meh

I haven't felt much like posting lately. I'm enjoying and appreciating every minute that Jack and I have together and yesterday I let him nap in the sling instead of putting him in his crib because I just didn't want to put him down.
I'm feeling a little melancholy and it's just something I go through this time of the year, preparing for the long hot summer in my mind. We won't be able to take our morning walks soon and even this morning it was humid and sticky and by the time we got home, Jack was angry and I was sweaty and it's just a taste of what's to come.

Luckily, I get to spend every day with these guys and it's impossible to stay sad for long.

33 days!

Soooo.... What are you doing on 01.05.09?

I guess I will be....Oh I don't know.... HAVING A BABY!

For many reasons, the doctor and I have decided together that it is best that I have a c-section and when I saw him last week, he said we really need to pick a date. After recovering from the shock (What? Now? A concrete date? You mean this baby is really not just going to live inside my belly forever?) I said.....OK. Then I freaked out and called my parents.

We are still working on the exact logistics of when assorted Grandparents are coming and when Chris starts taking time off work and for how long and who will be able to stay with me for those first few weeks of recovery etc. but we are so excited and I can say that I personally am READY READY READY for this kid to be OUT! Besides the aches and pains and general discomfort I am feeling almost constantly now, as well as the non- stop peeeeeeeing and the Braxton Hicks (OK, I will just stop now) (But I could go on....) (But I won't) (Really, I'm done) every day now I go into the baby's closet and look at the little tiny clothes and diapers and blankets and think about how he is going to look and how much I do not want to wait 30-something days to see him.

Luckily, we were able to order the furniture this weekend and it should all arrive in 2 weeks at the latest (hopefully) and we picked up some newborn-sized jammies and t-shirts and other basics so I feel a little more prepared and I have revised my list of things left to buy so I think we can handle a month plus left to prepare. But then he presses his little foot up against my belly and I can actually feel that it is a foot and I just want to sprinkle it with salt and roll it in breadcrumbs and *nom nom nom* eat it up!
But I still have to wait 33 days.

good news is a good thing

We went for our ultrasound this morning and everything went really well. They took all kinds of measurements and everything seems to be on schedule and Kumar is not small. The technician was nice enough to say that maybe I just have a small belly.

The crazy thing is that sometimes I feel like it does look small and then there are times when it feels so big I cannot stand it. (Like when I wear anything besides sweatpants and have the nerve to eat more than an apple) I guess that is normal to feel and there is nothing I can really do except try not to freak out, which is so much easier said than done some days. I just can't seem to convince myself that everything is going to turn out fine, no matter how many times the doctors tell me that everything looks normal and fine and great and whatever. I just keep waiting for the bad stuff to surface. Maybe I need to just chill out.

The estimate of his weight is 4 pounds 9 ounces which is a normal weight for 33 weeks and from what I read, he is going to put on 1/2 a pound a week from here on out, so that means if we go to term he will be around 8 pounds.
I just can't wait for him to get here so I can see him with my own eyes and then I will be able to relax and just be happy for gosh-sakes, will someone just slap me already? (gaaaahhh)

We got pictures that are semi-good and I will try to scan and upload them later.
Yay!

progress

First, I would like to start off by saying, I apologize for the whiney post of yesterday. Could I possibly be a bigger baby?
Anyway...
Last night I went to bed with my usual 4 pillows, plus an additonal 4-foot long body pillow (AKA The Barrier) and wedged myself in for a long sleep. And it actually kind of worked. I slept pretty well with minimal pain until almost 8. It was very nice and I guess I will see my husband in bed again sometime early next year when I can sleep like a normal person.

Today, I called and made appointments to meet two pediatricians in the area, one is in the same building as my OB, only 10 minutes away and the other is just over the causeway and is the Dr that my OB sends his kids to. I've been thinking how crazy it is that you have to plan so far ahead for these things but then I realized that OMG! my due date is 12 weeks from tomorrow. That is really not so far away after all.
So, the moral of this story is, 12 weeks is either an eternity or a blink of the eye, depending on whether you are trying to sleep or trying to actually be prepared for this baby.

Chewy has no opinion about this baby. And he kinda likes all the pillows on the bed. Something tells me I should do laundry today.Not sure why though.

are we there yet?

Nobody told me that at 7 months I would already be so over this sleeping-while-pregnant-thing that I would gladly take the no-sleeping-with-a-new-baby-thing.

I am at the point now where my uterus (and cute baby inside) is heavy enough that when I roll over onto my back, I wake up not being able to breath, which was extremely disconcerting at first but now is just really annoying. Try as I might to wedge myself in between a hundred pillows, I still have to roll over a hundred or so times every night because my hips start hurting so bad, and the only position that feels the least bit comfortable after a while is on my back. I still put a pillow under my hips so I am not completely flat but I still wake up breathing really shallow and feeling like I am not getting enough air at all. So what do I do about this? Because I can't imagine going through this for 3 more months. And I am only going to get heavier because right now, Kumar only weighs about 2 1/2 pounds and I told him he is not allowed to come out until he is at least 8 (amended from 10 because, WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING??) so by the time I am ready to deliver I can't imagine how heavy my belly is going to be.

I woke up this morning with an achy back and hip and tonight my back is really kiling me and I put off walking the dog as long as I could because I just couldn't bear the thought of being pulled by him but I also can't bear the thought of not giving him the exercise he needs and deserves and to even imagine how much worse this is going to get is just too much and......

So any suggestions? Has anyone been through this and found something, some miracle, that totally helped? Because I am willing to do anything at this point.

navel gazing

Of course, now that I have gotten great news about Kumar and have gotten to see him again AND passed my glucose tolerance test, I have found something new to complain about. It is something so silly and superficial that I am almost embarrassed to say what it is but it is also something I cannot stop looking at and I absolutely hate!

See, my belly button has morphed into something almost unworldly. Inhuman. U-G-L-Y!

I will let you judge for yourself:

It kind of resembles a pig-nose, only with 3 nostrils. I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks it will turn more inside out because at this point I prefer it totally popped out rather than this creepy half-out half-turned in nonsense that is happening right now.

The good news is that (knock on wood) I still haven't gotten any stretch marks (knock on wood again) so I really shouldn't complain about something that will go back once I have the baby (it will go back right? or will I be the freak who always has a creepy pig-nose-outy for the rest of my life?) but I still hate it. Call me shallow. Go ahead do it.

In other news, the road is still flooding, twice a day, with the tides. The water isn't nearly as high today as it was last week, even though we got a ton of rain early in the week,( so much for the Miami Beach Public Works Guy's Big Theory) but it still is happening regularly so I don't know when it is going to get better.

Here's Chewy, checking out the damage:

100

Tomorrow, Kumar's countdown will be in the double digits! DOUBLE DIGITS Y"ALL!!(Yes, the excitement causes me to get all Southern and Shout-y but I am totally excited!)

It is unbelievable that we have come down to a matter of 100 days and I have to admit that when this all started out, the pessimist that lives deep down inside of me never really believed that we would get this far. I would skip ahead in the pregnancy books and read about being 20 or 30 weeks pregnant and thought that surely something horrible and tragic would happen before I could ever get to the point and surely I could never be so lucky as to have all of this really culminate in having a real live baby of my own.

Yes, that pessimist who lives deep inside of me is a real dark soul. Luckily, I don't let her out very much and have managed to keep her quiet for the most part and here we are at 100 days and it's all double digits from here! Until we get into the single digits which I still cannot imagine but I guess when that time comes, I will be just as shocked by my past pessimism as I am right now because looks what we did! We have 100 days left and we are actually viable at this point. That's right! Not that I would like to test this out but babies have been known to live who are born at this point and that to me in just incredible because he weighs less than 2 pounds and will look so much cuter 100 days from now so thanks but no thanks! I told Chris months ago that I made a deal with Kumar that he is not allowed out until he reaches 10 pounds. I figured that, knowing how kids are, I would say 10 pounds and if he manages to do 6-7, I would be happy. Little did I know that he is an incredible overachiever and has been eating enough the last couple of months that we just might get closer to 10 pounds than I imagined and I am now afraid of what I started.

Tomorrow I go for my OB checkup and glucose tolerance test so I have cut off all sweets this weekend (if you don't count that ice cream I had on Saturday but honestly, it was Weight Watchers ice cream AND it was mint chocolate chip and the mint is really kind of medicinal so it was kind of not really like having ice cream at all.) and am planning on getting up extra early in the morning to make a high protein breakfast with no sugar and no carbs to eat right before I go and hopefully it will turn out just fine.
Then I will come home and make the brownies I have been dreaming about all weekend. And maybe some more Rice Krispie treats.

Today is one of those days I prefer to not talk too much about. Chris and I were living within walking distance of the WTC on this day in 2001 and everything about it is etched in my memory yet I prefer to keep it buried somewhere in the back where it no longer burns with the sounds and smells and feelings that dominated that long, long, never-ending day.

This morning I did my best to stay away from the whole TV drama but they got me when I was in the car, driving on the highway and the radio station where I usually go to for a laugh started to play a montage of news clips from that day. That is what really gets me; the voices of the people, the eyewitnesses, and their reactions, their horror, their fear, their confusion about what they were witnessing. Grown men in tears. The shrieks of the crowds of people on the street as they watched people jump out of windows and then finally, the giant buildings pancake to the ground in a gut-wrenching thud thud thud thud thud. (and worse, the silence that enveloped the city afterwards.) Maybe this is what gets to me the most because I was one of those eyewitnesses but as it was happening, I didn't shriek or cry. I was numb. I could not grasp the enormity of what was going on and I remember not really feeling it for hours afterwards, when I finally had a meltdown and cried for it all. It was way too much to take in at once and now, 7 years later, it is way too much to relive.

This morning I cried while driving down the highway and I rubbed my belly and wished I could promise to protect Kumar from all the bad things of the world but if this day taught us anything, it was that nobody can protect anyone from bad things happening. Some of the best people in the world had to go through the most unimaginable last minutes of their lives that day and nobody could protect them from it.

So instead, I promised Kumar that I would teach him about the bad but also teach him to be kind and generous and sweet and that if he surrounds himself with all those things, he can push the bad things to the back of his mind where they are safer, and still live a happy life. And his mama and daddy will always do their best to protect him from the bad things. And hopefully we can.

he's poppin!

It's really hard to believe but I am almost at the half-way point in my pregnancy. 19 weeks today!

The last week or so, I have been feeling something that I am assuming is the baby and it feels like popcorn popping in my belly. The first time I thought I felt something was the day I came home from NJ and I was sitting in the Airport Shuttle bus trying to get home while texting Chris about his throwing up (due to poison salad from the most ghetto pizzeria on earth) and it really took me by surprise. It was something I had never felt before but because it was so early, I thought maybe it was just that sandwich I ate on the plane or being nervous for Chris so I noted it and moved on. Since then though, it has been unmistakable at times that the little guy is POPPIN!

Of course I want to feel it all the time and harass him sometimes to get some action but he really doesn't perform on command. I can just picture him looking up at me and saying

"I'm not your monkey lady!" I know if I just wait another couple of weeks I will be getting some substantial kicks and soon Chris will even be able to feel it but I WANT ACTION NOW!

I also have the occasional fear that something has gone wrong and OHMYGODWHATIFHEISNOTALIVEANYMORE!?!?!?!?

I thought about getting one of those cute little hand held dopplers that they sell to paraniod mamas-to-be such as myself but I have heard of that causing even more trouble because some people aren't able to get the heartbeat all the time and even more thoughts of doom ensue and I just don't think I can take that kind of stress so I refrained. For now, I just have to wait for the occasional POP and patiently await the first real JAB!

And to mark the first day of the 20th week(!!!!!) here's the latest belly pic!

pfpfpfpfpfttttt!

Have you ever had just one of those days? I knew waking up today that I would have a long day with a lot of errands and phone calls to make but even still.....It was just one of those days.

I won't bore you with the details but suffice it to say that I will have a lot more to do tomorrow before our flight than I wanted to have. I hate getting on an evening flight just exhausted because I've been running around the whole day, but including having to drive Chewy to Ft Lauderdale in the morning, I have 3-4 other places to go, plus come home and straighten out the house blah blah blah, yes I said I would not bore you with the details, I am done now.....

Chewy's going to "camp" in Lauderdale and after being screwed-over by the last place, I really hope he likes it and they are nice to him.(That is always my worst fear, that people are not nice to him and don't see the good in him, because he is so sweet, and OH GOD I"M GOING TO SHUT UP BECAUSE I AM A HORMONAL MESS RIGHT NOW!)

It looks like a really nice place and as long as I remember to bring all his stuff he needs for the week, we should be OK.

So, we are leaving tomorrow for a much-needed week away, more needed by Chris than me, but I am just looking forward to being someplace where the temperature goes below 80 degrees at any time in the day or night and I am going to happily wear pants and sweaters and actual non-flip-flops on my feet.
I even went to the mall yesterday and bought 2 pairs of maternity jeans that are oh-so comfortable and I am really excited to wear pants that do not cut directly into my spleen. Even the Bella Band I bought is no longer enough and I had to break down and buy some maternity pants because I refuse to wear sweatpants every day for the next 6 months, thank you very much.

I will be posting from CA but they will be more sporatic because I intend to take a lot of naps and enjoy being outside in the CA air, and maybe even take a nap outside in the CA air, because i am crazy like that.

uh-oh! spaghetti-o's!

Today I had one of my weekly headaches I've been having the last month or so. This one started early though, about 10AM, so after having my second breakfast, I did the only thing that can help one of these headaches, which is to take a (pregnancy-approved) Tylenol and go lay down in a dark room.
Around noon, a summer thunderstorm started and the combination of the darkness and the rain lulled me into a lovely nap

I woke up starving a couple of hours later (as I am almost every time I wake up) and all I could think of was the ravioli in the freezer and the leftover sauce that I made the other day. All I could think of. I had already boiled the water and put the sauce on to simmer and when I opened the freezer door, I was slapped in the face with the cold, hard,frozen reality: There was no more ravioli! Not a one!

Instead, I had to choose between rotini or mastaccioli or some other -oli that was not preceded by Ravi- and all of the inequities of the world were at one time thrust upon me and - I hate to admit - I cried. Not hysterically, but tears were shed. Over the loss of the dream of ravioli for lunch.

Don't mock me. I will beat you with a bag of frozen ravioli. As soon as I stock up again.