MommyBlog

I have 11 days before my official due date… 5 if I had kept my scheduled c-section.   Now is the time that every cramp, every dizzy spell, every twinge brings on the question… is this it??

Two nights ago while making dinner, I started seeing spots in my vision.   Then my whole right eye started looking like the snow on the old TVs before everything was digital.   Then I got dizzy and short of breath.   I talked to my doctor on the phone and he said, “Eat some dinner, get someone to watch your son and come on over to the hospital.”   I was tested, of course, for pre-eclampsia… something that would have been a real shocker considering that I have chronically low blood pressure (pre-pregnancy it was about 90 over 50, and since I’ve been prego it’s been about 100 over 55).

Anyway, after two hours of tests and monitors, I was sent home, and Casey and I collected a very wired Kenny from my parents, who had been hanging out with him at the mall next door to the hospital.   Other than that one weird episode, I’ve actually felt better the last four days than I have in the last month.  

Until today, that is.   Kenny and I drove over to the pool mid-morning, and I tripped and fell in the parking lot.   I hit the ground hard – fortunately on my hands and knees, and other than a few scrapes, I didn’t hurt myself.   BUT I’ve been having waves of awful cramps ever since.   There have been a few contractions thrown in for good measure, but nothing “regular” or even strong enough to call the doctor about.   They were really bad for about an hour before dinner, but have eased up since eating.   Anyway, we’re kind of on alert over here, wondering if tonight’s the night… wondering if I can hold out for my scheduled appointment at 9 tomorrow morning.   The last thing I want to do is make another post-Kenny-bedtime trip to the hospital half an hour away, only to turn around and end up at home again and in bed too late for any of us to get a good night’s sleep.

The biggest complaint I have is that it hurts like crazy to walk!   I think I must be pretty close to 100% effaced, because everytime I take a step, I have shooting pains through my pelvic bone, as if there is something in there wrenching it apart.   Nice.   I can’t help but waddle… it’s all I can do not to crawl.

Suffice all that to say I’m pretty ready to have this baby.   I’m DONE.   Enough with the irregular contractions, the sciatic nerve twinges, the cramps, the false alarms… get this baby out of me!!!!!

I just wanted to post a quick congratulations to one of my most-admired Mommies out there… Audrey of Pinks & Blues  had her FOURTH boy today  at noon!     This gal, along with her mom and sister, run a fantastic website called Pinks & Blues Girls.   And Audrey does it all with first  three, now four, boys all under age five.   She is a magician.   I can barely keep up blogging with one, much less organize an entire website that does daily product reviews, celebrity interviews and keeps an intelligent and  regularly-updated blog.

Congratulations, Audrey!  

(Yikes – now the blogger I was “pregnant with” has popped… the countdown must be soon for me!!)

Today started off ordinary enough… Kenny ran into our room at 6, and we gave Casey his Father’s Day present.   Then it was off to church.   Kenny is a huge fan of Sunday School, so it’s one of his favorite outings of the week.   Running close second to Sunday School, though, is the social time afterward – there are always huge trays of muffins and pastries and he knows that he gets to pick which ever one he wants.   Well today he ended up with a doozy.  

We usually steer him towards the blueberry or pumpkin or chocolate chip muffins, but somehow today he ended up with a cranberry or rasberry or something red-berry.   He took one bite and made this horrifically comical face, spit it out and then started coughing and scratching his tongue and gagging.   At first Casey and I thought it was just typical two-year-old dramatics (especially since all the surrounding adults were cracking up), but within five minutes, his face was covered in welts and he was having trouble breathing.

We literally ran to the car (a 9-month prego in her one-a-week heels was quite a sight in the parking lot, I’m sure) and drove to the ER.   On the way, Kenny vomitted all over himself, but that actually seems to ease his breathing a little.   The wonderful team at our local hospital got him into triage within a minute and he saw the pediatrician on call five minutes after that.   Poor Casey went back to the church to try and find the offending muffin, but after searching through the kitchen and all the trashcans, he had no luck.

Fortunately, whatever little he ingested didn’t make him any worse than the initial reaction, and after doses of prednisone and benedryl, he was discharged, with advice to go see an allergist asap.   Whew.   Who knew?   Kenny eats everything.   Hopefully it will be some random allergy to raspberries or something that’s easy to avoid.   We shall see…

After our jaunt to the hospital, we headed to the pool for an hour (ah, sweet weightlessness!!), then home to go fishing and crabbing…

   (Dudley helps)

 Kenny and Casey actually caught three fish (one Kenny reeled in himself!) and we now have three dozen jumbo crabs in the holding tank.   For those of you reading who don’t live on the chesapeake bay, Maryland crabs just might be the sweetest bounty out there!   And jumbo crabs go for $80 or more a dozen at local seafood spots, so we are living it up…

Kenny loves crabs.   He won’t actually eat them, but he’s a master a smashing the claws just right so that the meat pops right out.   That’s my boy…

Last night Casey and I decided to do a family date night… after all, who knows how many more chances we’ll have to go out on the town with just the four of us??

(Dudley is one of the four, in case you are counting…)

We sat outside at our favorite restaurant, then walked for ice cream cones at a shop owned by some friends of ours from church.   It was just what we all needed – the weather was perfect and we laughed and just enjoyed each other.   And most important, Kenny got some special attention and felt very much like a big boy being out on the town…

 

So, now I’m ready to   have the baby.   I’ll be 38 weeks on Tuesday, and I think that if there was a magic button I could push to send me into labor, I’d be pounding on it right now.   Contractions, cramps, fatigue… blah blah blah…   I was doing pretty stellar with this pregnancy until last weekend.   Whether it was the heat wave (it was 100 degrees here with a heat index of 110!) or just the fact that this little bean is getting to outgrow the incubation space I don’t know, but I’m DONE.   I can’t imagine going another 2 and a half weeks.   Yikes.

Hm.   That title sounds potentially steamy, but let me assure you that the only thing getting steamed is my nerves.   Kenny is suddenly turning bedtime into a real battle.   He’s always (with a few exceptions here and there) been very good about going to bed and sleeping all night.   But the last few weeks, he’s been completely dependant on either Casey or me staying in his bed with him until he’s completely asleep…   Something that is starting to take well over an hour.   Last night I left him after twenty minutes and he stayed awake another hour and a half, calling, “Mama?   Mama?   Mama?” with barely a break.   Tonight I tried to put him down an hour earlier – thinking that maybe I was making his bedtime too late these days, and laid there an hour (ok – I fell asleep) and he’s STILL awake.   I finally told him that I would close his door if he got up or called me again… he hates having his door closed.

How have we fallen into such a pathetic habit???   I know that much of it has to do with the impending arrival of the baby.   But that’s all the more reason to get him back into the wonderful habit he used to have of just falling asleep all by himself after stories and prayers.   Bite the bullet, right?   Take a week (or hopefully less) and leave the room after the appropriate time and be firm about not going back in to lay down with him.   Or give him a “one up” – meaning that he can get up or call to us once, but after that we won’t respond.   But it’s that little boy voice that says so quietly and sweetly, “Mama, I need you here with me” that gets me every time.

*sigh*

In pregnancy news, today’s been a doozy.   I’ve had awful stomach cramping (but not contractions), dizziness and nausea all day.   I talked to the doctor and they advised that I rest all day and drink lots of water.   If only…

Kenny was actually pretty good about me needing to be quiet… we read lots of books, played with puzzles and games and he even scored three separate 1/2 hour TV shows spread through the day so that I could lay down.   At one point reading books, he suddenly wrapped his arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek and said, “This is fun, Mama.”   We always read a ton of books – first thing in the morning, naptime and bedtime, but today we read at least an hour at one stretch in the afternoon.   I let him interrupt as much as he wanted to ask questions, and we talked about each picture and what the characters were doing.   We even made up some silly dialog to fit in between the lines.   It was fun.

It makes me  ponder once again how much things will change when the baby is born.   Will I ever have times like these with the second one?   Will Kenny and I have times like these much again?   I quess we’ll just have to wait and see…

A poem, for Kenny:  

Kenny loves to pick his nose.  

He does it with relish;

With gusto.  

He does it in the morning, noontime & bedtime;

In private, in public,

At church and at play.

In the car, near and far:

He’s my nose-picking star!

And he doesn’t stop until

He fishes out a real whopper.

Today he asked me, “Mama?   Do you ever pick your nose and get a big one?”

Tonight Casey and I started talking to Kenny a little more specifically about what’s going to happen when this baby decides to make an entrance.   Here’s the “story” we told him:

One of these days in the next few weeks, Mommy will be walking along, or sleeping, or eating or playing, and I will fell something funny!   “Ouch!   Ooch!   Eek!   Ooooh!”   And you know what that will be?   It will be Baboo knocking on my tummy saying, “Hey Mommy!   Time for me to come out!   Get me outta here!” And I’ll say, “Ouch!   Ooch!   Eeeeek!” and we’ll drive to the hospital to meet the baby doctor, and he will help get Baboo out of Mommy’s tummy!   Then Daddy will bring you in and you can see him (or her) and kiss him (or her) and touch him (or her)!   And we won’t call him Baboo anymore… we’ll finally know his (or her) name!

Kenny was enthralled and wanted us to repeat it over and over again.   Then we started talking about names.   Kenny has been standing firm on two for the last several months (no matter whether it’s a boy or a girl): “Petey the Piggy” and “Freddy the Freddy.”   Tonight he thought about it for a minute and said, “Cracker Jack!”

Ok, so we’re not letting him name the baby.

He was also pretty tickled when we told him that when he was in my tummy, since we didn’t know his name yet, we called him “Scooby.”   He thought that was a riot.   I can’t wait to see how this all pans out…   Not just Kenny’s reaction, but I can’t wait to find out if this little kick boxer is a boy or a girl!   I can only imagine a boy, but I’m trying to mentally prepare for both.   Not easy…

Friday night Casey and I went out for our last big HURRAH: we drove a couple hours south to see Sugarland in concert!   It’s our third time to see them live, and we decided that this might make us groupies.   The concert was awesome.   It was a smaller venue (maybe 8,000 seats?), outdoors on a steamy night and it was perfect.   Jennifer Nettles rocks!   I danced like a fool (I think there was more than one person near us who was afraid I was going to go into labor right there), but I can’t express how fantastic it felt to just let loose and sing and dance!   For two hours I forgot that I was tired and swollen and I was just able to enjoy the music and the night.  

It’s funny, too, because this concert was the “benchmark” I set for myself as far as having the baby early – I knew that once I got to get my Sugarland fix, I could go into labor.

Funnier, even, that all day and night Saturday, I had NOT ONE SINGLE contraction (braxton hicks or otherwise), cramp or twinge.   It was like I was back in month 6, just happy flutters in the belly and no real discomfort.   It actually worried me a little, as I’ve gotten to used to barely surviving through the evening with the erratic and constant contractions and cramps.   They came back again today, but are still lighter than they were the past week.   Hmm… maybe concert going is the cure for the Month Nine Blues…

At my OB visit today (those funny 5-minute deals they drag you in for every week at this point… really… is the thirty-minute round trip drive worth it??), I was declared, “Still doing well.”   The good doctor confirmed the positives of my “pelvic architecture” and made the prediction that I would do “very well” in a natural delivery, as long as everything progressed as it should.   He also noted that I’d lost a few pounds since my last visit – normal, he said, as the tiny tummy can’t fit much at this point (a point I celebrated an hour later with a gigantic fresh, warm donut).  

Upon examination, he declared me about 75% effaced and not more than 1 centimeter dilated.   Not bad for 36 weeks.   He also reminded me that he’s going on vacation until June 23.   As in, “If you decide to go into labor before that, who knows what doc on call may attend you.”   This is crucial, as since I am going for a natural VBAC, I don’t want a scalpel-happy physician trying to convince me I need to hop to the OR when it’s not completely necessary.   So maybe I should hold off a little on the deep knee bends until the 22nd or so…

At any rate, I have an ultrasound scheduled for the 24th to double check this little bean’s body size and cranial measurements.   It would be nice if I could show up at   that appointment already 4 centimeters along and just check in afterward.   The hospital is 30 minutes away, and I have had nightmares about not getting there in time and delivering in a parking lot.   Remind me not to watch “Amazing Births” on the Discovery Health channel anymore…

As I’m sure anyone reading this who has ever been pregnant before has experienced, I find that as I walk around in my  third trimester, everyone has a question to ask, and a comment  or prediction to offer.   I am pleased (vainly) to report that  90% of people who ask my due date respond with something along the lines of, “You have such a cute little belly!” or “It looks like you have a basketball under your shirt!” or “You’re all belly – you look great!”   or “You’re so tiny, I wouldn’t think you were pregnant except for that big ball!”   The remaining 10% usually offer something with a little less sugar like, “Wow – you look like you’re never going to last another four weeks!” or “You look ready to go any day!”   These are a slightly less welcome, but are at least polite.  

Aside from the size issue, there are the location commentaries: “Oh my, you’ve definitely dropped, haven’t you?” and “You can’t be too close – you obviously haven’t dropped yet.”   These were both administered within ten minutes of each other in the same chiropractor’s office – the first by my  doctor and the second by her partner.   In line at the grocery store, the checker said, “Look at that belly!   You’re so low, you’ve got to be close!” while the woman behind me in line retorted, “I was going to say that you’re carrying pretty high for a woman with just a few weeks to go.”   My next door neighbor on the right swears that I’m going to give birth on Kenny’s swing set with the way my bump is hanging, and the one on the left is predicting that I’ll go late because I’m still so small.

Then there is the shape.   We all know the old wives’ tale that a basketball is a boy and an inner tube is a girl.   But I’ve heard plenty of, “Oh, that little ball is sure to be a girl!   Look at how clear your skin is!” (I still don’t know that connection), and “I carried  two girls just like that – all in front.   It was my boy who made my butt big.”

Though I am thankful that my face, arms and rear haven’t chubbed up too much (with Kenny I did pack a little bonus ripple or two on my thighs and arse), the basketball thing is really rough on the lower back.   And I have dropped (I think it’s fair to say I can tell that myself) to the point that I’m waddling simply because there is an infant head wedged in my pelvic bone, slowly prying it apart.   When I get up in the morning, I literally feel like I have to squeeze my pelvis back into one piece to walk.

My contractions are still at it, too.   Braxton Hicks all day, then they get lower and meaner toward bedtime.   Like deep menstrual cramps that radiate across my back and down my thighs, sometimes sharp and sometimes just dull.   It keeps me  awake and only  fades as I lay down for an hour or so.     Otherwise, I’m still doing pretty well.   I’m still smiling, and I’m keeping the hormones mostly under control (though Kenny is learning that I do mean business when I say, “Right now!” these days).   My appetite has slowed down a little, too.   I guess my poor stomach doesn’t have much room in there right now.     If I were to bet, I would say that I’ll be a week early at most.   Perhaps even close to (or on) my originally scheduled c-section date??   I have an OB exam on Thursday morning, so I’m curious if I’ve dilated at all yet.   We’ll see!