In the thirty-fifth week, Mysterious origins revealed as our sheep-dog diva discovers her early corpulent childhood all wrapped up in bee-booty Bobas. Deer dance and cyclists sprint through a weekend of glorious meteorological respite. Despite the cooler climes, ears still flame and celery roasts with the honeydews. Husbands lay snares for bulging bellies and treadmills once more falter and flail. Ever closer to B-day, the plucky couple hunker down for the final month (knock on wood) to come!
Double Deadmill Redux Reflux
Well, gosh golly little treadmill, you are not sounding well! But then what else is new, Treaddy mcDeathRattle?
No doubt you all recall the disaster of the defunct deadmill earlier this year. After an agonizing month of meandering through various customer service cabal, a few human sacrifices, and aeons of waiting, a new motor and motorboard eventually occurred. And boy did they save the day! The poor beleaguered thing actually worked again... or did it?
Well, oh well oh boy! After a few months of full functioning, the treadmill has developed a novel new death rattle. The chilling murmur went away for a while, but returned in full force a few days ago. And now it is getting worse by the minute. I went from using it skeptically a few minutes at a time to not using it at all by this morning. It just sounds awful. We suspect it's the rear roller, but who knows.
In a bout of timeliness, the repair people are coming out today. Two weeks and a few days after we called them. At least we didn't have to go through all the recondite rituals to identify the appropriate agency and prove ourselves as legitimate potential customers. But quite the long wait for just a diagnostic visit. And they've already let us know that they're moving the window back from 8-12 to 11-1. So I'm not super optimistic. I guess I should just figure out a comfy way to tuck in, take a morning walk, and say "hey I'm nearly giving birth here, maybe I need to put my feet up more often." Except walking really does help everything and not being able to walk is doing murder on my already knotted back.
On the bright side, it certainly makes the office feel much cooler to be standing or sitting all day. I can even drink tea in the morning.
And on another brighter (or perhaps blessedly less bright) side, we are nearing the end of this round of heatwaves. A record in the Pacific Northwest for both intensity and duration. Oh boy! Do we get a medal? And can it be a chocolate metal covered in gold foil? I feel that we deserve this.
Forget the medal. I deserve a working treadmill gosh golly!! I'm starting to think I should have just gone for a new one last time it broke. There's no reason for one this young relatively speaking to be falling apart, but it appears to be. At a certain point, well. At least this visit is covered by their service warranty from their last visits. But nonetheless. It's a wee bit frustrating.
Still I will make do as best I can and wish you all a wonderful week. I'm sure the little belly creature gets enough of a non-stop workout for the both of us.
Off off and away... for a few
I'll give the official 35 WEEKS update later today, as I'm just off for another zesty visit with my favorite medical group of late: booogie boogie BOGA (B'ham OBGYN). Guessing there will be waiting in several rooms followed by some measuring, followed by some chicken dances to determine the destiny of our child's birth and then maybe I'll get a magical amulet or two to protect against changelings... Fingers crossed.
In the meantime, proof of the ongoing domestic warfare occurring in our home. Turns out I'm no longer skinny; nor am I trim in that midsection area. This newfound lack of wiry willowy waist becomes increasingly apparent. Yet, I continue my attempts to move through tight spaces sideways, addling my pre-infant's proto brain in the process. I also far more frequently knock into routine objects in front of me on various counters. Mugs, dishes, cutlery. You name it. I've swept it onto the ground with my belly.
I swear the hubba-hubba leaves little boobie traps for me: pan handles, sponges, precariously placed odds and ends. And I bash them all. At least the baby's in a head-down position so I'm mostly just thwapping her toosh when I do. But my poor sensitive belly button!
And Mr. Trim-Waist laughs and laughs as he continues to resist any sort of sympathy gut on his part (a time when lack of sympathy perhaps is acceptable to even the most hormonal of wives)... evil man I married. But cute.
Ah well. Off to see the OB. The wonderful OB of Oz!
Honey See, Honeydew the Doo-bee-doo-bee-dooThirty Five Weeks and the Weekly Visits
I'm stalking - ok waddling - towards Bethlehem here with a wee little belly beast that could pop out at her vaguest caprice. I suspect we've got a good deal more time, but babies follow no schedule and don't necessarily give clear signals about their popping-intentions.
And this little lioness is making quite the ruckus inside me to keep our awareness of this fact front and center. Mine, anyways. I think maybe others are able to experience the novelty of my increasingly rollicking midsection, laugh, and then go back to their daily lives for hours at a time. Not so, here. She does sleep from time to time at least, but she moves in her sleep anyways. She's only still when I've grabbed somebody's hand and clasped it to my belly. Then she hides like the best of them, snickering in her stillness.
And at the grand three-five, the sneaky little kung-fu ballerina is best (or perhaps "best") compared to:
1. A Honeydew Melon - Why, she's graduated from cantaloupe to honeydew! I really can't tell the difference between these melons on a strictly fetal-development scale. Color-wise, yes. Texturally, yes. Fetal-developmentally, not as much.
2. A Pineapple - Still. And always. My sweet spikey sweetie. Reminding me that I am out of pineapple chunks in my freezer. This cannot stand! Or sit! Or anything in between except for an awkward series of half-assed yoga poses that temporarily relieve this persistent back pain!!
3. A Small Roasting Chicken - I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Ok, I am. I know I refer to my "incubator" and my "baby-oven" sometimes, but somehow it just seems more graphic to think of her as a roasting chicken. As if my egg really followed the poultry route and now my body is set on devouring her. Which is wrong, but if anything, she's eating up my insides for her own sustainability. She's getting bigger, I'm not gaining much weight. All those calories are going straight to her. Nom nom, mommy muffins!
4. A Celery Stalk - Crisp and long and lean, apparently. It's not easy being green, but usually it's better than being a roasting chicken.
All of that is a creative way of saying that she could be anywhere on the scale of fetal development at this point. But on average she's likely somewhere around 5.5 pounds and 18 inches long. She's about as long as she's likely to get and the growth from here on out should all be FAT. Time for mommy to start pounding the Snickers blizzards. Ok, mommy's already having indigestion from the mini baby conga line around her internal organs, so probably not going to add a sugary weatherpocalypse into the internal flurry!
She has full length finger and toe nails with which to scratch herself (for now) and her parents (when she bursts outta there). Her kidneys are all developed, and her liver is up and running some beta tests for processing that delightful meconium sludge. Her head is getting bigger, but not harder yet. Little baby will be a cute little conehead when she's born, and I'm glad for that (considering how she gets out, a collapsible skull and body seems like a great idea).
And in case anyone was wondering do babies have kneecaps? Well, kind of. They have soft cartilage kneecaps that don't harden for a long time after birth. So they really sorta do, but they don't enough that we can bust out fun-fact trivia and claim they don't.
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| Definitely an outtie now! |
And Ms. Baby-Oven herself? No, I am still not "so ready" to be done with this pregnancy. I have a cherry list of symptoms I am "so ready" not to have once I've birthed the beast. I am terrified that they will never go away. Mostly the flame ears and the heat intolerance. I really did used to be capable of getting cold. But the heat itself isn't my main cavil. It's the way my face will flush and one or both of my ears will wax radioactive at random triggers. Belying the term "hot flash," these flare ups take an eternity to calm, and it's highly uncomfortable. Since that's not a super common pregnancy symptom, some part of me dread that it will last forever. Fingers crossed to be wrong on that one.
Other symptoms? Well one GI distress can be swapped for another, apparently. And rapidly. I am swapping out my diet gradually to see if I can get to some semblance of normal. And there's the usual fatigue, heartburn, swelling, yadda yadda yadda.
I've been told to await "the mucus plug" (don't ask, but it's like an omen that birth will occur and it's kind of gross as most things dealing with the blessed event are) and that I might want to consider a plastic sheet on the bed... just in case my water breaks while we're sleeping. Trust them, I'd be glad I did.
And I'm up to weekly visits with the OB! I feel like I've graduated. One more blood test. One more series of swabs to check for strep. And several optional checks of dilation and baby placement. My birth plan is on file. I'm measuring about a week behind - most likely because I'm "all baby" - and I've met the entirety of the BOGA team at this point.
I'm ready to take it a bit easier and maybe let this weekend devote itself a little more to strict Tour de France fanaticism, with maybe a break to insist that we create this Birthing Elevation Profile that Andrew started in my head. But we'll start with some straight out elevation profiles and a lot more spandex! Bring on the weekend and lets get waddling!
Weekend 35 - That's a Wrap
We got baby wraps all sussed out here. Last night, Andrew and I broke out the Bobas and pored through the instructions. Bobas are basically incredibly long swaths of fabric that - through the miracle of several origami self swaddling - become marvelous tools for babywearing. Because babies are so terrifically on trend for the Autumn 2015 season. Trust me. There was something in the water over here last winter. Bellingham is having a nuclear baby boom hereabouts. I'm glad to be a part of it, so that I can be en vogue for once. Well, vogueish. My baby wrap is a heckuvalot more conservative than some of the pretties I've seen in my two drop ins at the Bellingham Babywearers get togethers.
Bellingham Babywearers? Yep, this is a group that I never knew my best friend was running until I unlocked the magical key of gravidity. They maintain a wide lending library of different wraps and carriers. Various manufacturers actually send Molly samples. The Babywearers meet up - so far in various parks - with their kids and their own beautiful wraps. And once they have assembled, they try on the lot of them, kibbitzing on different brands and styles and discounts to be had. It's quite the market, actually. Molly swears that you can basically fund your habit with a handy cycling of the ones you owe. Because they come in limited editions, the resale value on any carrier you may be retailing stays nearly the same or can even go up. Baby wrap speculation! I could make millions!!
Or be tempted into buying several very fancy and expensive (upwards of the few hundred mark) new fashion accessories. But right now I like our two Bobas. They are comfortable and simple and when they inevitably get spat up upon, I have confidence that they'll be easy enough to launder.
So back to the Boba. We thought it might be good to try them out before the baby who's wearing me suddenly needs to be worn. Our test animals were perhaps a tad small - definitely underweight, and really shy of the 18 inches or so she probably is at this point. But gotta start somewhere. And since a friend already asked, yes the entirety of my torso is taken up with the stuffed animal. Those are not my enormous bazoongas, but a bee booty. I'm still dainty in the decolletage area despite some uncomfortable growth spurts.
In the instruction manual, there are several hundred illustrations and colorful warnings about how to kill your baby while wearing her wrapped in your bosom. Mostly they involve various positions that would block her airways, but there are certainly a handful of warnings about doing any kind of activity that would require protective gear for you. No bungee jumping in a Boba apparently! Darnit!
The red one was my first pick, but Andrew seemed pretty enamored. I'm not sure I'll get it back. He feels it's quite regal, while at the same time thinking he should probably be forced into one of an unmanly color to really bring home the fatherhood aspect of things. Bring on the babywearing meetings. We'll find something with ballerinas on it! He was a pretty serious ballet dancer himself, so it would be fitting.
Our other very obvious excitement this weekend had to do with a very different kind of pain-is-gain type struggle: Le Tour. Which is just about to head to the Pyrenees. Oooooh exciting. This week was the first week, known for being a gamut that often weeds out main contenders in several varieties of nervous crashes. It's also the time for sprinters to shine, and for various other evils to be thrown at the riders, before the main contenders really come out and shake-and-bake their toned tooshes in the high mountains (and everyone else burns more lactic acid than your average highschool gymnasium over the last twenty years).
It was quite the riveting week/weekend of racing. No, really. It was. Andrew was just sleepy. Very very sleepy. And, uh, dreaming of being in the Tour himself.
Lest I forget the truest excitement of all, we got our weather back! There was actual rain out there yesterday for a brief spell and some overnight. It's back into the hot-but-not-horribly-hot range of things. Although humid, it is still basically camp weather as Adella remembers her halcyon days of mildewy campfires of yore.
Cool enough to even daringly go out on a long walk - or run, if you're Andrew - in the middle of the day. Where we saw even more deer. We live in an area heavily populated with the creatures, so not that exciting, but it is entertaining how completely ambivalent they are to human presence at this point.
Anyways, aside from a busted something on his favorite bike, Andrew seems to have had a roaring (and snoozing) success of a weekend, and I'm feeling pretty good myself. Not really digging this whole workweek resurgence with all the myriad to-dos over things to do, but I shall face it with a faint smile and save the grimaces for when the rain stops again.
Jabba the Babe
Of course, as my due date grows near, I become ever more fascinated with the birthing experiences of my close family members. Leading of course to my own birth. The day the angels sang and my mother called it good on reproducing, because there was no way she'd get it as perfect after something like me.
Did I mention I was a morbidly obese baby? Maybe not. But certainly a huge one. I was over 10 pounds when I was born. Always the overachiever in the 97-98th percentile. Apparently, I kept a fair bit of baby chub for future growth spurts. My poor mother. I suspect that having mixed in Andrew's genes may advantage me a bit on that front. Our sprat so far is in the 42nd percentile of growth and Andrew believes he was a modestly average 7ish pounds.
In addition to being enormous, I was also a "back labor." That's code for "incredibly uncomfortable in such a way that it remains uncomfortable relative to labor in general." The usual explanation is that the baby - while head down and ready to go - is facing upwards, or "sunny-side-up" if you're somebody who's never seen the shocked and betrayed face of a newborn thrust into this world. This position theoretically causes the baby's head to press up against the bony part of the spine.
Apparently, this explanation has been called into question recently. You can have a baby "sunny-side-up" without back labor and women with the baby facing down can still have back labor. Whatever the cause, it didn't sound like a party. My birthing class gave me several different ways of dealing with back labor should it come up. Most of them involve birthing positions that put the kama sutra to shame, but I'm pretty spry. And there's no way in hottest hades that I'll want to be on my back (the worst position for back labor) so long as I can do anything else. I am not a sitter or a layer these days.
And well, my mom survived. Nice of her to have done so. I'd be bummed otherwise.
And as she survived my glorious emergence, I too shall survive this glorious Tuesday. Hopefully. There's work to be done and little brain to do it, but we'll have a start and see where we end up!
Lest I forget the truest excitement of all, we got our weather back! There was actual rain out there yesterday for a brief spell and some overnight. It's back into the hot-but-not-horribly-hot range of things. Although humid, it is still basically camp weather as Adella remembers her halcyon days of mildewy campfires of yore.
Cool enough to even daringly go out on a long walk - or run, if you're Andrew - in the middle of the day. Where we saw even more deer. We live in an area heavily populated with the creatures, so not that exciting, but it is entertaining how completely ambivalent they are to human presence at this point.
Anyways, aside from a busted something on his favorite bike, Andrew seems to have had a roaring (and snoozing) success of a weekend, and I'm feeling pretty good myself. Not really digging this whole workweek resurgence with all the myriad to-dos over things to do, but I shall face it with a faint smile and save the grimaces for when the rain stops again.
Jabba the Babe
Of course, as my due date grows near, I become ever more fascinated with the birthing experiences of my close family members. Leading of course to my own birth. The day the angels sang and my mother called it good on reproducing, because there was no way she'd get it as perfect after something like me.
Did I mention I was a morbidly obese baby? Maybe not. But certainly a huge one. I was over 10 pounds when I was born. Always the overachiever in the 97-98th percentile. Apparently, I kept a fair bit of baby chub for future growth spurts. My poor mother. I suspect that having mixed in Andrew's genes may advantage me a bit on that front. Our sprat so far is in the 42nd percentile of growth and Andrew believes he was a modestly average 7ish pounds.
In addition to being enormous, I was also a "back labor." That's code for "incredibly uncomfortable in such a way that it remains uncomfortable relative to labor in general." The usual explanation is that the baby - while head down and ready to go - is facing upwards, or "sunny-side-up" if you're somebody who's never seen the shocked and betrayed face of a newborn thrust into this world. This position theoretically causes the baby's head to press up against the bony part of the spine.
Apparently, this explanation has been called into question recently. You can have a baby "sunny-side-up" without back labor and women with the baby facing down can still have back labor. Whatever the cause, it didn't sound like a party. My birthing class gave me several different ways of dealing with back labor should it come up. Most of them involve birthing positions that put the kama sutra to shame, but I'm pretty spry. And there's no way in hottest hades that I'll want to be on my back (the worst position for back labor) so long as I can do anything else. I am not a sitter or a layer these days.
And well, my mom survived. Nice of her to have done so. I'd be bummed otherwise.
And as she survived my glorious emergence, I too shall survive this glorious Tuesday. Hopefully. There's work to be done and little brain to do it, but we'll have a start and see where we end up!
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