I am now An Expert

Last night was our birth class reunion. Hardly anyone showed up. We were one of 3 only. Which is too bad because it was a lot of fun to see their babies and hear their birth stories. We also learned that we need to be hardasses about Tummy Time. Kirk hates it--HATES it--so we've been slacking off. But it affects other development, like fine motor skills, and not just head/neck control, which he's great at, so we have to force him. And deal with the crying.

Kirk is finally noticing other babies so he had a great time flirting with the two baby girls.

Since we were at the hospital anyway we stopped up at the Level II nursery. They finished the remodel (everything was all tore up while we were "living there"). Luckily, one of the two nurses that we connected with most was on duty. I figured that they didn't get a chance to see their "graduates" that often. She was thrilled to get to see Kirk and happy that he's doing so great.

Teacher was just finishing up with her latest birth class as we were leaving. (And my brother and sister-in-law are in her Wednesday class!) Suddenly we were the night's Guest Speakers. It was very interesting to see the fear, excitement, exhaustion, everything on the faces of all these pregnant women and their menfolk. It's amazing to remember just how terrified I was of giving birth. I felt very cool and confident, holding my sleeping son and giving the extremely short version of his birth story. It was an awesome feeling.

Some Random Observations

Baby Yawns are contagious to mommies. However, Mommy Yawns are not contagious to babies.

Oftentimes, when I have Kirk up on my shoulder to pound out a burp, I'll burp instead.

It's very strange, and kind of neat, when my stomach growls and at the same time Kirk's stomach growls and our bellies are pressed up against each other because he's nursing.

All my life I've always enjoyed having "conversations" with my cats. She'll meow and I'll meow back. She'll mrrup and I'll mrrup back. It's even more fun to do with a baby. He'll ling loo and I'll ling loo back. He'll aheai and I'll aheai back.

1 week down....

My sister mentioned that Kirk smiles broadly when he sees her. I was hit with intense jealousy when I heard that. It's not like I want him to hate going to his auntie's. I certainly don't want him to pitch screaming fits when I drop him off. But it made me sad to hear. Because that means that Mr. b and I are no longer his only primary caregivers. My sister is, too. I'm not home with him all day. There are huge chunks of his life from this point forward that I won't witness firsthand. And that's rather heartbreaking to me.

I had to return the breast pump yesterday. I've got a line on a Craig's List buy but today I had to use the handpump. There are "sick lounges" here I can use for pumping. But holy god hand pumping sucks. And I don't get emptied out as completely so now I'm really feeling full.

One Day at a Time

There is definitely some fuckery involved with being a One Car Family when Auntie Daycare is across town and the person that drops off the kid is different than the one that picks him up. Normally it won't be a big deal because Mr. b just rides his bike to/from where the car is. But it's been like Ferenginar here for the past two days.

It's very odd getting to work after I've already been up for 3 or 4 hours. But I'm glad to have time with my Peepers Pie in the morning. So far he either wakes up in the middle of the night to eat, or sleeps until 5am and then eats. I'm fine with either way frankly. The nights he doesn't sleep through he is regularly sleeping for at least 5 and half or 6 hours. So I'm certainly not dying of sleep deprivation or anything.

A Case of the Mondays

Both Mr. b and I went to drop off Kirk this morning. We were glad we could both do it on this first morning. Kirk's little cousins were so thrilled to finally have him there! I got some tears in my eyes while walking out. But mostly I've been trying to be stoic, like Bree in Desperate Housewives or Zoe in Serenity. I called my sister about Noon and the little man was napping. He had had a good morning and was already very taken with his younger cousin, A2. (A1 is in first grade so he won't get to see as much of her.)

It'll be interesting to see how he reacts this afternoon. Will he be pissed when he realizes he was left for the day? Will he be happy to see his Mommy and Daddy? I think he *knew* something was up last night. He was crabbier than he has ever been before bed. Even worse than his first night in the crib.

I pumped this morning but my boobs are already feeling full. Which is pretty ridiculous considering that Kirk has actually gotten worse at nursing. But he does just enough to keep the milk production going. I had weaned myself down to pumping only once a day. But I would still nurse a bit during business hours so this is my first try at no relief all day. I'm going to have to return the electric pump (can't afford it and insurance won't continue to pay for it) and so I guess I'll just bring the hand pump to work.

Sitting in a desk chair all day hurts my ass. I guess I'm really not used to cubicle life anymore.

The End

I'm pretty depressed. And not just because of Serenity. (How could Joss do that? And after we waited so long!) Today was my last day of leave. Sure, I have the weekend. But it's a weekend. I don't work weekends normally. I have to go back on Monday. I have to leave my precious peepers with my sister all day starting Monday. I already ache. I miss him in advance. It's like the first time I left the hospital when he was still in the Level II nursery. I could physically feel the distance between us. But I suppose it's just another milestone of a modern parent. Monday I will officially become a Working Mother.

This feels rather like going back to school after summer break. There's the anticipation, both good and bad. I'll get to see my friends again. I've had three months off. It's Fall. I've gone shopping for back-to-work clothes. But I always looked forward to school. I'm not entirely sure I'm looking forward to going back to work. I wish I could go back only part time for a while. Unfortunately, we are flat broke. So alas, my time is over.

I miss him already.

Huzzah!

A work crew finally hooked us up again this morning. I'm so glad our frontier time is over. (Knitting by candle light is so Little House.) Living without electricity made me think a lot about what it would be like to have a baby as a pioneer. Midnight feedings alone would have been so much more difficult. Sometimes just using a nightlight hasn't been enough. And what would you do for a baby that didn't nurse well? Presumably there were glass bottles but what material was used for nipples? And even before that, what about the apnea that Kirk had when first born? Surely Dr. Quinn would have saved him but then what do you do about the jaundice? I guess since it was July I would have just let him sit out in the sun a lot. But clearly that wouldn't work if he had been born in the winter. It trips me out to realize that my son likely would have contributed to a high infant mortality rate if he hadn't been born in 2005 in the United States of America. I can't imagine what I would do without him.

Getting electricity back gave me a chance to catch up on my reading. And I discovered the sad news about Jon and Diablo's dear Agnes of Dog. I'm so sorry guys. She was such a good girl and you can take comfort in the fact that you gave her a wonderful life. I know I felt completely ripped off that Tron was taken from us after only 6 months but at least he was loved during that time. So was Agnes.

Where's my electricity dammit?!

Kirk seems to be sleeping through the night. But I don't know if I can believe it yet. The first time was on Wednesday. Our power was out after the big storm and he was in his car seat on the bed next to me. Was it a fluke due to the extreme darkness? Or maybe because he wasn't laying flat? Thursday we were the only ones in the neighborhood that still didn't have power. But a kind neighbor ran an extention cord over and so, since we could plug in the monitor, we put Kirk in his crib. He woke up every 2 hours. I think it was because he was cold. We need electricity to run the thermostat to turn on the gas heater. We had gas. Hell, we had water and sewer and phone and cable, the last discovered when we had power for the TV. But Minnesota in late September gets cold at night. I eventually just brought Kirk into bed with us. Friday I came up to stay with my parents. They have heat and electricity here. Kirk sleeps in a suitcase when we stay here because it fits perfectly as a makeshift bassinette. And he slept through the night. We stayed here Saturday because we still didn't have electricity, and he slept through the night. We're still here because we still don't have electricity and so far, it looks like he's going to sleep through the night. But I can't take it anymore. Being displaced is stressful. We're going home tomorrow even if there's still no power. We'll just have to put the baby in the bed with us. I just hope that the new sleeping pattern continues and is not a result of his schedule being affected by the storm and refugee status.

8 Years

Yesterday was our anniversary. Mr. b and I finally got married in 1997 after living together for 4 and a half years. My mom stayed with the little man so we could go out. It was strange hanging out together without him along. We tried a couple of not-particularly-kid-friendly restaurants (Mr. b figures if there's a changing table in the Men's Room, you're safe to bring a baby there. One of them was owned by our landlord in the early 90s. We had been in there dozens of times to pay rent but of course could never have afforded to eat there.) and just went for a drive.

Baby lit is always warning that parents need to talk about something other than their kids when they get time alone together. We just don't have that problem. Sure, we'll share something that Kirk did, but it's more like just a recap of what happened that day. Mr. b and I are into mostly the same stuff so we easily talk about TV and sci fi and books and history and music and movies and everything in the world.

I was gone from Kirk longer than I have been yet while we were out on our "date". And I started tearing up as we pulled into the alley coming home, in anticipation of going back to work in less than 2 weeks.

Sally the Squeakers Squirrel has taken over the bassinette. She just *knows* that Kirk is done with it. I guess it's obvious since he's only been in it a couple of times over the past week, and it's always been during the day when I need to set him somewhere when he's awake. (Squeakers only once tried to go in the bassinette while Kirk was in it; she aborted mid-jump when she saw that it was inhabited.) I yelled at her and evicted her yesterday morning when I busted her in there. This morning Mr. b and I decided that she can have it back since Kirk really is at the borderline of being able to use it anymore anyway. It'll force us to use his swing and stuff instead.

She also really loves the new bedtime rules for Kirk. It means she gets her humans back all to herself, at night at least!

One of the tough parts about aclimating Kirk to a proper bedtime is that we have to get used to it, too. Both Mr. b and I had developed our own crutches to get him to sleep. Mr. b would put him in his car seat and have him out with him while writing songs or playing video games. And I would bring the little man in to bed with me after Mr. b went to work in the morning. We can't use those tricks anymore. It's also weird to simply have him be in a different room. He's been everywhere we go for his whole life so far. We'd just drag his bassinette from room to room. Baby monitors are nice but definitely a change. They're both ultra sensitive and not good enough. I can hear Kirk fussing in his crib with extreme clarity but not his quiet breathing. And for a mom of a baby who was taken away at the hospital due to apnea (and he has a rather asthmatic daddy) hearing breathing is of paramount importance. I have to force myself to relax and try to sleep instead of straining to hear the inhaling and exhaling over the monitor.

One year ago today we closed on our house. It's hard to believe it's already been that long and that it went by so fast. We have a baby, dammit!

We've begun the process of training the little man to sleep in his crib. And to sleep at night, not during the day. Might as well get them both done at once since we're being hard asses anyway! We're trying to create a routine, like putting his pajamas on in the evening and putting a little outfit on him in the morning. Bedtime is generally around 10 o'clock. All nighttime feedings are done in low light, all business with no talk. He does demand to have the low light kept on; the night light wasn't strong enough for him.

So far the most wailing happened during the first try. I had already gone to bed to get some sleep during Mr. b's shift. I could hear Kirk screaming. But it was only a little heartbreaking. It was mostly hilarious. Because it was not a hunger cry, or a pain cry, or even his shriek when he refuses to nurse. It was very plainly a howl of rage. He was pissed! And his bitching cries were so rhythmic you could have used them as a metronome.

Hopefully most of the kinks will be worked out by the time I have to go back to work.

Recently, a friend asked how expensive it is having a baby. It really isn't. Yet. I mean, sure, I'm not even close to exclusive breast feeding. But I think claiming that's "free" is a fallacy anyway. You eat so much to make milk. Mommy Food costs money you know! Regardless, you can buy both formula and diapers at either the grocery store or Target. And since you're spending a lot of money at those two places anyways, you don't really notice adding the extra items. We were very lucky and didn't have to buy any major furniture or baby equipment or anything. Or clothes even. Although we're already starting to get suckered in to impulse buys for the baby. Last trip to Target we bought some of the Halloween clothes they had out on the endcap!

The water bill hasn't even gone up. I thought it would be jacked up since I'm doing constant laundry. Between crusty pajama tops from my boobs leaking at night to spit-up caked necklines of onesies, I'm doing a load almost every day. But they're small. The electricity bill did go up though. I don't think it was from air conditioning since I didn't have it cranked to the preferred preggo temperature of "arctic blast". I'm betting it's from all those small loads in the washer and dryer.

Rockin' out
Super Baby

I love this little man. I love him so much it makes my eyes tear up when I think about it.

Mr. b loves babies. He always has. He's a baby person. He holds babies of customers that come into his cafe. He starts conversations with parents in stores. He always notices other babies in restaurants. And he's convinced that Kirk is literally the cutest baby ever. I don't need to compare him to other babies to know that! Mr. b even wants to see if he can get Kirk some commercial gigs. Why not? Hey, if he can pay for his own hospital bills, that would be great!

I continue to not notice other babies. I just don't care. I'm not a baby person and never have been. Sure, I notice parents with car seats next to them in restaurants. But I have no desire to peek in and check out the baby. I just don't care. Obviously I'll be excited when my nephew is born in a few months. And it's great fun meeting my friend's babies. But strangers? Don't matter at all.

I've never been much of a baby person. I played with Barbies, not baby dolls. My sister reminded me recently that I used to pawn off babysitting jobs on her. That's not entirely accurate. I would pawn off babysitting jobs. Toddlers were just fine. Kids were great. I did not do diapers. In fact, I never once changed a poopy diaper in my entire life before my son was born.

Bald spots

Apparently there has been much ado about an article in the NY Times about men who lose desire for their wives after witnessing childbirth. (Newsweek mentions this blog and this one.) Synchronicity. I was going insane earlier this week. I felt like I didn't have a husband. In my estimation, the only relationships that work are if you are 1) best friends, 2) good roommates, and 3) great lovers. I was missing that third element. We'd only Done It twice since Kirk was born and the second time was only because I forced the issue. Mr. b and I finally sat down and talked about it the other night. It turns out that he really was still completely squicked out about me "down there". He thought there were going to be huge chunks of bloody tissue falling out or something. Even though he knew perfectly well that was not the case. He also didn't know that I was so gung ho about getting back to regular sex. Heck, even Doc warned that nursing reduces your libido. Well, that's just not the case for me. And not getting any was making me crazy. Thankfully we got all our issues out in the open and Kirk was a good boy and slept quietly so we could have almost normal sex. Finally.

We're going to take a picture of the little man next to this guitar every month so we have a visual of his growth.
1 month
2 months
And for good measure, here he is in his swing wearing the hat I knitted for him.

Baking Rant

"Just make bars instead." Bah! Would you say that to *anybody* 4 hours before you're supposed to arrive? Much less a mother of a sick infant with a sick husband? Bite me. Yeah, like I'm going to dig up a new recipe, go to the store for the ingredients, and then start baking. What would you do if I had already finished making something? I know you're trying to be nice by bringing my sister a surprise birthday cake. But she specifically requested that I make a dessert. Because she loves my dessert inventions and knows that I love coming up with them. [/Rant]

The little peepers has been mostly sleeping this past 24 hours since his vaccination ordeal. My dad said that he and mom kind of looked forward to our shots days because they knew we'd be knocked out and they could get a good night's sleep! It didn't work out like that for me since the little man kept waking up for a small amount of food every hour and a half or so. He has a very slight fever so I have added infant Tylenol to my repertoire of baby medications I now know how to administer.

I was thinking that maybe, if we were lucky, Kirk could be up to 9 pounds. He weighs 10# 13 oz! Well no wonder the 0-3 month clothes are starting to be too small. He's 20.75 inches long and his head circumference is up to 15in. Yay for brain growth! Doc thinks he may be an early crawler because he's so strong on his stomach. She also suggested saline drops for his nose to help with some of the congestion. I just tried some and they totally seemed to work.

Of course I felt awful dripping them in when he was already screaming bloody murder. He's definitely got the side effect "irritability" from his shots today. He did good with them. He cried of course (anecdotally, I've heard that a baby's first real tears come at the 2 month shots; he certainly had wet eyes afterwards) but calmed down right away. And then slept so very soundly until just about an hour ago. And now he's demanding constant holding. Poor little man.

After seeing Kirk next to a friend's one month old yesterday (he was also early and under 6 pounds at birth), you really get a feel for just how much of a difference one month can make. Not just size wise, although I'm now even more curious to find out what he weighs at tomorrow's check up. But developmentally there are so many things that Kirk is working on already. He's got decent head and neck control, although he's still a bit floppy. He can see you across the room and is definitely working on depth perception (which is funny to watch because he goes all cross eyed). He has officially discovered his hands and likes looking at them. But he still hasn't figured out that he can suck on a finger or thumb if he opens the fist he regularly brings to his mouth. He associates smiles with people he loves, happiness and pleasure. He makes more sophisticated tongue movements, doing a sort of proto-clicking when he's hungry. It's fascinating.

I guess I got my period. It was hard to tell. It's been so long and then there was the lochia flow after birth. It was really light, too. Just spotting mostly. I realized that I was on the last week of the pill pack so that's what was going on. Using a tampon felt very weird, although I don't know if that was due to it not really being quite heavy enough to justify using a tampon or not. Regardless, I'm glad to know I'm not pregnant again. Even though I'm now totally open to the idea of having another one--not any time soon thank you very much!

Things that bother parents but not babies:
Spit up
Hiccups
Dry skin
Head flopping down in the car seat

Ways babies are like Roman Emperors:
Wake up to a boob in their mouth
Have people dress them
Have people bathe them
Eat until they are so full it comes back up
Pee and poop whenever and where ever they want
People attend to every whim

Now that I'm finally feeling better (unfortunately Kirk is still stuck in the snot factory phase of the cold) I need to start eating better and getting more exercise. I know the average for loosing baby weight is one year but it won't happen if I don't help. Ever since I had him all I've been craving is meat and dairy products. The fattier and greasier the better. I'm not a fast food person and yet I want cheeseburgers all the time. I am a fruit and vegetable person and I can barely remember to eat any, much less 5 a day. I'm sure it has to do with milk production, and I'm certainly using more calories producing, but I can't use that excuse for much longer.

Kirk continues to be a crappy nurser. He still won't latch on without the shield. In fact, in some ways, I think he's getting worse. If he's extra hungry he won't latch on even with the shield. Instead he'll shriek like I'm hurting him. I have to give him a couple of ounces from a bottle first. Maybe it would have been different if he hadn't been so small and early. He lost weight when I tried doing mostly exclusive nursing and we've been supplementing with bottles ever since. I can see it more rationally now that my brain has calmed down from the post partum craziness. I know that it'll be easier on all of us if I quit with the boobies. And I don't really want to have to try to juggle pumping at work when I go back. Mr. b and several friends have all said that they would have given up long ago if it had been them. I just honestly like nursing, dammit!

It seemed to me like it would be a good idea to draw up a hot bath and hold the baby in there with me. Get the bathroom all steamed up so some of his congestion would loosen. Mr. b jumped on the plan. He has had bad asthma since he was very young and said that his parents used to do that with him all the time. I started with a hot shower to steam up the bathroom. Then I held the naked little man while his daddy blocked the stream with his body. Then I started filling up the tub, sat down in it and gently floated the good baby in the warm water. He was totally fine with all this. It was one of the neatest family activities yet. And now he's sneezing so the steam must have helped at least a little bit.

I would never presume to ask people that don't have kids when they're going to start trying. That's offensive and I hated it when people did that to me. But I do get extremely excited now when I find out that friends are going off the pill. This is just such an amazing thing that I want everyone to have the priveledge of experiencing the incredible, primal love of being a parent. It really is awesome.

Man. Getting sick when you have an infant really sucks ass. Besides being pretty much incapable of avoiding sharing your germs, you're getting up every few hours for feedings so you never get enough sleep to speed your own recovery. I feel so bad when I have to blow my nose one handed while holding him in place at my boob with the other hand. But that's better than dripping snot on his head. And the poor little man is so confused; Mommy doesn't sound right with this Kathleen Turner voice.

He's doing fine with his version of the cold. He's not sick enough for me to call the doctor (no fever) but I feel bad for him. I think he's swallowing most of his phelgm and so his last poo was all green and farm smelly. I keep jamming the aspirator in his mouth to try to suck out his snot but it's mostly too far down his throat. At least he's still eating good.

His typical feeding routine is to do at least 10 minutes on a boob. Then I'll change his pants to wake him back up for Boob Two. After that, he'll usually eat another 4 ounces from a bottle. I typically give him 2 of pumped milk and then 2 of formula. This whole round takes an hour or an hour and a half, depending on how good he nurses. In the hospital we had work so hard just to force 30cc down his throat at a time. He's definitely growing. I've had to pull out some onesies that are now too small. Of course they're all the newborn and premie sizes but it's still nice to have proof of his increasing size since we haven't been doing weight checks anymore.

I have to give a great big shout out to the lovely and talented, and soon to be rich and famous, Diablo Cody for taking me out for a mani-pedi today. Thanks dollface! Every new mother should be so lucky. It was so relaxing.

I've been getting tense in my shoulders and neck and I think it's from sitting crooked while nursing. I need to sit with my hips square and level.

Last night Mr. b and I went to the drive-in with the little man and it was the perfect way to see a movie with a baby. It also gave us a couple more good Firsts: nursing in the car and Mr. b changing a diaper in his lap. We've been collecting Firsts like diaper change on the scuzzy table in a public restroom, bottle feeding in a restaurant, hotel stay, trip out of state. Of course I was previously counting Firsts like shower while Kirk is awake in his bassinet outside the bathroom. And unfortunately, I think that we have First Cold going on now. If Mommy gets a sore throat, there's pretty much no way that Baby can avoid it.

I often wonder how my sister manages to raise 2 girls by herself. It's frickin' hard! Then again, if you're on your own, you know that you don't have anyone else to count on. I think it would be harder if your mate was all 50s and didn't help out at all. Then there would be someone around that *could* give you a break, but doesn't. I know it was much more difficult for me last week when for several nights in a row, I had the baby all night without any assistance from Mr. b for various reasons. When he's been gone, then I know I'm on my own and I can get in the right mindset. Somehow I just call up the strength to care for the little man and the serenity to do it with a smile.

At least on one of those days last week we finally had post partum sex. We both wanted to wait until the All Clear from Doc because of the episiotomy. And I wanted to get started on my no-siblings-for-Kirk pills. I even bought my first ever bottle of vag lube. But then it was all Mr. b. He was still squicked out from watching me give birth and get cut. We both thought it felt different than before. But now the seal is broken. We'll get better.

Vader
Good kitty
"I sleep in a drawer!"

This is my new favorite picture. It perfectly captures how much I love being Kirk's mom.

Talking with my sister last week, I think I figured out why breast feeding is so important to me. As she put it, it's the only thing that only I can do for my child. Other people can give him a bottle, or change his diaper, or bathe him, change his outfit, play with him. Only I can feed him directly from my own body, food that I make specifically for him. And it's time I can spend with him that no one can take away.

That's why I've come to enjoy mornings with him so much as well. We've fallen into a bit of a schedule that won't work at all when I go back to work but for now, it's great. Typically, Mr. b will stay up with the little man until somewhere between 1 and 4 in the morning, sleeping if the baby lets him, depending on when he has to go to work. Then I get the next shift. Kirk will do another chunk of sleeping at around 7 or 8 in the morning and I just bring him in to bed with me then. We can get another couple of cuddly hours of shut eye that way.

I was very against the idea of the family bed. But now I think it may be more difficult for me than for the baby when we start putting him down in his crib instead of the bassinet. And I will greatly miss my mornings with him when my leave is done.

While I was pregnant, I longed to sleep on my back or stomach. Obviously, that was forbidden or unobtainable. I've quite enjoyed being able to lay flat on my back again. But even though I was previously a stomach sleeper, it's just not satisfying to me anymore. At first, it felt weird because my abdominal muscles were still all pushed off to the sides. Now, it's just plain uncomfortable because of the fullness in my tits.

There's a marked difference in the consistency of baby poop depending on if it's breast milk or formula. Breast milk poo is runny with little seeds in it. Formula poo is more like creamy peanut butter. And yes, it's smelly even though I'm his mommy. It just doesn't bother me.

This little man has had a couple of spectacular spit ups. At first I was winning. I was trying Kirk out on naked nipple after he acted like he wanted more even though he had just finished eating on that side through the shield. He opened his mouth and out it came, all over my nipple and boob. It was quite warm. But Mr. b has that topped. And not just because he seems to be the one that gets spit up all over his shirts. He was playing with Kirk while laying down and held him up with his arms stretched straight up. Kirk spit up not just on his daddy's face. He got some in his mouth!! Hi-larious. And of course as I'm typing about spit up he just did some in his bassinet.

Family
Yoda
Helping
Car seat

I give up. Every time I think that Kirk's making improvments in eating or sleeping they don't stick. He still won't suckle without the shield. If I even try to give him a naked nipple he'll just shake his head frantically. And the whole sleeping when it's dark thing was a fluke, too. Last night he decided to stay awake until 1am. He's sleeping now of course. I just don't know what to do. Sure, he's sleeping for longer chunks, but it's in the morning. He wants to eat every couple of hours during the night so it doesn't really matter that he goes back to sleep. I have no idea how I'll be able to go back to work if this keeps up.

And we still haven't mastered feeding our own damn selves. As Shogunmoon mentioned, we need people to cook for us. We're also still relying heavily on restaurants, fast food, and people bringing us food. Sure, I can cook if Mr. b is around to watch the baby. But right now I just had a burnt grilled cheese sandwich because I wasn't able to give it my full attention.

At least I was able to bring Kirk in to work yesterday for the obligatory meet-the-coworkers visit. That was really weighing heavily on me.

My MIL was staying with us since Friday. She was such an incredible help. Kirk happened to be going through a growth spurt/developmental leap and was eating every 2 hours since early Friday morning. (He had a weight check before she arrived and was up to 6# 14.5 oz--I guarantee he's well beyond 7 now.) It's very frustrating to be feeding him that often. I think using the shield has helped to prevent extreme nipple soreness, but it had definitely caught up with me by Saturday night.

I was a wreck. I find that I now only become a big crying mess when I'm over-tired. I had been up with Kirk all night, feeding him constantly, and I hadn't gotten a nap in during the day because we went to see Dukes of Hazzard, which ruled. MIL was already planning on taking the baby all night so we could go to our friend's birthday party. Mr. b thought I should stay home and just sleep. But I needed to see people. Desperately. And spending a couple hours with friends, going home and going straight to bed (after pumping of course), and getting a real live full night's sleep was amazing. My body didn't know how to react to that much rest! I told her it was the best present she could have given me.

And then Kirk started sleeping at night. Sure, he still gets up to eat several times, but he goes back to sleep. That makes all the difference in the world. He's going slightly longer between meals now, too, closer to 4 hours at a time. His eyes are focusing better and getting lighter than that dark infant color. You can just tell there's been leap. I'm so glad that MIL was able to be here to witness it.

Last night was another bad one. Kirk likes being awake from about 2am until about 5am no matter what we try. And we've tried it all by now. I made the mistake of staying up until about midnight so that meant I was operating on 2 hours of sleep. Letting him fuss by himself in his bassinet didn't work. Nursing him repeatedly put him to sleep but he wouldn't stay that way. Cuddling him didn't trick him into sleeping either. And all this was in the dark as I'm trying to convince him that dark=sleepy time. By 6am I was insane. I was literally crying like a baby. Completely inconsolable. I just wanted someone to comfort me, hold me. Mr. b packed up the baby and left me to cry myself to sleep. I felt much better, but starving and with a crying hangover, when I got up about noon.

The upside of such a terrible night is that I was frustrated with the constant nursing and I tried my bare nipple. Kirk latched on and suckled without the shield! Since then I've offered him no-shield each feeding and he'll take it about half the time. It's a good thing, too, because I've begun to worry about my milk supply. I haven't been as diligent with kangaroo time as I should have been and my boobs don't feel nearly as full as they used to. I'm getting less when I pump after each feeding, too. Maybe that's just because he's draining me more completely.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I probably won't produce enough to keep breastfeeding for much longer. I'm pretty sure I'll have to give up when I go back to work. I mean, for as long as possible I'll try to nurse him when I come home but I just have a feeling my supply will not keep up with his demand. I guess 3 months is better than nothing.

It's official: I am both a nerd and a new mom. I just cried over Data's daughter dying. "Thank you for my life."

I think that Tron's soul got a do-over. That's why Kirk came early and is small. He's just continuing the Policy of Tiny-ness.

I was thinking that I was done with the baby blues. I hadn't cried for absolutely no reason in quite some time. Sure, I still tear up at heartwarming and heartbreaking stories. But I think that has more to do with being related to my overly sentimental dad.

Then today after my post partum doctor's visit, Kirk had a weight check. He's lost an ounce. What?! He eats constantly. Sure, he's begun doing this new thing where he'll get all frantic when first put up to the boob. But after he crabs for a few minutes, he'll latch on and begin nursing. I know he's getting food because he's gone to the opposite extreme and is now pooping almost every diaper change. Doc was totally unconcerned, said to try to "top him off" with a bottle after each feeding, and bring him in for another weight check on Friday.

So I went home and told Mr. b the news. He freaked out. And I started crying. I felt like it was my fault. Like I was somehow doing something wrong and that's why he hasn't gained any weight. Like if I changed something or was better in some way there wouldn't be a problem and he'd be packing it on and we wouldn't have to worry.

And now we're blasting through all the milk I had in the fridge and will probably go back to supplementing with formula since I can't pump constantly. There go my plans to start freezing it.

The Kirk Shelf
Remote Control

I think we're finally getting the hang of the new schedule. Everything reset when we switched to (mostly) exclusive breast feeding. The Worst Night Yet was on Monday; we were fighting at 3am. We found that we both retain our sanity if we get 3-4 solid hours of sleep in a row. We can then grab naps whenever they come. It's amazing just how little sleep you actually need to function. So now we take shifts. Typically Mr. b will stay up until about 1am and then I'll get up for the second half of the night (especially if he has to go to work in the morning). Apparently my own parents did the exact same thing with me.

Kirk really has a great temperament. He's a very chill baby. But he likes keeping late hours. And he demands being held most of the time when he's awake in the middle of the night. I've started to figure out how to trick him in to napping if he's cuddled up close to Mommy. And so obviously I've had to learn how to safely sleep with him. Then I have dreams about nursing him and I can't figure out if he just ate or what. We were keeping a feeding and diaper changing log, to track how long he'd spend at each breast, how much mommy juice in a bottle he'd take, and how many wet and poopy diapers he was having. But we both spontaneously quit that today. Hopefully I'll be able to mentally estimate when he last ate and whatnot.

I know that "Breast is Best" and all that logical reasoning for nursing your child. And it does make sense. But for some reason it's just massively important to me that this works. When I was having more difficulties I just felt like I'd somehow be a failure as a mother if I couldn't do it. Which is obviously crap and completely untrue. But I'm now pretty sure this is going to work out. I could tell a difference in how full my boobs felt when Kirk started being able to nurse through the shield. They didn't hurt, but they clearly contained a quantity of liquid. He's certainly getting enough to eat. And I'm definitely getting plenty of milk when I pump, too. I'm going to try to start freezing it. I've got a bunch in the fridge ready to go already.

It seems that despite my quickly reduced stomach size, my old pants still don't fit. My ass is considerably huger. Considering that I already had ghetto booty to begin with, that's going to make it even more difficult to find things that fit. Big hips and small waist are just not what clothing makers have in mind.

I'm trying to be hyper observant of Kirk's behavior. I can tell when he's actually hungry and not just fussy based on how he moves his mouth and head. And I've been looking for all the little development markers that he's supposed to hit. He does the newborn reflexes like hug-the-tree when startled. He laughs in his sleep. And he's just beginning to notice his hands. The other day I caught him following his finger movements like a hippie on acid watching trails.

He makes all kinds of funny noises. Our favorite is when he sounds like a tauntaun. I love watching his face when he sleeps. I always think of Delenn watching Sheridan.

Today I went out with Kirk by myself for the first time. We've always gone out with Mr. b before. We've been out to eat, and shop, and even saw Batman. I took the little man in for a weight check with Doc. He's holding steady (6# 4 oz) and she thinks he looks great. He's plenty hydrated and she said not to worry about his not pooping since we started the breast feeding project; he's just got an efficient gut. Boy can he fart though!

I also went out by myself for the first time today. Granted it was just to the grocery store but still. While driving there I realized I was extremely exhausted and I remembered Auntie G telling me to be careful while driving on limited sleep during these first few months. She wasn't kidding!

My lochia flow had gone to clear but yesterday it switched to light red again. I must need to slow down. But I'm certainly not doing much. Hell, I haven't even managed to take a shower in a couple of days. Maybe I'll get to it later tonight. I'm just annoyed that I have to continue wearing the damn panty liners. I understand now why people say that this makes up for the lack of a period for 9 months.

Mr. b thinks I look Norwegian walking around topless all the time. It must be the braids. I know why so many women get their hair cut short after they have a kid. It really gets in the way when you're trying to nurse. I keep it back constantly. Well, that also helps to hide the fact that I don't have time or energy to shower and wash my hair anymore!

Bath time
Dancin' fool

Breast feeding is hard. During the whole pregnancy Mr. b enjoyed pointing out when TV and movies portray it incorrectly. So his latest bitch is about how in Blue Lagoon Brooke Sheilds couldn't have nursed her inbred baby so easily.

A lactation nurse came to help me out yesterday. We found out that Kirk has gained almost a pound on his birth weight--he's up to 6-3.5! Awesome! That means that we are switching to agressive and exclusive breast feeding. Mommy is still requesting that Daddy do a bottle feeding in the middle of the night for her own sanity however. The nurse said that everything that Kirk is doing (or not doing, heh) is typical and she got me started using a nipple shield. It's very strange navigating this weird boob condom while trying to get the boy to open his mouth but it seems to be working. He just eats a lot more frequently now.

To keep up/increase my milk production I have to try to keep pumping whenever possible. So far if my nip is leaking while I'm feeding him on the other boob, then I'll pump. We're also doing "kangaroo care" which is just naked baby (he gets to keep his diaper on) against my chest. It's super cuddly and warm. I don't know where the name came from. And I don't know why the skin contact triggers milk production. Mr. b is mildly skeptical and wonders, "Do your boobs smell the baby?"

So I'm spending even more time topless. Which I like because frankly I've always wished that women could go topless in this society. I just have to remember to put a shirt on when I get the mail or take out the trash.

I'm really surprised at how quickly my stomach has gone down. I'm betting regular pants would fit me, if I'd bother to unpack them and try them on. Maternity things are certainly too big, except for the two low rider transitional pairs I bought in the fifth month. This weekend a friend told me that if she didn't know, she'd never guess that I just had a baby. I wouldn't go that far! I know that the attempt to nurse and the constant pumping has helped. I sure am hungry all the time. I could actually feel my uterus retracting while I was still in the hospital. It felt kind of like that undefinable tummy ache that you get with the flu. Now I just want to know when my stomach muscles have moved back into their normal place and I can start doing sit-ups.

And have sex! Dangit, this sex restriction is no fun. I'm not allowed to "put anything in [my] vagina for 6 weeks." The nurse explained that means tampons and then she circled the No Sexual Intercourse section of my discharge paperwork. Both Mr. b and I keep having sex dreams and are starting a sex countdown.

The psychadelic jaundice box
Gangsta
Sleeping little beauty

Labor and Delivery

I need to get this down before it fades any further. I always thought women were bullshitting or promoting a conspiracy of disinformation when they said that you forget the pain of childbirth. But it's totally true! I can intellectually remember it hurting like a sumbitch, not thinking that it would ever end, being too tired to go on. And yet, it's like it happened a lifetime ago.

When I came home on Friday the 1st I took a nap. I dreamt about breathing to a count of 3. When I woke up at about 5:00pm, my contractions were suddenly extremely regular. But Mr. b wasn't home from work yet. I paced and danced and paced and danced and stretched and moved and took each one as they came. Mr. b got home about 6:30pm and I attacked him with an impatient, "I've been waiting for you!" He thought I was making it up. Even after timing the contractions (2 and a half minutes apart, about 40 seconds each), he still didn't think it was real. I wanted to go to the hospital. Obviously we didn't have a labor bag packed yet so Mr. b got that together and we got to the hospital about 8:00pm. The contractions were intensifying already.

Once I was registered and in a room, they had to put me on an IV right away. I hadn't yet had the strep (of the butt, frenchtoast(tm)) test and so they gave me antibiotics just in case. I wasn't too amused about not being able to be on my feet but they had to have me on a fetal monitor since it was early. I was already dilated to 3cm and 100% effaced. Mr. b asked the nurse if that meant I'd be having the baby. She chuckled and said yes. Then he believed it was really happening.

I dilated 1-2 cm every hour after that and the contractions got steadily more and more painful. For a while they were more bearable because I figured out how to relax through them (think of Kira Nerys) but that didn't last. I felt poop starting to slip out as I was starting to wonder how much more of this I could take. The nurse helped me to the toilet and asked if I wanted some Nubain to take the edge off. They could just add it to my IV. I said yes very quickly. That made it so both Mr. b and I could doze off in between contractions. I was dilated to 7 or 8cm at that point and just entering transition. There was a lot of "bloody show" this whole time but my water still hadn't broken. When the nurse checked me again it broke and came gushing out, very warm, and startled her. I was almost fully dilated, just a small edge remaining, but Doc hadn't arrived yet. It must have been about 2:00am at this point.

Then the urge to push came. I was told to fight it because of that tiny amount of cervix still not dilated. That was impossible. How do you fight an animal urge that basic? I had a vague recollection of Teacher talking about animals panting while delivering so I switched my breathing to that and clung to the edges of the bed. It was probably only 5 or 10 minutes but it was the longest time of my life. Finally Doc arrived, they tranformed the bed to traditional pushing position, legs in stirrups and whatnot. I had wanted to try squatting but was way beyond caring or fighting. It's not like we had a birth plan. We were supposed to write that out at the next Ob appointment.

Pushing really does feel just like the urge to take a giant dump. Only you have to push harder than anything you've ever done in your life. I kept shouting during each push and they kept telling me that I was wasting my energy. But I felt better yelling. Mr. b said that he could tell a difference when I didn't groan and I tried to be quiet. Doc said they needed to do an episiotomy and I cried, "I'm sorry, I'll push harder." She let me try 2 more pushes and then said the baby wasn't coming fast enough and his heart rate was slowing down so she cut me. Mr. b says that was the hardest thing to watch. When I finally felt too exhausted to push anymore, the nurse put my hand down to feel baby's head crowning. It was squishy and weird. But I somehow managed to find the energy to get his head out. Two more much smaller pushes and his body wriggled out. They put him on my chest and Mr. b cut his cord and then they went to weigh him and do the Apgar test.

I was for some reason really concerned about the placenta and asked Doc what I was supposed to do next. She said she'd let me know when to push. It was a very short time later and I barely had to push at all to expel the afterbirth. Then Doc had to sew me up and Mr. b held our son. It was all extremely surreal. And I was suddenly so hungry.

My life is almost entirely centered around my tits right now. Perhaps even more so than when Diablo was stripping full time. "Did you boob him?" is Mr. b's way of inquiring how the latest nursing attempt went. I'm milking myself after each feeding because we need to have bottled boob for the little man. I'm fascinated watching the milk come out of my nipples. It comes out of more than just one spot! There are lots of tiny holes. I don't know why I thought it was just one in the center. And sometimes it spurts out in a fine jet.

But wee Kirk has gained weight! Yay! A whole 2 ounces in fact. We had a home visit from a nurse on Sunday and he was up to 5# 1oz. Mr. b and I are hoping for birth weight at today's clinic check-up. It'll probably depend on if he poops. The home visit nurse had to "stimulate his rectum" (slide a vaseline coated thermometer in and out of his butt) because he hadn't pooped in 36 hours. Later that day I changed the most massively poopy diaper I've ever seen in my life.

Some random observations:
Apparently duckies and froggies are gender neutral animals.
Puppies are for boys and kitties are for girls.
Mr. b and I both now refer to ourselves as "Mommy" and "Daddy" in the third person.
Kirk is the cutest baby of all time.

Free at last!

We're finally home! I was so happy when the neonatologist told me we could leave that I started to cry. Mr. b was waiting in the room because he gets bored while I try to nurse and so he was going to just meet me in the nursery after a half hour and give the little man his bottle. He was so surprised when I came back pushing Captain Baby in a hospital cart instead. We still have to try to hit specific feeding marks (minimum of 35cc every 3 hours) and of course he still doesn't quite have the whole breast feeding thing mastered. But we're home!

Every time the nurses would talk about early babies as premies I kept thinking about those horrible extra small Cabbage Patch Kids they were making after the Cabbage Patch craze started to wane.

It's so frustrating not being able to bring our son home. Yesterday he had his Darth Vader arm (that's what Mr. b and I called his IV) removed and they took him off the heat monitoring. So he was on track to go home today. But then this morning we found out his billirubin levels were too high so he's now in the phototherapy bin like some kind of home grown weed. And it'll be a minimum of 24 hours for this jaundice treatment. It was a bad morning for both Mr. b and I.

Emotionally, I've been mostly okay. I've definitely done some crying, and clearly the separation is adding to the normal post-partum blues. I've decided that the reward for going through pregnancy and childbirth is not necessarily the child; it's breast feeding. The view of my baby's face nestled against my skin is amazing. Sure, he hasn't really figured the nursing thing out yet since he was early. But it's already darling. I thought it would be weird to be food. But logically, the Mommy Juice is tailor made so I definitely wanted to try it. I hope he figures it out better soon. Pumping all the time is tiring. But he takes a bottle pretty well. He does best when Daddy feeds him--or Grandpa.

Nose to nose

July 2, 2005 2:39am

He's 3 weeks early and is still in the Level 2 Nursery. I'm discharged but am a Boarder Mom so I can feed him. Hopefully he'll be able to get out by Thursday.
5 pounds 4 ounces
17.5 inches long
12.75 inch head
Kirk
Family

I talked to Doc. I figured 12 hours of contractions was plenty long enough to warrant an informational phone call. She said to give it another 12 hours. If they become more regular or even more intense, then call the labor people at the hospital and just go in. She said that if I'm really in labor they'd "let me" have the baby now. Was that a joke? Can you even stop it if you're in labor too early? But Doc said that it could be my body just needs more fluids (considering how much water I drink I highly doubt that) or maybe these contractions will just ebb away. I hope so. I hope it's just because Child Person is dropping, getting his head into position in my pelvis.

I really should do some pelvic rocks and belly dancing to help ensure he's facing the right direction just in case this is real labor. Then again, I'm so tired I'm going to take a nap instead. Because if it's not false labor, I'm going to need some energy. I came home early when I realized I could barely concentrate on work anymore. I figured I needed to leave while I could still muster up enough concentration to drive safely.

Last night at about 2am the Braxton Hicks contractions turned painful. I was doing circular yoga breathing just to deal. And even though Teacher said that changing positions usually alleviates them, sitting, standing, stretching, nothing worked. I might have gotten another hour, hour and a half of sleep. It's just not fair to have contractions when the baby still hasn't dropped so I'm also still fighting to keep him out of my ribs! And to think that earlier this week I was thinking it wasn't fair to wake up just as sore as when I went to bed, only in different places....

And these stupid practice contractions don't even have a baby at the end of them. Yeah, yeah, my uterus is getting ready to do its thing. Yeah, yeah, I'm practicing breathing. But really, this is just pointless and annoying pain. It seems to have lessened in intensity since I've been up this morning but they're still coming. There is no way I can stand 3 weeks of this crap.

I'm convinced that Child Person will be making his grand debut early. Teacher mentioned that a full moon is a very common labor trigger. So if your due date (7/24) is near a full moon (7/21), you should be prepared. But hell, at this point, I hope that fireworks are a labor trigger. C'mon 4th of July baby! Mr. b is a Presidents nerd; he'd love to have a son born on the death anniversary of three of the Founders.

I'm having difficulty telling the difference between having to pee because of a full bladder versus baby pressure on it. And some days it seems like I'm peeing constantly and it's quantity, like defrosting-Austin Powers lots. But that doesn't seem to be related to humidity, or swelling, or how much water I drink. My theory is that is must be due to the recycling of amniotic fluid.

I can't even imagine how much of a difference it'll make when this baby drops. Although it'll be fun to not have my ribcage be used as a weapon against me. And increased lung capacity will be nice.

By popular demand, here are a few recent pics.
Sleepy Mamma
"Mom To Be"
Ain't we cute

Week 36

One more week and I'm officially full term. I find it strange that the range is 37-42 weeks. Well, not really that strange compared to all the rest of the weirdness this little pregnancy project has wrought. Mr. b says that right now if you stick a toothpick in the bun in the oven, you'll get moist crumbs. We need to wait for dry crumbs so the cooking continues.

My brief reprieve from sleeping troubles seems to have ended. Ah well, it was good while it lasted. Now I'm back to waking almost hourly, sometimes to pee and sometimes from sheer uncomfortableness.

I'm ending up with more back aches now, too. Teacher showed us a diagram illustrating how the uterus is anchored at the lower back and that's why so many women end up with sore lower backs. But for me, it's been more in the middle. I think part of the problem is that I can't stretch those muscles the way I used to; there's a baby in the way. And part of the problem is that I'm always bending and twisting in strange ways to try to get this baby out from under my right rib and that's straining my middle back. I was actually in tears yesterday when I got home from work. I couldn't get comfortable either sitting or laying on the couch, even using tons of pillows for extra support. Thankfully Mr. b had impeccable timing and got home just as I was at my breaking point. I felt so much better after a back massage.

We went to the lake yesterday and floating was every bit as wonderful as I was hoping it would be. Although Child Person sure did make some strange shapes with my stomach as I was floating. I don't know if it was because we were both weightless or because I was holding myself differently than upright fighting gravity or what. Of course I couldn't be as active and frolic like I normally do in the water. Reduced range of motion in my mid-section and all. All the young Mexican mothers gave me "right on sister" looks as I walked along the beach in my belly bearing bikini. And one black woman even announced, "Don't you look cute!"

That's something I've noticed in the last couple of weeks; black women talk to me constantly now. I must have crossed some invisible barrier. These ladies come up to me out of nothing at the grocery store, at work, on the street, at the post office, in the bathroom. They always want to find out how I'm doing, how far along I am, and share their own stories of pregnancy. Or provide "advice". Or just tell me how cute my belly looks. It's hilarious and charming.

I did a lot of nursery prep this weekend. We bought some Dreft and I washed and put away just about everything that will touch Baby's skin. Clothes, new and hand-me-down, sheets, towels, wash cloths, bibs. I still have to do the blankets. And burp cloths when we get some--they are one of the very few items we didn't get. I have to admit I was bowled over by the adorableness of these tiny clothes. I was never a fan of babies. Toddlers, sure. But I know I'm going to love at least this one baby. I still suspect I'll end up like Miranda in Sex in the City: all kids but my own suck. Well, I'll modify it. All kids but my own, and those whose parents I know, suck.

Picking out a new bikini when you're 8 months' pregnant is an interesting thing to do. But now I'm all set for some swimmin'! Just got to figure out where I want to go. Midwest summers are no good for pregnant ladies. Of course Mr. b asked, "What happens if your water breaks while you're in the water?" There's no way I'd notice! And now I'm vaguely paranoid because you're not supposed to be submersed after your water breaks if you're not in labor.

I want to get a belly portrait taken. I need to memorialize this bizarre body shape.

Week 35

Even more than the physical aspects of being preggers, I am sick and tired of being psycho. I was crying as I drove to my check-up yesterday. Mr. b had forgotten about it and scheduled himself to work. I was feeling so alone. Which is quite the trick when you're sharing your physical body with another being. I wiped off my tears when I parked, went in and gave my pee sample, and waited to see Doc. And there was Mr. b! He had pulled rank and left his shift early because he didn't want to miss an appointment. Of course seeing him there almost made me start bawling again. I can't wait until I have *some* control over my emotions again.

Doc re-confirmed that Owie Baby's head is down. But she said there's no way to tell if he's facing the right direction. Since I haven't really had any lower back issues, most likely he's anterior. I hope. She also cringed with remembered pain when she saw how he continues to pound at my liver and squirm upwards on and under my ribs on the right. Mr. b wondered if that meant he was big but Doc said he's average still (I gained another whopping 2 pounds so that puts me at 22 total). I guess he's just super wiggly. No surprise considering his father.

Another freak out in the middle of the night last night. I guess that brings me to 3 really big ones during this pregnancy. My defense mechanisms and wife-of-alcoholic coping skills have completely disintegrated. It's certainly not helping my already compromised ability to sleep and my increasing late-third-trimester exhaustion. I know that I can't push Mr. b to change anything about his drinking. I'm not a dumbass. And I'm not new to this game. But I have allowed all of my previous rules (like the Drunk Bed) to slowly fade away. That's my own fault. I knew that if I had waited until he was sober to get pregnant, it would never happen. Just like those people that claim they just need to get more financially sound. Right. Good luck with that. I just never wanted to raise the child of an alcoholic. We both are. Both of our dads are now long-time sober. And none of these men have ever been abusive or anything else stereotypical that you see on TV or read about in the histrionic memoirs that are all the rage these days. But it's still stressful to see my normally wonderful husband succumb to that addiction. The beer gives him the gout and the whiskey makes him selfish and thrash in his sleep. I need him all to myself right now. I can't share him with his mistress alcohol. Sure, if he's drunk when I go into labor there will probably be plenty of time at home still for him to sober up. But who's going to help me get through the contractions in the meantime?

Thanks to the fantastic knitting skills of akg and the amazing organizational abilities of lis, the darling TWoP Trekkers sent me this beautiful sweater and hat. (thinga got one as well!) They rule. They also sent this fantastic card. I love you guys!

This weekend was the big Auntie G baby shower. Man can that girl do up a shindig. It was so much fun. Boys and kids were allowed and the food was fabulous. I am just constantly astounded at the sincerity and generosity of all my friends, in the world and online.

I did the big inventory and we're actually in pretty darn good shape. I think we need to get a stroller and a swing but a pack n play can wait (Christmas gift from Nana?!) for now. We're set on the nursery stuff, too, with the exception of a couple of minor things like changing pad covers. It feels so much more real just to have a car seat sitting in the house. I even had a dream last night that Baby was sitting in it on the floor next to me while I was doing something else. I looked over and he was so peaceful sleeping in there. I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Let's go dammit!

Teacher asked our birth class if any of us had noticed Braxton Hicks contractions yet. I was the only one that raised my hand. After I described the feeling--a general sort of tightness in my belly, like it wants to stay in sitting position even after I've stood up--she confirmed that that's definitely it. I'm chocking it up to more hyper awareness of my own body. Like how I could feel Child Person moving way earlier than is usual for a first timer and how I could feel uterus muscles changing even before that. So I'm guessing I'll be right on it when I go into real labor. I don't know if that'll make it seem even longer than it's already sure to be. I mean, if you're oblivious and don't notice right away, then there's potentially a big chunk of time you don't have to be fretting!

Then again, my general healthiness and awareness has certainly made this a relatively easy pregnancy. I haven't had the classic sore lower back issues because if I sense even the littlest bit of tension, I know how to stretch and get relief. And I've avoided the stereotypical clumsiness due to your changing center of gravity because of dancer's posture. I'm sure the intermittent leg/arm swelling I have been experiencing would be much worse if I wasn't stretching and moving to get the blood flowing again. And of course I drink tons water; that definitely helps keep the swelling at bay.

Week 34

The birth class really helped to assuage my fears. The instructor was a very cool broad and she said towards the beginning that she was going to gear it more for the "labor partners" than the women, since we had no choice at this point. I didn't know that the whole process was broken down into stages: 1) labor contractions/cervix dilation, 2) delivering the baby, 3) delivering the placenta. And that the first stage is subdivided into phases: 1) early labor (about to 5 cm, not too bad, can stay at home), 2) labor (about 5-7cm, should probably be at the hospital, they'll hurt), and 3) transition (about to 10cm, the really icky part where baby's head gets into position to go down the birth canal and your ability to swear like a sailor will be revealed). I was fascinated by the claims that actually pushing the baby out doesn't hurt but it does feel like you've got a bowling ball down there. That's quite a mind boggling statement of seeming contradictions.

Ultimately, both Mr. b and I realized that my instinctual plans (squat to deliver and remain on my feet and moving as much as possible during labor) were right on the money. And that both of us want me to try to do as much without pain medication as possible. The intervention options just make the whole process so much more medical-y. And in the case of an epidural (frankly the whole spine and needle thing squicks me out majorly) you can't move around, which I don't like at all.

We certainly needed the excuse to really talk frankly about our fears. Mr. b is scared of me. Scared of me hurting him verbally/emotionally/physically. And I'm scared of him taking it personally if I do and him going on the defensive, which is his natural position even when unnecessary. I will need him there for me. Teacher said that having your labor partner with you is equal to a shot of Demerol. I believe it. Mr. b is also scared of watching me be in pain and not being able to do anything about it. That's just so loving.

I've realized that a lot of my tears while reading the preggo lit (and watching the videos during the class) about labor and delivery have been less about my fear of the unknown and almost more of anticipatory love. I love this baby so much already. I had no idea how desperately I wanted to meet him and hold him and kiss him. And my love for Mr. b has exponentially increased, too. How can I possibly contain this much emotion for another month and a half?

I'm sick. This sucks. I stayed home yesterday and was miserable. Today I'm slightly less miserable. But does that equal better? I called the clinic yesterday to find out what kind of drugs I was able to take. Nurse said Robitussin. It makes me loopy.

I felt the sore throat coming on Saturday night. But I didn't know if it was just from talking loudly over the noise at the wedding reception. Or maybe the temperature extremes from being outside and humid then inside and air conditioned. Or maybe I picked up a bug while touring the maternity ward at the hospital during birth class earlier that day. I didn't really give it much thought. And then when I felt super crappy at birth class the next morning, I thought it was just constipation and swollen legs. (Despite all the good leg massaging I got from one of the Astronaut Wives at the reception.)

It's really sucky being sick while preggers. I'm already having trouble getting comfortable laying down. My stomach is all squished and tiny and so leaks acid when I'm laying down. I was sort of freaked out about taking Zantac on top of the 'Tussin, despite the fact that both have been authorized. About 1 o'clock last night I gave in and was able to sort of sleep through the rest of the night.

At least I was able to avoid getting sick earlier in the pregnancy. Anecdotally, once you get a preggers cold, it never really fully goes away while you're still knocked up. I sure hope that one's just an Old Wife's Tale.

I've been pushing back at Little Owie Baby's foot so often that now my muscles are sore on the right side of my back. I guess because of the angle and the wrap around tugging effect. Or something. Yesterday I tried to just ignore him and not try to move him away if at all possible. Yeah. It didn't work.

I think I might be having those practice contractions. It's hard to say since I don't have anything to compare to. The preggo lit tells me it'll feel like my uterus getting hard. I have noticed that sometimes my lower belly gets really tight and then will go back to normal. It doesn't really hurt usually. Thought sometimes I'll feel a fairly sharp pain somewhere in the baby factory. I can't tell if it's just him hitting me on some internal organ or what though.

Then again, I didn't know what his hiccups felt like until he got them during a check-up a couple of weeks ago. Doc was listening to his heartbeat, pointed out he was hiccupping, and then I knew what that strange, rhythmic, faint throbbing was I usually feel at the bottom on the left side. The hiccups at least haven't worn out their welcome. I still find those cute and charming. Probably because they don't hurt me. That makes a big difference.

I started reading the baby manual we got as a shower present. It was given to us from a real live pediatrician! I learned that babies are totally alert and super aware for the first hour or so after they're born. Huh.

I find myself making mental plans for minor surgical procedures after Child Person arrives. I figure I can handle anything once I have gone through labor and delivery. So the crooked wisdom tooth I've been putting off getting pulled? That'll be gone. And the moles that bug the hell out of Mr. b? They're outta here. Actually, Doc said she can just remove the moles herself. I have 4 that are of the stickie-outie variety. Mr. b has noticed they're darker and I've noticed they're kind of tender. That's yet another preggo-hormone thing apparently. Doc confirmed that it's nothing to worry about and then said she fancies herself a bit of an amateur plastic surgeon so I don't even need to see a dermatologist. Nice!

Week 33

Doc says that the baby child is definitely head down already. And since I'm told that babies come out facing your butthole, that means the offending foot that is giving me the liver bruise is his right foot. Same foot of Mr. b's that won't stay still. Mr. b says, "Good boy." Hrmph.

I've gained back 1 and a half pounds. But I haven't decided if that's actual weight gain or just more natural fluctuation. Really, I'm beyond caring. I'm clearly not going to be one of those women that balloons up 80 pounds. I remember joking to a friend long before I even went off the pill that my plan was to gain 12 pounds total--7 for the baby and 5 for the other junk. Little did I know how close that would be!

Mr. b was very cute in the doctor's office. He busted out with a litany of status updates--that I'm hot all the time and he's always having to put on a sweatshirt and that my legs get swollen and I get tired and I'm overly emotional and get sad and upset easily. Doc just grinned at me and said, "Everything's normal then. You're perfect!"

To hammer home the overly emotional point I then had a total melt down in the middle of the night. I was convinced that Mr. b was dead in a ditch somewhere when he didn't get home from band practice until much later than I anticipated. I was in tears, not able to go back to sleep, wandering around looking out the window, willing him to get home.

I've begun talking to the baby child. "Ow! C'mon Baby, stop it." "Damn it, Little Baby you're hurting me." That kind of thing. I swear I already have a sense of his personality. He's a hyper little scamp, very rowdy. We're definitely going to have to keep an eye on him. "Two eyes," says Gandalf.

I had another uber creepy baby dream last night. He was moving around so much and I looked down and could actually make out the perfect outline of his facial profile stretching out of my stomach skin. I showed that bit of freakiness to my sister. Then suddenly I was holding him in the palm of my hand. He wasn't actually born, and he was tiny, but he was fully developed and still technically attached to me somehow, and yet outside of the womb. Just visiting I guess. He was crying and I kept trying to give him my finger to calm him down. Then he became much larger, probably closer to his actual current size. But he also became *aware*. Like abomination aware. (I swear I haven't gone through any Reverend Mother rituals while preggers.) And his head swelled up and his eyes spread apart and he spoke in some language I didn't understand. I was desperate to get him back in my belly where he belonged. But the only way to do it was to open my jaw like a snake and very carefully let him back in through my mouth. I felt like Cronus.

My SIL held an infant CPR refresher course at her community pool on Friday. It was scary to think about having to use it but good to know it.

She's already showing at 14 weeks. Was I already showing that soon? I can't even remember. Then again, people of all ages are still saying that I look quite small for how far along I am. Really? Because I can't see my feet anymore when I look down.

I've officially switched into the Hot Phase. Granted it's been a pretty mild summer so far. But this weekend I just about died. We hadn't transitioned from open-windows-for-the-breeze to closed-windows-and-air-conditioning yet and I was melting. My legs felt all swollen from trips up and down the stairs. Sweet Mr. b gave me a leg massage that really helped a lot. But I'm definitely already preferring temperatures that make other folks feel chilled. I'm looking forward to July 24th for relief. This baby better not be late!

It just figures that as soon as I try to find a pattern in Child Person's movements he would change it all up. He's been most active in the afternoons and evenings. So naturally he started in on me at 6:00 this morning and has been pounding away off and on all day long. I have no idea how I'm going to get through two more months. (Mr. b always says that like Norm in Fargo.) He was hurting me so much this morning, and I was being vocal about it, that a co-worker actually inquired if I was alright. Diablo and I were discussing it earlier this week. The movement has moved way beyond charming. There is no trace of weirdness left. It is now fully annoying and often painful.

Mr. b says that I didn't have to go to Carousel on Tuesday since I'm pregnant. But apparently the cat is a Sandman in disguise so I still can't try to Run.

Then again, Mr. b also says that I'm now shaped like an ostrich. When he does his impression of me walking it's like one of R. Crumb's African women.

Week 32

I still haven't gotten the massively swollen ankles or feet. Thank god. But I definitely noticed they were a bit puffy after spending all afternoon playing mini-golf and walking around the zoo. I have been feeling a slow degradation of my leg circulation however. It's not everyday, or even all the time. Like right now my left leg just doesn't feel right. I get up and stretch and do some ballet and it'll help for a bit but it still feels off when I sit back down. And I'm noticing my hips getting sore more frequently and not just when I sleep too long on one side without flipping over.

Speaking of flipping over, I think this baby may be starting his voyage. I don't know how you're supposed to tell though. But he seems to be diagonal in me lately. I can feel him continuing to poke at my liver on the right side of my stomach, but I'll also feel him way, way down at the bottom on my left side. It is extremely annoying. Apparently at this stage they have distinct patterns of wiggly sleep, quiet sleep, wiggly awake, and quiet awake. And anecdotally, the kid will follow the same pattern once out in the world. So I'm trying to catalogue the movements and see if I can discern what kind of a schedule Mr. b and I will be keeping in a couple of months.

It's My Birthday

It's been a good birthday so far today. I've gotten bagels and lots of e-cards and my desk was decorated when I got in to work. Mr. b is springing me in another hour or so. And Child Person hasn't been hurting me too much with his stretching.

I took my first bath since I've been preggers. I was paranoid about them early on because of the whole water temperature raising your body temperature thing. But I decided that I'd be fine as long as I kept it cooler. Our bathtub is small. Yet I did realize while floating in a semi-fetal position amongst the bubbles that I want to go swimming. The tiny amount of weightlessness that a shallow bath provided was enough to show me how nice full submersion will be. And screw maternity swimsuits. They are ugly. I've got to see if any of my old bikinis will fit my newly expanded ass. There's no point in covering my stomach. It's not like you wouldn't be able to tell I'm knocked up. I need to cover my ass. I sometimes think I'm starting to look like a Neolithic fertility goddess.

I'm back to not gaining any weight. Technically, I've lost a pound but I think Mr. b is right in that it's just natural weight fluctuation. Doc was completely unconcerned of course; she figured that since I gained so rapidly over the last couple months that it was no big deal. My reaction was more of shock; I eat all the fuckin' time!

I asked Doc about the slowing down of C.P.'s movements. He's doing less and less of the violent punching and kicking and more of the constant lean into my right side like he's trying to force his way out. She said the slow and deliberateness is probably due to him already running out of room. Yikes. I don't want a jumbo baby! And then Doc sympathized greatly and clutched her own side remembering the pain of her kids bumping up against her liver. Apparently I should keep up my efforts to push him back away from my side when he's doing that. It really is incredibly uncomfortable and annoying.

Week 31

Some of the college girls at the shower this weekend were asking about preggo sex. Someone had heard rumors of longer and multiple orgasms. The preggo lit I've read has even mentioned that possibility. For me, positions that were not previously that exciting were suddenly doing the trick. At first I thought it was a fluke of creative use of hotel room furniture. I thought I might have to put getting a dishwasher on hold and make a trip down to IKEA instead. Thankfully, it turned out to just be the harbinger of a brave new era of satisfying positions. We may be doing it slightly less often than before but we're making up for that with variety. My belly gets in the way of a lot of previous options.

And I swear that the baby child falls alseep during sex. It's got to the be the rhythmic rocking of his capsule. No matter how active he is before, afterward all's quiet on the western front.

I can definitely tell that Child Person's space capsule has gotten bigger. I'm feeling more and more pressure on my rib cage. It's not just that he's increasingly spending more time above my belly button. (Thankfully he's still mostly a low rider and I haven't yet experienced the dreaded "get caught on my ribs".) But all my guts have been jammed even tighter under my lungs. And I can feel my rib cage spreading. Most of the pressure is at my sternum. I spend a lot of time pressing on my ribs, trying to get everything to settle downward a bit more.

Mom says that I'll be fine for the next month and then I'll be miserable that last month. And I'll have the heat of July, too. She can definitely relate since my brother was born 2 days after my due date.

And people keep telling me that I seem small for being so far along. I can't even imagine.

Another baby shower! Mr. b was such a perfect Guest of Honor. He squealed with delight at all the gifts and constantly announced how embarassed he was with all of the attention, while grabbing for the next present to unwrap. I did not take enough pictures. We got a really good mix of fun and practical gifts. We totally scored on the funky onesie front: Darth Vader "Who's Your Daddy", The Cure "Boys Don't Cry", and a series of homemade iron-ons featuring the Ghostbusters and various Kirks (like Captain and Hammet).

Earlier in the weekend we scored a hand-me-down changing table. Now we really have no choice but to remove the guest bed. It's a nursery and there's no way around it. We need to set up all the baby furniture and sort through all of our loot. We need to take serious stock of what we're still missing on the Big Ticket item front. Granted there's still one more shower in our future but I think it'll be good to begin an inventory. Like, I know we're going to need more bottles and feeding equipment (and a dishwasher) and I have to find out if my health insurance will cover a breast pump. And we still don't even have a line on a stroller--but we've got a couple of promised basinets and car seats so we should be good there.

I just keep trying to focus on the practical issues. When I focus on child birth I freak out. I read the section on the most common methods of pain reduction in use today and that sounded just as bad as delivery itself. I was in tears.

I have the vertical belly line now. Both Mr. b and I just noticed it within the past couple of days.

Having seen Revenge of the Sith twice now I can honestly say it's better than Empire.

It's funny, both Mr. b and I ended up nitpicking the pregnancy. (Spoiler warning for hermits that have been living out on the edge of the Dune Sea.) We laughed at the size of Padme's belly. What kind of lame ass prenatal care did she have on Coruscant that she didn't know she was carrying twins? Those babies were pretty darn big for twins that came early. And they didn't have gross belly buttons. How come they made it look like a vaginal birth when the medical droid said they'd have to operate to save the babies? Any other time in our lives and we'd never think twice about that stuff.

I must admit, it was a little difficult to hear the constant talk about dying in child birth.

Week 30: RotS Day Eve

I always thought my mom was full of shit when you'd ask her what she wanted for her birthday or Christmas or whatever. She'd say there was nothing she wanted and then mention some boring domesticity that she "needed". Or just request a chore get done or that we simply all get together as a family for dinner or something equally hokey. And yet, when Mr. b asked what I want for my upcoming 30th birthday, I couldn't think of anything. I don't want any clothes because I'm still preggers. I don't want any Star Wars merch because I already have the jigsaw puzzles and we'll just buy action figures as we desire them. At least I resisted saying out loud that I want to get all new towels for the upstairs bathroom. That would have been a definite fall into Mother Mentality. I guess there was no reason for me to feel like a phoney when I got Mother's Day well-wishes. Hey, at least I spent my card cash on Babylon 5 DVDs.

Mr. b made his first trip to the grocery store for weird food last night. Previously, I haven't had any real, honest-to-goodness cravings. I'm highly suggestible though. Like the past week I've had to have KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell. All because I saw ads and they worked on me. I'll smell or see someone's lunch at work and then that's what I'll want. It kind of makes planning meals easy. I just have to remember what's available in the cupboard and then think about that all day and by the time I get home, that's what I want!

But yesterday I was miserable. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I really thought it was just because of getting a grand total of 4 and a half hours of sleep the night before. (This "increased sleeplessness" third trimester side effect sucks.) Mr. b picked me up from work and we went for Mexican and it was awesome. But later that night I started feeling strange. It wasn't regular heartburn or more than the normal tightness and inability to get comfortable. I felt hot and weak. About 8:30 I figured it out: I needed iron.

I was told to go off my iron pills when I started this whole pregnancy project. And I haven't had a problem. But I do remember the preggo-lit mentioning that anemia can be an issue in the third trimester. And it seems as though it may be for me. I hadn't felt that low iron feeling in so long, no wonder it took me all night to identify it. Mr. b went to the store and got me some spinach and broccoli and I ate it raw while sitting in bed watching TV. I felt so much better.

Wow. I just got done with yet another surprise shower. This time it was my own department at work! I was completely clueless. One of the ladies had a crockpot full of meatballs under her desk and I could smell the deliciousness all morning and that still didn't give it away. Hell, when I walked in to the conference room for the "meeting" I sat down without noticing the stacks of presents--or the frickin' huge ass cake with my NAME on it! You'd think I would suspect this kind of activity since this is a gift harvest time of life but nope. I'm retarded.

I got so much good stuff I had to call Mr. b to come and take it all. I would never be able to get it all home on the bus. Clothes and blankets and nursery decorations and safety and feeding and grooming and I can't even think of it all. And lots of Target gift card cash. I'm so overwhelmed.

Week 29

I feel a bit better about my childbirth fears. I just spoke with my work friend, the Russian, about it. I miss working next to her. We always got along so very well and read all the same books.

She asked if we had figured out daycare yet and I said that we haven't even signed up for the childbirth class yet. She thought we needn't bother but I pointed out that I definitely need to have my fears assuaged. So we embarked on a very frank discussion about giving birth. I figured out that it's not the labor pains that I'm afraid of. I've dealt with major pain several times before in my life. And I've promised myself that I will stop being lazy and get back into doing yoga to build my endurance and help me to zen out.

It's the birthing itself that freaks me out. I know too much about how it affects your skeleton and you get all torn up and it's terrifying. But it's also the short part. The Russian pointed out that at that point, I will want nothing more than to push him out. And he will want nothing more than to be pushed out. (Unless he's a matricidal maniac like Stewie!) It'll be unpleasant but ultimately, I won't notice or care. And the afterbirth is really like an afterthought. There are no bones so I'll just be told to push one more time while they're busy doing the infant cleaning and whatnot, they'll examine the placenta, see what repairs I need, and that's it.

She also told me to just plan on going for the drugs, whether I get an epidural or something else or nothing at all. It'll help me to stay calm. Hysterics don't help anything. If I'm in the mindset that I'm getting drugs going in, then I won't have to freak out. She pointed out that the first child is the worst because it's a complete unknown. She had an epidural for her first, a shot of something that wore off by the time she was fully dilated for her second, and nothing for her third. I know my mom had nothing for all three of us. And she's little!

It was also good to get reminded of one important fact: I live in the 21st century in the most powerful country in the world. Sometimes you need a Muscovite to point out the obvious.

I had a lesser medical milestone this morning: the glucose tolerance test. They had me drink 10 ounces of this sugared up beverage that tasted like a combination of Gatorade and Orange Drink, but not as good as either on their own. Then after an hour I gave them a pee sample and some blood. I suppose they'll let me know if I have gestational diabetes. Since I now start going to the doctor every 2 weeks instead of every 4 I'm just not that concerned.

Doc continues to be totally chill about this pregnancy. We bonded over both being Geminis that seem to always be surrounded by another particular star sign; in her case Leo, in mine Leo and Virgo.

I realized that she's doing the math for my net weight gain differently than I was doing. When I went in for the first official Ob appointment, I had already gained 5 pounds. Which I then lost over the course of the first trimester. So I've been calculating based on my normal weight. But when Doc added in the 9 pounds that I've gained over the past month she said that I'm only up to 19 total. Because she was starting from the other point. People at work say that it doesn't look like I've gained anything significant because I'm not showing anywhere besides my protruding belly. I do think my chin has gotten a bit rounder. Not like Grayza in Peacekeeper Wars or anything. Just compared to my normally very pointy chin.

I guess I've had my first Mother's Day. It felt kind of like I was cheating. Hotel and restaurant people would ask if I was a mother and I would point to my stomach and say something like, "Not yet!" But they all always agreed that preggos count. Auntie G and my MIL even sent me cards! And dear Mr. b had a suite of cards prepared for me: one from him, one from Child Person, and one from Squeakers Squirrel. He had hid them in my bag so I discovered them while I was packing up before we checked out of the hotel room. I was so overcome that I shouted, "I love you!" down to him in the parking lot from our balconey.

But I honestly don't know that I feel like a mother yet. I mean, clearly I'm growing a human being inside me. I can feel him squirming about while I type. But I haven't met him yet.

One of our stops during our mini-break this weekend was a farmer's market/craft festival in Madison, WI. So, hippies everywhere. As you'd expect in Madison. One of the booths had tiny t-shirts decorated with hand-sewn peace signs. Since Mr. b and I spent a large part of the 90s as flower-empowered stoners, and still have plenty of friends of the peace-lovin' persuasion, we figured we would shell out for the over-priced souvenir as a present for the baby child. The earth mother was manning the booth with her young son and baby daddy. She asked if we were going to "use the midwives". Mr. b laughed for the rest of the weekend at my response, "No. We're not from here." We both got the feeling that it was bad form just to already know the sex of the baby! Ahhh, Wisconsin hippies. You never change.

Whatever it is that makes your nails and hair grow extra fast while preggers seems to work on places besides your head. I swear I am shaving my armpits twice as often as I normally do. I had to trim my frickin' pubes after Mr. b pointed out how ridiculously long they had become. (It's not like I can even see down there anymore thanks to my belly.) And yet my legs have never been smoother since I stopped shaving them back in 8th or 9th grade. Granted I'm blessed with barely-there, very blonde, Scando body hair to begin with....

While searching for a new razor for my pits last night I discovered a long forgotten box of tampons. I had often heard from women that they don't really get to enjoy not being on the rag because they're so busy being pregnant. And it's true!

Week 28

Wow I feel better today. It's amazing what a little husband-provided TLC, some syndicated sitcoms on TBS, and an early bedtime can to do improve life. I'm wearing a cute-as-hell outfit (Mr. b was right about that skirt!) with my tall London boots and feel almost perky. Child Person has definitely been active this morning, too.

We finished off our registry assignment this weekend with a trip down to the giant Babies R Us. I'm very glad that we didn't do that place first. Our little bottle aisle scare in Target would have been mild in comparison. Mr. b found a pillow shaped like a giant apostrophe for me. I think it's definitely helped my sleeping comfort.

We realized the reason for some of our discombobulation during these registration sessions. We just don't fit in with that world. There is no giant chain store for hipster babies. We drive out to freeway laden suburbia and immediately look scummy with our piercings and stubble and boots and mod clothes in comparison with the scrubbed fresh young couples with their mothers-in-law taking over their preparations. Frankly, I wouldn't even want a Martha Stewart inspired nursery collection. I'm looking forward to putting up a shelf for all of our Kirk action figures.

I am so fuckin' unstable right now. Yesterday I was unbearably grouchy all day. I was warned by womba that my temper is only going to grow shorter as I become more and more physically uncomfortable. I don't know if he's psychic or if it's just a coincedence but I had a total middle-of-the-night freak-out last night. I've been experiencing a strange sort of insomnia off-and-on for a while now. I can fall asleep just fine initially but then when I get up to pee, I often can't fall back to sleep. I end up spending sometimes hours tossing and turning before managing to get another hour or two before my alarm goes off. Last night Mr. b was still up drinking when I woke up. I freaked out on him but really, it's more than just being married to an alcoholic. There's just Too Much. I still think about poor little Tron. My father-in-law is in prison. My job is driving me nuts. We're being suckered into new software best described by quoting Norm McDonald, "Happy birthday Jesus. I hope you like crap!" I'm sick and tired of being pregnant. No one wants to talk about anything except my pregnancy. I'm terrified of childbirth. We have so much left to get done before baby time. I slept for most of last weekend and I really thought I was feeling better. But it was temporary. I'm becoming more and more uncomfortable while simply sitting down. My belly is always stretching one way or another. I'm too tired and lazy to do yoga to try to relieve the pressure. I get winded just going on short walks because my lungs are being so cramped by internal organs. And I still have three months left. I just don't know how I'm going to make it. I'm sitting here crying at work. That's certainly not going to help matters at all. Doesn't anyone have a magic wand?