Questions

We’re really getting down there! I am now 3 days from my due date, and basically every human being I come into contact with, acquaintance or stranger, friend or family, priest or rabbi, asks me one or more of the following questions:

“Are you ready?”
“Are you excited?”
“Are you nervous?”
“Any progress?”
“Do you think you’ve dropped?”
“How long do you think you’ll go?”
“Are you dilated?” (even men ask this one)
“Do you think it’ll be early or late?”
“You’re still here?” (coworkers)
“Did you lose your mucus plug yet?” (mom)

If I’m being honest, it’s getting kind of old. Of course people are going to ask me about the baby, I am huge and even if you don’t know me, it’s clear this whole “giving birth” thing is pretty imminent. I’m basically a massive walking bill board (with swollen ankles and chubby fingers) that clearly reads, “COMING REAALLLY SOON: BLONDE BABY”. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that answering the same questions over and over again gets really old. My (least) favorite is the “How long do you think it’ll be?” question, because seriously, what can I even say to that? I HAVE NO FREAKING CLUE! If I had magical powers that could help me accurately predict something like that, I surely would have been using those powers for both good and evil for some time now. I certainly wouldn’t be sitting in a window-less office making spreadsheets and running reports for nearly 40% of my waking life.

Also, it’s kind of funny how inappropriate some of the questions are. In what other situation would you ask someone the equivalent of, “Has your doctor stuck her hand up your lady parts to determine how stretched out your cervix is yet?” or “How much pressure are you feeling on your crotch?”

Like I said, I totally understand the reasons for the questions, I have asked the same ones countless times of countless expectant moms. People are excited, people are interested, and it is clearly the elephant in the room. However, especially at work, they are starting to really drain me. I now DREAD leaving my office to walk the halls, as I will undoubtedly encounter some more friendly questions and innocent bantering on the way to the bathroom, or the printer, or the cafeteria, or anywhere.

YES I’M STILL HERE!

Anyway, I hope to return tomorrow with something less snotty, I had actually planned on writing about the lovely weekend I had with my husband and dog-child, and my desire to really try to enjoy these last few days/weeks with my little family of 3.5. Clearly I went in another direction entirely!

And now that I’ve promised to write again tomorrow, maybe I will go into labor instead. That would be awesome. Fingers crossed!

I'm REALLY pregnant right now.

Ugh, I can’t believe I’m such a slacker that I’ve gone a month without posting. A month, during the last weeks of my pregnancy, when SO MUCH IS HAPPENING! I’m 37 weeks today. Seriously, how did that happen? Anyway, so we’ll go through some things real quick like just for the sake of, well, documentation I guess…

• Belly growth is getting out of hand. It is huge, it is a torpedo, even some of my maternity clothes are starting to get uncomfortable and too small. I totally have to watch out for the belly sticking out underneath my shirt so friends, family, coworkers, and strangers don’t have to see my gross stretch marks. Yup, I have stretch marks on my underbelly, and they are ugly and unsightly, but I am trying to just make peace with them. Hopefully they go away some day, and if not, seriously, who the heck needs to see my bare midriff anymore? It may be time to toss the bikinis and go tankini or (horror!) one-piece. Whatever, amazingly, right now, I just don’t care that much. Much more important things to worry about right?
• Baby is head-down and getting ready for birth, and I am thankful for that. Still don’t think he or she has dropped though, because I still feel massive pressure on my ribs and chest and so far no fire crotch. (TMI?)
• Both of my pregnant friends have had their baby girls! I feel sort of left out of the club now, like before we were all in this together, talking weight gain and registries, birth classes, maternity clothes, nursery décor, constipation, and heartburn. Now they have their babies, all snuggly and girly, and I am still in the weird limbo time when I really don’t care all that much about that pregnancy stuff anymore and I just want my baby too! I’m trying to be patient though, because it could be 2 days, or it could be 4 weeks, I just don’t know. On the other hand, I still feel like I have massive amounts of things I still need to do before the baby’s arrival, and I don’t actually want him or her to come in 2 days because that is just WAY TOO SOON!
• We haven’t packed the hospital bags yet, but I’ve got a list, and have done the necessary shopping. So there’s that. Stress.
• Speaking of other things that I have not done… I am completely not prepared at work to just be gone any day now. There is so much that needs to be done/organized/prepped before I go on maternity leave, which will be when I make my way to the hospital… so yea. Stress.
• I ordered some nursing bras online yesterday, and am really feeling like pinpointing the size of your boobs post-baby, post-milk coming in, is a total shot in the dark. It stressed me out a bit, there’s so much conflicting info out there, as to what size you should order, which are the best, etc. So I got a few nursing tanks and one bra, all in the size that is 1-2 cup sizes bigger than what I’m in now, and I’m hoping they work. It’s just something I really wanted to get a jump start on before the baby was born, but I have a tendency to go overboard trying to over-plan for things that you just can’t plan for. It’s just that I am so committed to making this breastfeeding thing work, and I feel like if there’s anything I can do right now that might help make it easier and less stressful later, I want to do it. Speaking of boobs, I have been having tons of dreams about breastfeeding lately. They’re very real, and in them the whole nursing thing is like old hat, and both I and the baby have figured things out just perfectly. I’m always surprised when I wake up and I don’t have my baby laying there right with me, nursing. Hopefully these dreams are a good sign.
• The big wedding of the summer has happened, my brother is married, everything was beautiful, I fit into my bridesmaid dress, and I did not cause some sort of scene by fainting up by the alter during the ceremony. Everything went just fine. I did make Dan stop 5 times to use the bathroom on the drive to Milwaukee, and he was a total peach about it. He was actually patient, sweet, and perfect with me the whole weekend, even going so far as to try to hunt down an Ulta or a Sephora in Milwaukee so that he could buy for me the foundation that I hadn’t realized I had run out of until after we had left town. For his wonderfulness, I only made him stop once on the way home. ;) Though that was completely out of my hands, baby must have been situated quite differently in relation to my bladder on that trip. Strange.
• Sleep has become the bane of my existence. I am so tired of it, and I hate how much work it is to turn over or go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. If I try to move too quickly, I get these sharp pains in my belly, and it’s so hard to maneuver around the 267 pillows I have propped up around me to support my massiveness. If only I had a little bell and houseboy to help with my middle-of-the-night maneuvering. Instead, poor Dan wakes up 5 times a night to my huffing and puffing, prompting him to ask me if I’m ok, prompting a response of, “Oh I’m fine, I’m just trying to reach this sheet that has become trapped underneath me at the end of the bed…”
• The nursery is pretty much done, last night we picked up the sheets and crib skirt we were having made by a family friend, so we have those to get washed and put on the crib, and a few little things to hang, and we’re sort of all set! I need to take pictures now while it still looks how it was intended, because I doubt it’ll be nearly as organized and cute when there is an actual baby around to mess it all up with his or her spit up and poop and dirty clothes. ;)
• Last but not least, we think we finally have our baby names picked out, though we keep going back and forth about how to deal with the boy’s name. Basically, the problem is that we have this name that we LOVE, but it is sort of a nick name. Unfortunately we don’t really like any of the “formal” names that it could be derived from. Do we give our son a formal name that we never ever ever intend to use, or do we just give him the name that we would plan on calling him, the name that we both agree we love? I’m torn. If it was something like Daniel/Dan or Michael/Mike, clearly we’d go with the formal name for the birth certificate… but the name we like is not that simple and clear-cut. The formal name is a bit strange, a name that people would be like, “Huh? You’re naming him what? Oh, that’s a nickname for THAT?” I don’t know, we’ll see. I still have a different boy’s name altogether that I love just as much, but between the two names, it’s really a matter of choosing one that I love and Dan only sort of likes, or one that we both love. So it seems like a no-brainer. Thankfully, the girl name was much easier and we are not feeling at all wishy-washy about it, which means that if everyone who keeps telling me I’m having a girl is right, we are stressing for nothing.