A lot to catch up on!

Quick notes:

• Sixteen days till the due date! Arrival predictions from friends: Christina - April 8, Mrs. O - April 15 (grrr), JD - April 13. We are still accepting predictions. :)
• We picked a pediatrician! 
• We picked a just-in-case boy's name! (Ethan Alexander - and dibs on this name for the future if we don't use it for this baby!)
• Other than a few little items (that we're getting today), we packed our hospital bag!
• We wrote our In Case of Emergency contact cards for the door and fridge!
• We wrote our "Birth Wish" (the more realistic name for a "Birth Plan")
• We finished both our Infant Care class series and Prepared Childbirth class series - both totally worth the time and money, and we had the best instructor - Therese was awesome!

 My last day of work is going to be April 1st - that's this Friday. And then we wait for, as Juno would yell, "Thundercats are GO!" As tiring as it is to work a full schedule when proper nutrition (heck, semi-proper nutrition) is an ongoing challenge, sleep is elusive, and any physical activity (including simple things like doing laundry) is increasingly uncomfortable, I was worried about kind of going stir-crazy being home on maternity leave and just sort of waiting. But I have created for myself a bit of a to-do list to keep busy, so I'm not quite as worried. Nights will still be tough.

I have become somewhat of a pro at sleeping sitting up, and my spot on the couch makes for a great nap spot. Isabella seems to have her own favorite positions for various times of day, and as she runs out of room in there, I'm more and more confident I can tell the difference between her feet and knees and elbows wiggling around in there. She still finds room for little punches and sort of really strong kicks.

Braxton-Hicks contractions have become so common for me now that I don't get excited or even try to time them to make sure they're not real labor. I even considered suggesting the name Braxton to Alex when we were trying to find our just-in-case boy name. But I do feel Isabella descending - maybe. If it's possible to simultaneously descend and not turn - she seems to still be more or less transverse rather than coming around to head-down. I didn't think this was possible but my belly button has poked out even further. I'm pretty sure if I don't give birth soon my belly will just rip open from being stretched so much.

People keep asking how I'm feeling - nervous, excited, anxious... To be honest, after our classes, I'm not nervous at all about the labor experience. I'm beyond excited to meet our baby; it's an incredible feeling to know there's a baby in there and it's coming soon and she's going to be a person with all that goes with personhood. I'm not really nervous about taking care of her after - not that I think I'll know everything or that I won't have questions or self-doubt about things or that I won't have days that I'm going, "I don't know what else to DO!" But I'm not nervous about those obstacles - everyone has them, I have Alex and we have my mom and my stepdad ready to help at a moment's notice (and really, a huge support system from afar including Alex's mom, my dad and stepmom, my grandma, my Uncle Bill, all our friends). I'm not nervous at all about how the relationship between me and Alex will change - everyone talks about how much a baby changes things. I feel so confident in our relationship, our love, our friendship that I know it will only bring us even closer together and add another rich dimension to our life together.

What I am nervous about is the physical things that happen after birth. I've spent the past however many weeks and months in discomfort at varying levels for various reasons - the swelling, the reflux, the pelvic aching and popping (which is getting even worse of course, as my body makes way), on and on - and wishing for The Big Day to just get here, that I didn't even bother to learn what happens to me, my body, right after. I was nervous about how I'd look - I didn't think about how I'd feel. Apparently it's not all fun and games either. The inversion of the uterus is supposedly totally uncomfortable. You apparently bleed like a period for up to SIX weeks - pads only, no tampons! The list is long.

Alex told me last night, "No matter what, it won't be as bad as you're feeling now." I told him, "That's the thing! What if it is?! This whole time I've been saying, this sucks I just want to have her already. What if we have her and my body is so uncooperative that I end up saying, 'THIS sucks too!!' There's NO way to know."

I suppose that's the scariest part of pregnancy, postpartum and parenting in general though, right? It's not so much the things you know are going to be tough, like labor pains or sleepless nights. It's the stuff you don't even know that you don't know. The big black hole of what ifs, what nows, and what do I dos. Man, I hope she's an easy kid...

Elephant ankles - BEYOND cankles...

Some days, it's hard to walk...this is so gross. And it feels like my skin is about to burst open. It will be nice to be able to wear shoes again - I recently went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse wearing slippers because that's all that will even remotely contain these sausages. *sigh*

And yes, those are compression stockings I'm wearing. They help, somewhat, but see those folds? After a couple hours those areas feel like if you wrap a rubberband or string around your little finger and let it turn blue. And since the stockings are toe-less so that I can wear slippers, even if my feet and ankles have minimal swelling, my toes look like giant pigs-in-a-blanket. Which makes them look even funnier when I take off the stockings. TRUTH.

30 Days! More hopes and fears...

We are 30 days away from our due date! This is so exciting! I was talking to Kat last night and telling her how I just want to meet our baby already! I can't stand waiting at this point. (And not just because my belly now rests on my lap when I sit upright in a chair...) We want to see what she looks like, hear her voice, smell her (after they've wiped her down at least...), and just HOLD her!

I'm getting a little anxious about labor and the first few days, but not really. What I'm anxious about, more, is a little vain, actually. I am totally convinced that I am going to need a tummy tuck after this child-bearing business is all finished. Everyone in person keeps telling me, "Nahhh you haven't actually gained that much weight - your belly is big but the rest of you is the same," and "Don't worry I bet you'll be one of those people that just loses all the weight fast." Alex keeps telling me not to worry and I'll be back to prepregnancy size in no time. But trust me, the way my clothes fit, I can tell it's not just my belly that has expanded (and even if it was - all that skin!). I mean, I admit, I'm lucky that our doctor is a crazed psycho that monitors my diet and weight way more than anyone has ever heard of, because it's true that I haven't gained a TON of weight. But my butt and thighs are definitely more uh, sturdy..and my arms and back are notably fleshier (back fat is the WORST!). And (okay brace yourself or skip ahead because this part is totally gross) there's this band of flesh just under my belly and above my pubic area like where the waistband of normal people's low-rider jeans would go, that is like spongy and soft and totally pinch-able and it is NOT part of the hard, uterine, pregnancy belly. It is pure unadulterated FAT. And if everyone is really expecting that I'll just shrink back, oh God the pressure...

But I digress. Talking to Kat last night, I was telling her that okay, I have this really unavoidable pregnant belly that is 110% impossible to forget, but sometimes I still don't feel like all this is real. Like, I'm going to be a Mom. Alex is going to be a Dad. We're going to have a real, live, human baby in like less than a month. We're going to be parents FOREVER. This baby will grow up into a person. I look at my friends' kids that I've watched grow maybe over the past five or six years and I just can't imagine what our lives will look like in five or six years. I mean, really, every time I take a moment to think back even ONE year (no matter what time of year it is, not just on occasions), I realize I NEVER would have imagined that in just a year my life would look like this (whatever "this" is at the moment I have this periodic revelation). I can't even imagine what our day-to-day life will look like in two months, let alone a year. Life is amazing if you stop and let yourself get carried away with thinking about all this.

I fear what our society will look like in the future as Isabella grows up. Things were so much simpler when Alex and I were kids. I know that's true for every generation. I hope we can give her as much time to be a kid, be innocent, be carefree, as possible (without raising a totally clueless, spoiled brat of course). We really want to give her a childhood she can cherish and remember fondly. We were both lucky in that even though our parents may have had some harder times, and there were things we may have been aware of "before our time," we both had happy, healthy childhoods and in the end we always knew the security of unconditional love. In the end, that's all we really want for our daughter - health, happiness, security, and curiosity. The rest tends to take care of itself.

Photos from our two baby showers

Finally I put together a slide show! Thank you to everyone who came, and thank you for all the wonderful gifts!

I feel much better..even though I feel much worse..

Isabella's room is coming together nicely. Alex drilled the holes for two of the three wall hanging areas (we have concrete walls), so there's a pretty picture of a purple flower above the changing table. Also there's a super pretty wall hanging with her name that Jess and Grace made hanging above her crib. I made a photo cluster of zoo animals (literally, photos of animals at the zoo we took a couple months ago) in lavendar frames that will go on the opposite wall. Soon, Alex will hang hooks on the wall next to her closet for things like diaper bags (and later, whatever she wants to hang, like a towel, or whatever). We had one baby shower last week Sunday, for our friends, and it was really fun! We got so much stuff. Our friends sure are generous! I was a little overwhelmed when we brought the stuff home and put it in her room to be put away and organized. I let it sit there for a few days before I got up the energy to put things where they belong. Also washed all her clothes that we got that day and that we've received since people found out we were pregnant. She already has so many clothes! Oh dear.

Work has calmed down a lot which is lucky because my symptoms are getting more and more difficult to cope with. The heartburn is still an issue but it's one I get around by mostly never eating later than 3 or 4 or 5 pm. Actually 5 pm is even a little too late but sometimes I just can't help it. I can't even have milk or other liquid except water. And even that, I have to drink most of my water during the day. I have become an avid fan of chewing ice at night. Don't tell my dentist.

But now that I've sort of figured a (pain in the ass) way around the heartburn/reflux issue, more issues are popping up. My feet swell to nearly TWICE their normal size if I'm on my feet for any length of time, OR if I'm sitting for any length of time without them being 100% elevated. So basically, they're always enormous. I actually had to call in sick to work on Friday because they were so swollen, and my legs and even my knees were swollen, so much so that walking to the car (heck, even to the bathroom), standing in the shower, anything, was super painful and my knees kept buckling. Add to that my chest has been hurting and feeling really tight and pressured, and breathing has become a chore, and I'm pretty much over this whole pregnancy experience. Sleep is the opposite of restful and I actually dread the effort every night, even though I'm exhausted. And maybe this is TMI but my groin area is in constant pain. Sharp, shooting pains spark through that area any time I try to move - getting out of bed, even turning over from my left to right or right to left in bed, getting out of the car, standing up, walking. And sometimes when I'm just sitting here, there's a pain there that is a cross between sharp and shooting but also throbbing.

So I went to the doctor on Friday, and all the answers were basically non-answers. The swelling isn't dangerous by itself, but they're watching my protein levels and blood pressure because of it. I got compression stockings for the swelling which are so ugly (but not any more ugly than disgustingly swollen sausage feet and legs), and help. Today in our prepared childbirth class, I was wearing them, and my feet started to swell anyway, which only made it more sore, because it was like when you tie a rubber band around your finger and watch it turn purple. But mostly they do help prevent the swelling from being totally excruciating. The chest pain and breathing stuff seemed to stump the doctor - obviously some breathlessness is normal on account of a baby leaving little room for lung expansion. But they said my breath sounds and cardiac sounds were okay, and they didn't know why I'm feeling tightness and pressure. I am to wait and see if it persists. Or call again if it gets really really really bad. Finally, I was told the groinal pain is normal and will probably get worse, due to loosening of the pelvic bones and joints. Yeah. I don't care what's normal. I care that I can't move without feeling like I'm ripping something apart.. We have another appointment on Tuesday so they are going to check everything again.

But as I was sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office, a woman who had just finished a post-partum check up came out, carrying her 6 week old son. So cute! So little! She sat in the waiting room after she was done because she wanted to feed him before he got fussy, and we ended up chatting. She told me that she completely hated her whole entire pregnancy experience. The whole time. 100%. She wanted to be that woman who is glowing and happy and appreciative of the miracle happening inside. But, she said, she had every bad symptom possible, and had it intensely. She said she was so over it that when her son was born she didn't even miss feeling him inside of her. She was just glad to be done. I feel so much less like an awful, negative person and bad mommy now! Like, yes! Someone out there also felt the whole time like it sucked! Well for me, it's not the whole time. I have good days (or, I did - it's been a while). And I still am fascinated by Isabella's movements and I know I will miss it. But other than that, there is nothing fun about this! And it's not just because I'm a wuss!

AND, she said that during her pregnancy she gained 60 pounds. SIXTY. Six - Zero. And I am sitting here looking at this woman going, you're not even big right now. Only 6 weeks later. She was a little fleshy and pudgy in spots (there's always that mommy pooch on your tummy), but not overweight and definitely did not look like she had gained 60 pounds during her pregnancy. Unless she was like anorexic thin when she got pregnant. But she said she was definitely "in trouble" with our Nazi doctor with her weight gain which tells me she wasn't supposed to gain 60 pounds. So even though I've gained past my "allowed" 25 pounds already (so far have gained about 30 pounds), I don't feel like a total hippopotamus (as long as I don't look at photos of myself..). And seeing that she still looks normal even though she gained 60 pounds, gives me hope that I won't be an oompah-loompah for very long after Isabella pops out. This lady wasn't even breastfeeding, and I (hopefully) will be, so that will help even more!

We have like 5 more weeks to go. We have the family baby shower tomorrow which should be fun. And then we have to sort of make sure and buy the rest of the stuff that we don't receive, and finish her room. Install the car seat. Little things around the house to get out of the way. Pack the bag for the hospital. I feel like there's more that I'm totally forgetting. Hmmm...