment I began feeling very strange rolling and pushing from you that I hadn’t before. My belly stuck out in weird ways, ways even your father was amazed by. I just thought you were enjoying the steaks he made us. Turns out, you’re so smart you turned the right way just for the midwife and then decided to flip back the other way when we got home. Bad seed.

So, now you’re kicking me in the bladder again and shoving your head into my stomach whenever I eat too much. I have a strange feeling you’ll probably be turning before my next appointment just so I can look like a crazy person for telling the midwife you were ever otherwise. All I ask is that when it’s time for you to be born, you get yourself the right way. The whole rebellious thing is great, but if it requires your momma to be cut open to get you out, you will be grounded until you’re well into your 40’s and then I will marry you off to a large Russian woman who plans to use you as a work mule.

Remember, I warned you.

Love,
Your (not joking) Momma

This Week in Pregnancy - Week 34

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is probably almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which she’ll need to regulate her body temperature once she’s born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her central nervous system is still maturing and her lungs are well developed by now. If you’ve been nervous about going into preterm labor, you’ll be happy to know that 99 percent of babies this age can survive outside the womb — and most have no major long-term problems related to prematurity.
 

Light Speed

While talking to Eric this morning, it hit me that we have 6 1/2 weeks until Ben’s predicted arrival. Wait, I don’t think you heard the panic radiating from my fingers…SIX AND A HALF WEEKS! That’s better. We have nothing ready. NOTHING! *insert panicstruck finger freakout here*

I can’t believe how quickly this whole thing has gone by. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly excited to see the little guy. I can’t wait to see who he most resembles, what color his eyes will be, how often he cries, and how well he’ll fit in the car seat so I can leave him to do that crying at my parents’. I am excited, but I’m also scared to death. 6 1/2 weeks is not long enough to get everything ready for him. 6 1/2 weeks is not long enough to become accustomed to the idea of being a mother. And 6 1/2 weeks is definitely not long enough to get used to the idea of no longer feeling these little kicks and flails.

Last night, I pointed to my wiggling belly and giggled to Eric, “Looks like he’s trying to get out!”
“Poor Jess. You’re going to feel a void when he’s out, aren’t you?”
“I’m sure I will for a while.”
He rubbed my belly very sweetly and said, “I’m going to miss it, too. Especially being able to roll over in the mornings and hold you both at one time.”

I’m going to miss that, too.

This Week in Pregnancy - Week 33

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and measures 17.2 inches from the top of his head to his heels. His skin is becoming less red and wrinkled, and while most of his bones are hardening, his skull is quite pliable and not completely joined. This will help him ease out of your relatively narrow birth canal.

Note: Every baby develops a little differently — even in the womb. Our information is designed to give you a general idea of your baby’s development.

Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day!

Midwife Appt

Numero dos.

Contractions Suck

I spent the majority of the day yesterday in bed. It couldn’t entirely be blamed on being a lazy ass, either. I haven’t been feeling right since Sunday. I’ve been exhausted. Eating puts me to sleep immediately and I’m hungry all the time. It’s been a mess.

So, I had a major intestinal freak out in the AM, followed by an hour of painful (!!) contractions coming about every 7 minutes for an hour. I followed the midwife’s instructions - lay down, drink water for an hour and if they’re still close together, call. They went away but I felt light headed the for rest of the day.

After I spoke to my mom and she flipped out, I called. The midwife says, “Lay down, put your feet up, drink more water, eat some protien and call back if you have more contractions, double vision or pass out.” Well, alrighty then.

I’m not feeling much better today. I’m tired and incredibly hungry. Ben’s been quiet, which is scaring the crap out of me. I have an appointment tomorrow, and I sure don’t want to be that crazy lady who calls every ten seconds, but if he doesn’t wake up and shove me in the bladder soon, I may just have to do it.

I have to say, those contractions were eye opening. I have no idea how self-hypnosis is going to help when the time comes but I’m going to hope. Suddenly the needle in my back doesn’t sound so bad.

Cooking and Cleaning are Bad

A couple of Eric’s business partners came over yesterday for dinner. One of them brought one of his (exceptionally well behaved and adorable) 26 month old twins with him. It was our first time entertaining non-family AND a child in our home. Our house was a disaster zone and we had no food. I’m still recovering from yesterday’s activities.

We got up relatively early and got all our shopping done in about 4 hours. Three stores in four hours. I’m not sure I should be proud of that but for a 7 month, waddling pregnant lady, shopping on a Sunday is not the most fun - especially when your child is the king of non-violent, sit-in uterus protesting (I wish he’d just tell me what the hell he was protesting instead of randomly putting all his weight on 2 square inches of my uterus and going limp - Note to self: Teach Ben protesting is only useful when the cause is apparent to all parties involved). I had to fight the urge to attack a teenage boy with a cucumber after he knocked into me in a store and didn’t even say excuse me. (Note to self: I will teach Ben manners if it kills him.) It really is unbelievable how many rude people you’ll come across in stores on the weekend - especially Sunday. I remember working retail at a certain crap ass beauty supply store and the women coming in after church were ALWAYS the meanest. It was like they’d managed to have all their sins for the previous week forgiven, so it was time to start this week’s sin count with a bang. Anyway, we got enough groceries to choke a horse - still managed to forget bread - and got out without any homicides taking place.

We got home with two hours to spare. TWO HOURS! Let me give you a picture of what was going on in the BabyCubed household. I had an 8ft table in the middle of the living room covered in my sewing supplies. Both big chairs? Covered in my sewing supplies. Dining room table, covered in Eric’s paperwork and audio supplies. The kitchen? Let’s just say I hadn’t done dishes in almost 3 days and the floor hadn’t been swept in at least twice that. My underwear was still hanging from the line in the basement. Our bedroom had no door on the closet from last painting, our bed skirt was laying on top of the side tables and the entire bed’s dressings had (in my insane middle of the night rolling fits and sliding off the edge of the bed to pee) formed a small tumor on my side of the bed, while Eric’s side laid bare. The absolute worst of it was the baby’s room. It looked like legions of fabric, audio gear, dirty laundry, clean laundry and toys had a giant war and had left their dead behind in the aftermath. We had a small 10 inch by 3 foot path to walk through. This would not do.

We spent the next two hours furiously cleaning the entire house. I moved faster than any woman carrying a rock in her uterus should. We got nearly everything done but the beds, which I ended up finishing while Eric met, gret (greeted) and delayed the on-time, childless friend outside. From that point forward, I spent about 40 minutes of the whole night sitting down. 10 before I made dinner and 30 during dinner. The child taught us that the one “big boy” toy we had for Ben was not right for a 2 year old, and lost a few pieces in the process. Note to self: Toys fall apart WAY easier than I thought they could. The toy won’t be coming out until he’s at least 4 years old.

All in all, I enjoyed the night but have been seriously paying for it ever since. I haven’t moved much except to get between bed, couch and bathroom - all to the joyous sounds of “oh,” “ow ow ow,” “ouch,” and “ughhhhha.” So, with all of the above, I have learned that cooking and cleaning while pregnant is possibly the stupidest idea I could have ever had and plan to never do it again. It’s for my health, dammit.

On the “too awesome for words” news front, Kimmie has some huge news that I was anxiously awaiting for all weekend. GO KIMMIE!