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.
  
  

A smidge of an update

Today, for some reason, I’m feeling really overwhelmed with how quickly this baby will be here and how much there is to do to prepare for my maternity leave, the birth, and actually bringing home our baby. There is just so much to think about, so many things swirling around in my jacked up pregnancy brain, and I’m feeling an overwhelming need to just come here and write, de-stress, and update my little corner of the internet with all that I have been up to as of late. There’s a lot. Today, I’m just going to regale you with some fun little tidbits about how my pregnancy is going these days. I’ll be 33 weeks tomorrow, so we’re definitely moving right along.

This morning, while walking with my coworker to the cafeteria to get water, I sneezed… and peed a little. Oh joy. So yea, a gross reminder to keep doing my kegels.

Changing positions in the middle of the night has become SUCH a production. It’s really quite ridiculous. Usually when I wake up in pain, needing to turn over, I also have to pee, so I’m like, “Whatever, kill two birds”. However on those rare cases where I don’t have to go to the bathroom, I still practically have to edge myself out of bed to make the switch over to the other side. It doesn’t help that my husband sleeps diagonally due to the fact that our dog has decided to camp out at the end of the bed where his feet would normally go. (You see, our little “princess” has positioned herself perfectly in line with the meeting point of each air flow from the three fans we have running at night.)

Yesterday morning I had a bizarre, totally random, out of nowhere morning sickness incident that reminded me an awful lot of my first trimester. As I pulled into the parking lot of my office, I took my first sip of the coffee I had just purchased down the street, and immediately was struck with intense nausea. I did some panting and breathing to keep it down, a method I perfected during those first four months of pregnancy, until I was able to park my car, open the door, and be free to vomit all over the asphalt. Ugh. Totally. Completely. Out of nowhere. It was just like one of those sitcoms or completely unrealistic romantic comedies that pretty much all depict pregnancy as one cliché after another. Gross. Then I noticed a coworker friend of mine walking towards the office from his truck at the back of the parking lot, so I sort of ducked down as I continued to vomit and dry heave, and waited until I thought he would be close enough to the door so that I wouldn’t have to walk in with him and make conversation while sporting vomit-breath. Well, I looked up again and he had completely disappeared! I couldn’t figure out where he went, he seriously was there one minute, and gone the next. So I sort of gathered myself together and walked quickly to the door hoping to avoid a run-in. Found out later, at the surprise baby shower my boss and coworkers threw for me (I know, so sweet!), that he and my boss were at his car, had seen me drive in, and were both ducking down and hiding because they were trying to bring in the big wrapped pack-n-play they had planned to give me that afternoon. So you can guess that when I relayed the whole vomiting story to all my coworkers at the shower (yes I have no filter), we had a good laugh over the whole “I Love Lucy”-ness of it all.

One more Bradley class left! It’s been really fantastic actually, informative, empowering, I’d even say fun, but I’m so ready to have my Tuesday nights freed up again. 10 weeks in the summer is a REALLY long time. Now my biggest birth-related fear is that my baby is going to position him or herself breech, and after all our hard work, all the reading, all the worksheets, all the exercises, I’ll have to schedule a c-section. So send good anterior position vibes to me and my baby. I’m just about 33 weeks at this point, so he or she has plenty of time, I’m just being crazy and worrying about something I have absolutely no control over at this point.

Losing my mind? You be the judge.

I have officially become obsessed with Diet Mountain Dew. And I’m almost 7 months pregnant. Those two sentences really shouldn’t ever be so close together.

The thing is I’m certainly not the pregnant lady that makes all others look bad by giving up caffeine completely as soon as she finds out she’s pregnant. I definitely have cut back, especially when it comes to coffee, but I see no reason to go cold turkey on the stuff when most doctors and midwives, including mine, advise that in moderation, small amounts are just fine. So really, the fact that I haven’t completely given up caffeine has not really bothered me. (Though I will admit to feeling little twinges of guilt/defensiveness as I fill up my tiny little cup of half-caf every morning when someone’s waiting right behind me, only because I feel like people judge.)

Anyway, for some reason, drinking Diet Mountain Dew makes me feel like a bad mom, while the occasional Diet Coke or cup of coffee have given me no worries. With every sip, I imagine my baby growing horns or turning a shade of fluorescent yellow. I am SO IRRATIONAL! I looked up the caffeine amounts of each drink, and here’s how they compare:

12 oz can of Diet Mountain Dew: 55mg caffeine
12 oz can of Diet Coke: 46.5mg caffeine
8 oz brewed coffee: 80-135mg caffeine

So yea, there’s not too big of a difference as far as the two sodas go, and clearly I should be more worried about my morning coffee than the other two as it is.

Still there’s something about Mountain Dew that makes it seem so much more unnatural than all the other sodas. Again, they’re all horrible for you, if anything I should be worrying about the aspartame that’s in all diet drinks which could, in fact, someday be proven to cause the development of gills or severe overbites on babies or something.

Ok, writing about this has not made me feel any better. I'm not saying I thought it would, but, well, there you go. Still imagining my baby being born with a tail.

What else, what else… I’m 30 weeks pregnant! Fricken in the 30’s already! That is insanity. I can’t believe how close we are to meeting whoever is in there doing ninja kicks to my bladder on a constant basis. Oh, last night I was talking to this other pregnant chick at our birth class, and she can still sometimes go an entire night without getting up to pee. I almost punched her. I mean seriously! It’s every 1 ½ - 2 hours for me, like clockwork, and it’s been that way since, God I don’t know, 18-20 weeks? As long as I can remember anyway, I pretty much went right from morning sickness to peeing all the time.

Last night we watched another birth video, and this one was one of the full-on-crowning-crotch-shot videos, and my goodness, my hoo-hoo hurt just watching it. It’s almost hard to believe that our bodies are actually meant… to do that. Anyway, I love how the Bradley videos were all shot in the 70’s & 80’s. All the hairstyles (upstairs and down) and clothing are so dated and hilarious, and Dan and I both came to the realization last night that he should have started growing out his moustache a LONG time ago if he was really going to look the part of a Bradley coach. All kidding aside, it’s easy to get over all that stuff quickly because these women are so inspiring. Last night’s mom was ridiculously calm, even laughing at points throughout late 1st stage, matter-of-factly telling someone who has come to visit that she’s at 9 cm and has been there for a while. She was just so amazing, I’m going to have to try to channel her when my time comes.

I do think I’ve come to a realization about what my major childbirth fear is – basically, I’m mostly freaked out by the pushing part. I think of 1st stage labor as a marathon, a test of endurance, something that is as much mental as it is physical. But 2nd stage, or pushing, is like hard core sprinting at the end of that marathon. You’re physically and mentally exhausted after hours and hours (and hours) of this major endurance test, and then after all of that is behind you, you’ve still got to do this one last thing that is SUPER HARD CORE work. You have to sprint that last mile. Everything you’ve done before has lead you down this path, and there’s no turning back, you have to finish this out strong.

You see, I am not a sprinter. I’m athletic, but I don’t win things. I was never and will never be the best person on the team. I run a good, easy 9 minute mile, and I don’t even care to try to do it faster. I don’t know, I guess that’s why 2nd stage seems so scary to me. But I guess that’s ok, you bring those kinds of fears to the surface, you figure out how you’re going to combat them, or prepare for them, and you’re that much better off, right?

Sure!

Poker Face

I had my first belly-related injury today, and I’m surprised it took me so long, as non-pregnant Alicia is pretty much a certifiable klutz as it is. I have this old-school big metal desk at work that locks by key in the very center. Picture a big rectangular desk, three drawers on each side and space for the chair and a person’s legs in the middle. (Ok, I just described like, a totally normal, every-day typical desk. It’s likely I could have assumed that those who are reading this are not morons and can picture a desk, when I say, “desk”. But there you have it. Picture a desk.) Right above where the chair/my thighs sit, is where the desk locks. I’ve always just kept the key in there, because frankly I have no need to lock my desk, and I don’t want to lose it. Well today, as I reached to get something from across the desk, somehow I managed to scrape up my belly on the key. This protruding belly of mine has really started to resemble a torpedo and I’m finding that it is very easy for it to get in the way. Also on a related note, I cannot suck in and squeeze past people sitting in chairs or standing in line or what-have-you. Just another thing I repeatedly keep forgetting.

Last night, I swear the baby was dancing around in my belly to the music. I was lying on the couch at like 10:00 PM, watching some replay of the MTV Movie Awards, and the Lady Gaga “Poker Face” song came on as a presenter came out and the belly was all, “thump thump thump” seriously to the beat of the music. I might think I was totally imagining it if it didn’t happen again five minutes later when Eminem was performing. So freaking cool. Clearly my baby is going to be into the whole clubbing scene, I’ll have to watch out for that, teach him or her to “JUST SAY NO” at a very young age. Just in case.

Gotta go, planned to actually write about my weekend, but got side tracked and now it’s time to go head out to yoga. I’ll try to get back here tomorrow.

Pregnant Lady Drama

I wrote what is written below last week on Wednesday afternoon, and never posted it, basically because I failed the Glucose screening test and pretty much had a minor meltdown in the wake of finding out. That day was like the worst day of my life. Actually, two days later, Friday, was probably worse, because that was the day I had to fast for 12 hours prior and take the 3-hour Glucose Tolerance Test to determine whether or not I really did have Gestational Diabetes. I realize I’m a bit over-dramatic, but I was just so disappointed and scared and convinced that the test would come back abnormal, I would from here on be deemed a “high risk” pregnancy, my hopes of a natural birth with minimal interventions would be squashed, and I could look forward to nearly three months of counting carbs and meticulously planning out my meals. Anyway, I was a wreck, and really embarrassed for some reason, so I didn’t really tell anyone except Dan, and then Lisa and Betsy when we had lunch Friday afternoon.

Well, today I got the call from my Midwife (I had to wait ALL WEEKEND LONG for the results… torture.) The test came back totally normal and my blood sugar is just fine, so no stupid Gestational Diabetes. That call was such a relief. Thus, my advice to all pregnant ladies is, whether they tell you to or not, fast for the 1-hour screening test, for a full 12 hours. Don’t even drink coffee (I did) or chew gum (I did). Because while the 3-hour test is obviously not fun, the worst part about it all is not knowing, stressing, feeling totally alone, and being scared to even eat the tiny little fresh peach sitting on your desk.

Last Wednesday’s rambling…

So I literally just finished drinking that nasty glucose orange drink, and I’m sitting and waiting my one hour in the doctor’s office waiting room (listening to the woman just two seats away from me hack and cough like she’s about to die, lovely). I am feeling kind of miserable actually. I made my appointment last week and, per usual, went for something in the afternoon so that I could be in the office for a relatively normal work day and just get in the rest of my hours from home after seeing the doctor.

Well, as I was hanging up with the nurse, I asked if there was anything I could do to try to prevent a false positive screening result. I had read that it’s very common to get a false positive, and I’d love to avoid having to come in for a 3-hour test only to determine that I do not have gestational diabetes. Anyway, she decided to inform me then that some would advise that you fast for 12 hours before the test, but their office didn’t necessarily make that recommendation. Since I get all awkward and ridiculous and nervous when I’m on the phone with grown-ups (shut up) I just sort of thanked her and ended the phone call. I decided I would fast, but the implications of fasting for 12 hours before a 2:00 PM appointment didn’t really sink in right away. Clearly I should have called right back and changed my appointment when they did, but of course I didn’t do that, because I so rarely do things that I should do. I made the executive decision that 8 hours of fasting would be good enough, so I did have a bagel and yogurt this morning at 6:00. Still, this is the longest I’ve gone without eating since, well, definitely since before I was pregnant. So here I am, STARVING, a bit shaky even, and burping that disgusting orange drink that I had to down in 3 minutes… just waiting for my hour to be up. Also, I noticed on the drive over that my cell phone is completely dead. I hate feeling all disconnected from the world. Dan is going to be annoyed with me when he tries to call.

What an annoying day. And all I can think about now is what I’m going to have for “lunch” at 3:45 PM after I finally get out of here. Hmm… I am totally getting something good, maybe something from D’Amico’s down the street.*

Goodness, I apologize for my rambling, I’m just trying to make this time go faster.

I’m going to go pee, maybe that will do it.

*I definitely didn’t go get something good to eat after my appointment, because frankly, I was freaking out that I might have Gestational Diabetes and didn’t want to eat anything with too many carbs or sugar. Also, I was sobbing the entire drive home… so yea. Lame, I know.

I know, all I talk about is this baby...

I've decided Target’s baby registry pretty much sucks. Well first of all, let’s start with the in-store selection. Sucks. We registered this weekend and basically they have 4 aisles of crap, and that’s it. Then you go online, and there is SO MUCH more of a selection and completely different products available. Seriously, have you looked at baby clothes online at Target? It is just a plethora of adorableness, and an amazing amount of different gender-neutral clothing. Of course it’s online-only, so if your loved ones aren’t used to shopping that way, you’re kind of out-of-luck. Whatever, I added tons of online-only stuff to our registry today because I just couldn’t help it. I simply can’t take any more of the pastel yellow and green ducks & chicks stuff that was pretty much all we saw at both Babies-R-Us and Target this weekend when we registered. Ducks and chicks are fine. Pastel yellow and green are fine. There’s just so much other stuff out there, it’s a shame none of the stores actually carry it.

These annoyances lead me to be super naughty and purchase a bunch of outfits online about ten minutes ago. So dangerous, this whole “shopping for my baby” thing is, everything is just so hard to resist. (No, there is absolutely no good reason why I just typed that in yoda-speak.)

I’m getting slightly impatient for this kid’s estimated time of arrival to just be here already! That doesn’t mean we’re at all ready, we are so far on the not-ready side of things it stresses me out to think about it. If I had the baby tomorrow, he or she would have to sleep in the dog’s bed because I’m still waiting on our crib, we’d likely use Dan’s old softball t-shirts as diapers, and well, we wouldn’t even be allowed to take our child home in our car seat-less automobiles, so someone that already has a baby would have to come pick us up at the hospital. (Any volunteers?)

So when I say I’m getting impatient, I’m really referring to my excitement about just finally getting to meet this little urchin that’s been growing inside of me for the past six months. I can’t wait to hold and squeeze and smell and kiss our little baby, see what our little monkey looks like. =) I also wouldn’t mind not being pregnant anymore; my wardrobe is becoming quite stale, not to mention I hate getting dressed every day. I just want to wear yoga pants and a comfy bra and tank top every single day, please. I digress.

I know he or she needs to stay put for three more months. Honestly I don’t even want to go early, because I’d like to make it to my baby shower, which is planned for when I’ll be about 38 weeks pregnant. (Yea, I know, we’ll see if that happens.) So stay put little baby, don’t be getting any ideas! And if you promise to stay in there, I promise to actually have somewhere for you to sleep when you get out. If anything, I’ll try to have the dog’s bed washed.

Whoa

So last night I went to put on my pajamas and noticed a little wet crusty stain RIGHT on the nipple area. Good Lord, I’m already starting to leak colostrum. I had heard that this can happen during pregnancy, but it still took me by surprise, and for some reason made the whole actually having a baby thing feel all the more imminent. Like this is totally happening, three months from now I will be breastfeeding my child twelve times a day and subsisting on little tiny increments of sleep. In the words (or word, I suppose) of the great Joey Lawrence of Blossom fame, “Whoa.”

Don’t worry, I’m not just realizing this now, but I don’t care what anyone says, having junk leak from your boobs for the first time sorta throws you for a loop.

So Dan and his dad have been working like dogs on our basement every evening this week, and I should thank the lucky stars every single day that we have a plumber in the family willing to do free work for us during his very limited free time. I don’t even want to think about how much MORE money we’d be spending on our basement remodel if we didn’t have Dan’s dad. I am so grateful, I just hate that he’s had to spend so much time there when he surely has so many better things he’d rather be doing. The poor man works all day trying to make money to feed his family, then comes to our house and works all evening for what? A free meal and a few beers are about all he’s willing to take from us. I just had to put this out in the universe, because that man deserves so much good Karma.

I’ve started doing the day-care search thing, and my goodness is that stressful. Imagine that, the process of finding a stranger to watch over your kid who isn’t even born yet is stressful… who would have thought? Seriously though, I had no idea where to start. I know the most desirable way of going about it is soliciting referrals from family and friends, but I didn’t think that was feasible, as most of my mom-friends live in a totally different part of the city. So yesterday I spent hours doing the internet thing, looking at both child care centers and licensed in-home day cares through mnchildcard.org. It’s a great website, gives addresses and phone numbers, enrollment vacancies, hours, and a few generic tidbits about each provider’s experience, education, and environment. But goodness, what am I supposed to do, just start calling these random places? I want pictures, I want testimonials, I want mission statements!
So what did I end up doing for hours? I looked up the addresses of these in-home day-cares on Google maps, heading straight to street view, and dissected whether or not the house and neighborhood looks nice enough. ;) This ended up being a pretty good tactic, because a lot of the houses gave me a total “no way, I am not dropping my baby off there” vibe, so I was able to take them off the list immediately. No reason to set up interviews if their house even gives off a bad first impression. I know, my weeding out process sounds sort of superficial, but I think there’s a lot of merit to it.

Then last night I had dinner at my parents’ house and my aunt stopped by. The subject came up and she had an immediate reference for me. Someone I know, but didn’t realize did day care. Someone my aunt knows so well she knew her phone number by heart. Someone who’s been doing day care for 20+ years and maintains such incredible relationships with her kids that she has gone to a number of their high school graduations! Someone who runs a structured, activity and development based program out of her home, which she’s designed so that the child-care portion is completely separate from her family’s living quarters. I don’t know, I’m feeling incredibly optimistic about it. I just talked to her on the phone and set up an interview, and also got some info on her hours and rates (which are a bit higher than I was hoping, but nothing insane). She’s got an opening in September for an infant, which is a few months earlier than I’m looking for, but she seemed to think we could work something out if Dan and I were interested after meeting her and getting a feel for the environment.

Though we haven’t actually decided on anything, I am feeling soooo much better. Frankly, I don’t feel sick to my stomach when I think about it anymore. Childcare is something that I haven’t really wanted to talk about, let alone think about, since we got pregnant, because I already feel so much guilt about having someone else raise my kid. However, I also don’t want to quit my job, for many reasons including 1.) we couldn’t afford it, and 2.) I don’t want to totally put my career on hold. I keep telling myself that I can always change my mind later and consider part time, once I’ve had the baby and have been on maternity leave for a few months, if I realize that there is just no way, emotionally, I can go back full time. But that doesn’t mean I can slack off on finding good childcare, just because I have this “Scenario B” in the back of my head. That’s just something I do, I avoid situations that stress me out and require me to make difficult decisions. Clearly I need to work on that.

It's a good life.

It’s been a while since I’ve come here to write, and that is because it’s been a busy couple of weeks! I don’t even know where to start.

First off, we painted the baby’s room, which was quite a feat. Dan and I did it ourselves all in one weekend (plus Monday evening), and it was quite the process. We had to freshen up the ceiling because of a roof leak a few years ago that left us with some yucky brown spots that we never dealt with. Also, I’m an idiot and insisted on painting the freaking closet four years ago when we did it the first time, so that had to be painted again. I think the closet itself took about the same amount of time to paint than the rest of the room, there’s just so much trim in there to paint around, lots of little details. So yea, the closet only got one coat, because the closet can suck it.

Lots of hard work, but it felt good to accomplish something so tangible, that was a huge item on our list, and we had given ourselves until Memorial Day weekend to do it, and I kinda-sorta can’t believe we actually stuck to that self-imposed deadline. And it looks wonderful, and I love the color, which is sort of a soft blue/green or “robin’s egg” shade. I haven’t taken pictures yet, but will be sure to post as soon as we get some of the massive pieces of furniture out that are stacked together in the middle of the room. Right now, there is just no where to put them, with our basement being worked on and the treadmill in the future guest bedroom on the first floor. You can go here and see my “before” pictures though, which of course display those lovely massive pieces of furniture in the middle of the room that currently have no permanent home.

That same weekend of painting we celebrated our five year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been that long, I almost can’t wrap my head around it. The funny thing is, I remember when we first got married, and I was totally against having a baby right away. I told Dan I was thinking I would be ready in about 3-5 years. While he was on the baby train much earlier than I was, he was totally respectful of my reasons for waiting, though I think he was counting on getting the whole thing going more around the 3-year mark than the 5-year mark. And then we made the decision to do the grad-school thing two and a half years ago, and nearing the end of it were both starting to get incredibly impatient to get going on starting a family. I’m so thankful we didn’t have to wait too long to be blessed with this pregnancy. We celebrated our 5-year anniversary by painting our baby’s nursery, and I think that’s quite fitting. We did go out for a nice dinner the next night at the St. Paul Grill, which was delicious and expensive, so we weren’t totally homebodies. ;)

Last Tuesday we started our Bradley Method birthing class, which I was nervous about. If I’m being honest, I pictured the instructors as dirty hippies, which is completely ridiculous and a horrible stereotype of people passionate about natural birth. I hate that stereotype, but obviously have been influenced by it a bit. The two women were actually incredibly nice, young, attractive individuals that look and talk like normal people, imagine that! There are six other couples in our class, and it’s out of the one instructor’s home, so that first night was a bit of a doozy as it was a lovely and refreshing 93 degree evening. In May. (Minnesota is insane.) I think the class will be very informative and helpful, it’s nice to talk and learn about natural childbirth without feeling like you’re getting eye-rolls and judgment from others who have made different choices and had different experiences. If I’m being honest, I know I’m really more of the issue, I’ve always been too worried about what other people think, so with this whole process I’m trying to become more self-aware, and think about what’s best for my family and my baby, because it’s not at all about proving anything to anyone. I’m trying to let go of all those negative thoughts in my head and my fear of failure.

I’m getting much more introspective here than I had planned on! I think pregnancy might actually be turning ME into a bit of a hippie. =)

Back to my busy life then.

(Oh, last weekend we spent Thursday night to Monday morning at the cabin with Dan’s family, which was wonderful and relaxing, but not suitable for getting anything accomplished, obviously. A perfect weekend though, lots of time in the sun, reading, long walks, and excessive amounts of eating.)

So basically my weekdays have become booked so that there’s something going on every single evening. Yoga on Mondays, childbirth classes Tuesdays, Dan’s softball games on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with board meetings thrown in there once a month, and every once in a while I actually like to have a social life and spend time with family and friends. So yea, my house is a mess. I still need to plant flowers in our window boxes. I am constantly out of something like shampoo or Clorox Wipes, items that necessitate a trip to Target that I just don’t have time for anymore. We have yet to register. I am due for a trip to the dentist, an appointment with my hairstylist (desperately), and in the next week or so am supposed to be going in for an appointment with my Midwife and to drink that nasty McDonalds orange drink stuff to test for Gestational Diabetes. Also I still haven’t asked the lady who I keep telling people is making our crib bedding if she’ll actually make our crib bedding. My life is a bit shambled. But I’m upbeat, no worries! I have tomorrow off and no plans for Saturday, so the plan is to get my life and home back into some semblance of order this weekend. Thank goodness for those Fridays off, I must say, I’m not sure I would survive without them.

Summer is crazy for everyone though isn’t it?

Allow me to be a sap for a bit

Yesterday the weirdest thing happened. At the end of my prenatal yoga class, the instructor always turns down the lights for Savasana, and we lay there just in complete relaxation mode. It’s my favorite part of the class, for obvious reasons. Well yesterday, as I lay there, I focused on clearing my mind and meditating on my baby and how much my life will change in about four months. All of a sudden I was just this swirl of crazy emotions, thinking of Dan and how incredible it is that we have together created this living being, a true combination of the two of us. I thought back on these first five years of our marriage, how much we’ve grown as a couple, how close I feel to him, how lucky I am to have this other person in the world that really truly knows who I am. And then I started imagining our life with a baby, our Sunday mornings reading the paper, making breakfast together, taking the dog for a walk. Very soon there will also be a child with us on those Sundays! Our little family that I love and cherish so much will be comprised of four! What will he or she look like? What kind of personality will he or she have? Will our child be stubborn, impulsive, and scatter-brained like me, or even-keeled, practical, and honest like Dan? I just know that I can’t wait to find out, and these were all the things running through my mind as I lay there in the dark, and I just totally started crying. I couldn’t help it, tears were streaming down my face and it felt really good to be in sort of a “place” where such huge emotions were possible. It was just unfortunate that there were other massive pregnant ladies lying on the floor all around me. ;)

I am lucky. Today I feel giddy even. I can’t wait to witness Dan being a dad, I think there’s no question that he’s going to be pretty kick-ass at it. I can’t wait to introduce our baby to Bella. I can’t wait to see what she thinks of all the crazy new toys we’ll have all over the house, she’ll clearly go nuts trying to get at and tear apart every single thing.
Things are really going to change aren’t they?

I can’t wait to be a mom. I am lucky.