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.

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.

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!

This Week in Pregnancy - Week 32

By now, your baby probably weighs almost 4 pounds and is almost 17 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. She has tiny toenails now, and her fingernails have grown in, too. Some babies have a head of hair already; others have only peach fuzz.

My How Things Have Changed

Discussing baby safety with my mom, whose only child was born nearly 26 years ago, is like trying to speak to a Mac tech about a Microsoft system (yay, dorkiness!). Nothing either of you are saying to one another makes any sense.

I, like every new mother, have become obsessed with safety guidlines. I’ve already vetoed Eric’s hand-me-down crib because the slats were 5 inches apart. FIVE INCHES! I’m not sure how, but apparently a child can get it’s head stuck between anything larger than 2.5 inches and, you know the routine, tragic baby death ensues. I vetoed his bassinet because, although I couldn’t find any real bassinet safety standards, I’m sure that if a crib from 1969 is unsafe, a bassinet from 1969 would DEFINITELY kill my child. We bought a new(er) crib.

While talking to my mom about baby sleep, she waggled her finger at me and said, “Don’t forget to always put your baby on his stomach or he may choke.”
“Uh…Back to sleep! They’re supposed to sleep on their backs or else they may die of SIDS! Tragic baby death!”
“Well, you slept on your belly and you were fine.”

While talking to my dad about the things we needed to get for the baby, I mentioned a car seat.
“Well, you don’t need one of those anytime soon, right?”
“WHAT?!? No! You need one immediately!”
“Why? Can’t the baby fit in your lap?”
“WHAT?!? No! That’s illegal! They won’t even let you take the baby home if you don’t have a carseat!”
“Oh…well, you went home on mom’s lap. We didn’t have a carseat for you until you were 2 or so, and you were fine.”

Of the millions of things we still have yet to get for the baby, at the top of our list is the infant car seat/travel system…thing. Luckily, The Girl (and another of the lovely ladies from the board) offered to lend me one should we end up running to the hospital with a cardboard box duct taped to the backseat, hoping the hospital won’t notice the difference.

For Whom the Shower is Thrown

I did not expect nor really want a baby shower. Let me make that perfectly clear. Suddenly, my mother and grandmother were having quite a little tiff over who would throw it for me. To make a long story short, if there was to be a shower, it was to be thrown by my mother, period.

So for the past 2 months we’ve had a couple of issues with when and where it would be thrown. See, my idea of the perfect “shower” is where I am not the center of anything. Where people can come over to a BBQ in my backyard, hang out, bring gifts if they’d like, bring their kids, their husbands, their grandmas, whatever. Inexpensive and informal. My mom, on the other hand, her shower included spending $300 on a restaurant banquet room & catering, “stare at the lady opening the gifts,” etc.

Since I never wanted a baby shower to begin with, I didn’t fight back for anything other than it must be a couples shower - I’m not dealing with these people by myself, Eric has to be miserable with me. I’m resigned to the fact that this shower is for her and my grandmother. I’m inviting exactly one person. Between she and grandma, they’re inviting many family members I haven’t seen in years (and don’t necessarily want to see) and co-workers.

Today, dad asked me if I thought the shower thing was going to happen. I said I doubted it but I wasn’t planning on saying anything since mom was so busy she’d probably forget anyway. I’d rather not have the shower to begin with, and instead have that money spent on things we actually need as opposed to a party, food and gifts for people I don’t even like. He agreed and said he’d rather just give me the money for things I needed anyway.

Unfortunately, he didn’t listen to the part about “I wasn’t planning on saying anything” because the minute mom came around, he said, “We were talking about that shower you were going to throw and decided not to do it.” My poor mom. She looked terribly disappointed and whined out a, “Whyyyyyyy?” I tried to explain (while trying not to shoot huge knives out of my eyes into dad’s head) why I wasn’t so keen on the shower - the cost, the relatives, the fact that Eric’s friends probably wouldn’t feel comfortable bringing their kids, etc.

She gave me a look like a puppy that had just been kicked when all it wanted was a hug and said, “I just want to do what’ll make you happy. I don’t want you to feel bad that you won’t have a shower.”
“I won’t feel bad, I didn’t really want a shower, anyway.”
Big, teary eyes here, “Oh…”
“But, why don’t you call the place and find out the cost. Maybe we can do it a little cheaper, okay?”
“*sniff* Okay.”

I believe I just got a taste of what it’s going to be like when I tell Ben that, although I appreciate him bringing me a frog for my birthday, we need to send him back to his home…and then we’ll end up with a pet frog.