6/22

In honor of Patrick and Melanie, who both asked me for more belly shots.....trust me, this took a lot of courage for me to post.

6/21-2

Can you see the turtle ? Don't worry, I had never heard it called a "turtle" either, but it's very accurate from this angle. Looks like I can't call him Peanut anymore....

6/21

36-38 weeks of baby at the most recent ultrasound. Folks say that he has my nose, but that might just be wishful thinking. Give yourself kudos if you can even identify the nose in this picture.

6/20

8 pounds 3 ounces.

Let's all say that together, just so we can get the full impact of that number: 8 pounds 3 ounces, at 37 weeks. If the baby gains 1/2 pound per week, he's looking at a solid 10 pounds at delivery. I'm supposed to push out a squirming, 10-pound object out of my vagina while "breathing through" the pain.

That was the thought that was bouncing around my head as the technician kept squirting goo on my torso while muttering, "this baby is everywhere." Yep, he is. His head was right now by my bladder, although I didn't need an ultrasound to tell me that, and his legs were curled up right under my ribs. Cozy. My favorite part of the ultrasound was when the technician focused on his face, all squished up against the uterine wall. His mouth was opening and closing and I could almost hear him say, "Help me, Mom! I don't want to be in here anymore." If I could reach into my vagina, through my cervix, and single-handedly pull him out, I would do it. In fact, I think one of the reason the female body is made the way that it is is to discourage this exact behavior.

Looking back over my recent blog entries, I noticed that I've written very little about the FOB lately. I called him today with the results of the ultrasound and he told me his new and revised "plan". This plan involves me calling him during the early stages of labor so he can jump on a plane and fly from NH to TX to see his son being born. After I got through laughing at his "plan" I told him not to bother since he wasn't going to be in the birthing room anyways. The best part of the plan was when I realized that the baby isn't going to know if he sees Daddy (a.k.a. Mr. Sperm Donor) for the first time at 1 hour or 1 week old. There is beauty in that kind of ignorance.

On the upside, Mr. Sperm Donor finally found a job after two months of unemployment and is in the training stage of employment. Maybe there is hope of child support on the horizon. Maybe my Doc will choose to induce me at 8 1/2 pounds of baby instead of the full 10 and maybe my heart burn will ease up enough for me to stop contemplating a late-night tracheotomy. Maybe.

6/16

I went to the OB-GYN today and had a fun shock....apparently my blood pressure has spiked. I knew all the stress and heat wasn't good for me, but I had no idea that it could such a sudden rise in the all-important blood pressure numbers (Sidebar: one theme that you might notice in this blog is the importance of numbers. Pregnancy seems to be measured by numbers: the baby's heart beat, my stomach circumference, my weight, blood pressure, number of contractions in an hour, and the amount of time between each contraction. For a "natural" process, modern medicine has quantified the experience by numbers, tape measures, and scales.)

So, what has this spike in blood pressure earned me, you might be asking? Oh, yeah, my greatest worry: bed rest. At least three days isn't three months, in which case I would be pulling out my hair and complaining bitterly on my blog every day. I can do three days of being house bound. Heck, some people might even look at this as a vacation. My doctor actually looked at my chart and said, "Well, I see that you don't have any other children and you live at home with your parents (I'm not making this up)...you should rest all weekend and take it easy."

I also have another confession: I've been using alka-seltzer almost every night to cure my upset stomach and heart burn. I personally think that the gods themselves created alka-seltzer and bestowed it on pregnant women to comfort them late at night when wimpy-ass tums and maalox fails. With my head held low, I had to confess to my OB-GYN about my nightly addiction to substance that was once marketed with the slogan, "Pop,pop, fizz, fizz...Oh what a relief it is!" The 500mg of aspirin was my downfall. As an anticoagulant, aspirin can encourage bleeding and could possibly rupture my placenta. This is what the woman that sticks her hand up inside me once a week, pronouncing my cervix closed and high, told me at least. It's not that I don't believe her: I do - I promise, it's just that I think she's exaggerating.

Ruptured placenta on the one hand.....getting to sleep before three a.m. on the other Tough call. I wish I wasn't so responsible. If it wasn't for the baby, I'd be doing more alka-seltzer than a Wall Street lawywer did coke back in the '80s.

6/13

Monday morning at the ol' job.... Sometimes I'm amazed that I'm even vertical and I feel like all of the people around me should congratulate me on getting out of bed in the morning. Instead of saying, "Oh, man, you look like you're about ready to pop," they should instead say, "Oh...you're up and at 'em early this morning look fresh and ready to conquer the day." Basically, I just want you to lie to me. That's all I'm asking for...just some good natured lying until I can tie my shoes myself.

6/10

Let's talk about false labor for a second, shall we? It turns out last Tuesday I was in "false labor" when I wrote my last post, which is basically one of the most humiliating experiences that I've had in quite a while and that is even including simultaneously vomiting and pooping during my last stay at the hospital. The hardest part about false labor is how distrustful it makes you of your own body, especially during a time when you supposed to be the most intune with what is going on inside of you.

So, I sat there at work measuring my contractions for two hours, dealing with the pain and uncomfort of having them come every 15 minutes, and watching everyone around me freak out. It's a little known fact, but people get paranoid around pregnant women. They think that they are going to go into labor at any moment, so it is especially challenging for them to deal with it when you actually do start to go into labor. I called my doctor and he told me to go to the hospital for evaluation. One problem: I work in Northeast Houston and my hospital is in a suburb south of Houston about 45 minutes away. For those of you Houston folks that can sympathize, try driving on I-45 South at 3pm with unbelievably tight contractions for an hour or so. By the time I got to the hospital, I was literally panting and holding onto my back.

I pulled the car into valet parking, much to the shock of the man who parked my car and helped me to the door, and tried not to fall over before I reached the fourth floor. A funny thing happened on the fourth floor, I layed down and the contractions stopped. I almost fell asleep. I was tired and I had gas. Had I been at home when this happened, I would have taken a nap, but since I was at work, I had no choice but to take the contractions seriously and go to the hospital. The patronizing nurse actually congratulated me when I had a contraction in two hours. Bee-otch. I left the hospital crying and trying to tell myself that it was normal to think you are in labor when you're actually not. You know what though, it didn't feel normal. Nothing about it felt normal.

In other pregnancy news, I've had some crazy insomnia lately, which leads me to wonder about these women with newborns who say how tired they are because the babies don't sleep through the night. I haven't slept through the night since sometime in my fourth month. I pee every two hours like clockwork and I usually lay on the couch for an hour or two trying to get to sleep. Who are these women that have been sleeping blissfully during pregnancy? Someone get me in contact so I can find out there secret.

At least once the baby comes I can have somone to hang out with at 3am. My cat always sleeps during that hour. Lucky bastard.