Against my better judgment, I am putting these photos on the Internet…
(I retain the right to come to my senses at a later time and remove them forever.)
Category Archives: Pregnancy
Oh, the joy.
Reassuring words from your mother.
Well kid, we are at (t – 4 weeks). I will be very interested to see if a.) you decide to arrive when the medical professionals and various sonogram machines say you will, b.) if you are able to exit my body in under 10 hours, and c.) whether or not you will go home from the hospital in gender-appropriate clothing.
I’m not sure why, but lately it seems that you have been testing the logistics of busting out of my uterus through the top of my stomach. I regularly feel you wedge your shoulder firmly against my hip-bone and push up with your feet with enough force to make me feel like I am going to re-enact that scene from the movie Alien. I don’t know who gave you this brilliant idea, but I want you to stop haning out with them this instant. And as for all these new stretch marks you are giving me – you will be grounded for this later.
We have been busily preparing for your arrival by, well, um, by – Okay! I admit it! We haven’t done anything other than spend our time trying to make sure that your big sister is aware of the implications of your arrival. (The importance of this will become obvious to you soon enough.) And speaking of your big sister…
I think now is also the time we need to have a talk about that incessant jabbering you hear all the time. That would be your big sister, Stella. I’m not really sure where to begin on this one. There are some things you’ll want to know about her right off the bat: She picks her nose. A lot. Don’t be too grossed out when she tries to pick yours. She’d just as soon smother you in kisses as she would just plain smother you. Don’t take this personally. She regularly has to be reprimanded for sitting on the other little kids at day dare. Also, she’s a biter. We are showing good progress in this area and hope to have it under control by the time you arrive – but we can’t promise anything. Mostly, what you need to know is that she has done you a great service by breaking us in. We have expended much of our freakish and obsessive parenting behavior on her and are hopefully going to be a little better at it this time around. Again, no promises, but we are optimistic.
So, my sweet little lump of baby, I guess what I am trying to say is: I hope you are born with one wicked sense of humor. You’re gonna need it.
Gestation-Station, What’s Your Creation?
Week 9
Week 20
Week 30
The second time around: What it all means.
I am now on the 2-week rotation with my doctor, wherein every two weeks I get the enviable task of peeing in cup and getting weighed. Every girl should wish for as much. It is all the great lead up to my highly anticipated task of having to squeeze the equivalent of a Ford Pinto through an opening the size of a mail slot.
A brief ray of sunlight shone upon me this week, however, when I was informed that a.) I had NOT given myself gestational diabetes over the holiday season, and b.) I had actually lost 3 pounds over the two weeks since the new year began. Booyah! So I promptly went home and made a gargantuan pan of brownies.
Here’s the part of the story where all of you who are DISGUSTED by the fact that we aren’t finding out the sex of the wriggling mass in my uterus will jump to attention. While listening to the heartbeat, I asked my midwife where the numbers were – to which she said they were in the 140s and, OFFHANDEDLY COMMENTED THAT THEY SOUNDED “BOYISH”. There you have it. Almost as scientific as the string and pencil test.
This week we also started seranading SJ with a random selection of tunes from the iPod. Unlike Stella, who was subjected to listening to the bombastic classical music CD that came stock with the belly-phones kit, we have given SJ a much larger and more diverse range of listening pleasures. It is hard to tell whether the violent kicks I get each time we listen are telling me that SJ is dancing or trying to kick the apparatus off my person. Given that my insides are regularly being rabbit kicked – regarless of whether music is being pumped in – it is hard to tell exactly what this kid is doing in there. Sometimes I wonder it if it has started playing Dance Dance Revolution to pass the time. The other night at the movies, it literally kicked me NONSTOP through the entire 2+ hours. My memories of Brokeback Mountain will forever be comingled with the sensation of having my ribcage extended beyond it’s natural reaches.
It really is hard to believe that I have so little time left before we become a family of 4. This pregnancy has gone by quickly. The diversion of being subjected to a crash course in Toddler 101 has inevitably changed the dynamics of pregnancy this time around – something I have been pondering non-stop lately. I think I have finally resolved myself to the reality that it defies all logic to think that parity can exist when raising more than one child. Sure, there are superficial things we can do to help even the playing field a little bit, but when it really comes down to it, everything about our lives is different than it was 2 years ago – and because of that, this new child will be born into it’s own unique reality. And, if experience says anything, these kids will probably have nothing more than some DNA in common. As the second child, there will be many rewards that come from the fact that we have done this all before. It won’t be the same and really, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Our priorities are new and different and our parenting style has evolved (hopefully, for the better), but more than anything, the idea of giving both Stella and this new baby all the opportunities that come from sharing your life with a sister or brother is how the whole puzzle really fits together…which is what I will tell them each time they come to me wanting to murder each other.
High as a kite on sugar.
I am scheduled to go in for my gestational diabetes test sometime in the first week or two of January, and it is going to be nothing short of a miracle if I actually pass this thing. Even though I passed just fine last time, and it is a routine test that every pregnant woman in America is subjected to, I am starting to get a nagging fear that my unborn child’s insatiable need for sugar IN ANY FORM IT CAN GET IT is not doing me any favors. Short of spooning it straight from the bag, I have ingested just about every sweet treat I can get my grubby paws on. It has even sunk to the level where I go to get a fairly-legal peanut butter bagel and have started asking them to throw in a couple of those really yummy (sugar sprinkled) gingersnaps.
Yesterday’s consumption consisted of about 7 pieces of fudge, 2 deliciously spicy and sweet gingersnaps, a bunch of gummy bears and some of that rockin’ peppermint bark that Jenny sends us at Christmas. These items, all combined with the otherwise legal-ish items I consumed yesterday put me somewhere on the scale between sugar ho and carb coma. No wonder I gained 10 pounds last month.
I am trying to do the right thing by coming out. However, I fear that now it will only make me go underground – sneaking candy fixes while no one is watching, trolling bakeries and candy stores, pimping myself out for a bag of M&M’s. Or, as Lewis and Steve discussed last weekend at Stella’s birthday party: buying Hostess fruit pies and hiding the wrappers.
At least I am pregnant, guys.