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37 wk update

Daddy sleeping with Cocalo. Now all we need is Trumpet Baby.

I have ants in my pants.
Literally, it feels like there are ants crawling all over me. Nope, I haven't ingested, inhaled, or otherwise introduced my body to any illicit substances...I'm just itchy. Doc says it's hormones. I say it sucks. I'm not supposed to scratch, but I do.

I'm also more than ready to meet Trumpet Baby. She has a 100% decided-upon name, now, but you all have to wait. We have all of her clothes ready, Alex has filled out his LOA paperwork, I've "cleaned" (more on that later,) and she is officially term. At this point I am 37 weeks and 4 days, and about 2 and a half weeks from my calculated due date. Lots of prelabor is going on, but nothing terribly exciting. I know that I should be patient, since I'm not over-due by any stretch, but being told I'm progressing (2 cm a week and a half ago) really makes patience a virtue I have NO concept of at this point.

Hey, Trumpet Baby. Let's get this show on the road so I can use this sickeningly cute diaper bag!

Spotlight crazy craving of this pregnancy? Ice. I chew ice constantly. I can usually take or leave food, but ice is nothing short of necessary. Doc gave me a weird look and ordered a blood test for anemia when I told her this. I'm fine - no anemia. I guess I just really, really like ice.

I've also been nesting. Well, reverse-nesting. Instead of prepping a space for a baby, my "cleaning up a bit" last night turned into me packing LITERALLY EVERYTHING I OWN, except for my clothing. I am not set to move officially for two weeks, at least, if not more. I don't really understand how I did it, because I feel HUGE and can't get comfortable, but I keep having these crazy bursts of energy. The night prior to this particular episode I got four hours of sleep, total. Not consecutive. I think I've lost my mind.



Right now I'm drinking this nasty raspberry-leaf tea. Apparently, it MAYBE, MIGHT help me progress a bit. I'm usually not one for herbal supplements and natural remedies, but hey, it can't hurt to try. I also ate a whole thing of cut-up fresh pineapple. My tongue hurts.

We took pictures the other day. At first, I was apprehensive about getting maternity shots, because I find a lot of them crazy-awkward, and I haven't exactly been the glowing Madonna of radiant motherhood that some people are. However, a week or so of post-finals boredom got the best of me, and I drug Alex out to McCrory Gardens to snap a few pictures. It turned out to be a lot of fun for both of us, and I got some pretty nice shots that I'm happy with. I know I will thank myself later for that one.

puddles

May Showers and studying. Two finals to go until I can say that I've lived through one of the most difficult yet rewarding school years of my life.
Actually, I did more than live through it. I kicked its butt.
Now, all I have left of my college career is Professional Semester II and clinicals next fall, the Praxis this summer, and student teaching. I'm wondering where college went.

Novels Final

Rainy Day drops on the window

I'm wishing I could stay home and enjoy the rain, because it's nicer in here, and all this does is remind me that I need to get new windshield wipers, and that I really need some rain boots.

More to come later, maybe. Gotta go finish studying.

the (not quite) end

This is the Saturday before finals week of my Junior year...and I should be writing. I should be writing my idiolect autobiography. I should be writing for my creative fiction portfolio. I should be responding to my peers' Middle School Philosophy projects or writing my analytical essays for novels.

Instead, I think I'll write in my blog.

I've been a decent student, and stuck my butt in the library the last two nights. I will allow myself a night off, even with all the work I still have to do. I'll admit: I'm getting antsy. Everyone has been commenting on how fast the semester flew by since Easter break, and I suppose that they have a point, in a way, but time still isn't moving fast enough for me. I still have so much to do before my semester is over. Though everything will happen in a short span of time, that giant pile of projects, papers, and tests can get a bit overwhelming.
I'm really not complaining, though. I do find a sense of accomplishment when I can finish up a project to my own satisfaction, then cross it off of my to-do list. Plus, I'm in college, and I knew when I made the decision to get my undergrad that it would be more than sunshine and butterflies. In two years, when everyone else goes back to school and I don't get to, I will miss it. I know I will.

As of Monday, I will be thirty-five weeks pregnant. I'm going to go ahead and assume that this is the biggest reason why I'm anxious for things to get moving along. I've been showing and not-so-glowing since about twenty-eight weeks, but Trumpet Baby has really been taking over my entire body for the past few weeks. Doctor says my body is measuring small, and I have stayed consistently at 115 lbs for the past three doctor visits, but babe is apparently smack-dab in the middle of "average" size for her age. I'm blaming my lack of body weight gain on my horrible heartburn/reflux (now on my fourth value-sized ultra-strength bottle of Tums!) I prefer ice cubes to food most of the time.

I call her Trumpet Baby in my head when I'm not calling her by her real name (which Alex and I aren't sharing until it's on her birth certificate - she does have one!) Since Alex and I met on the brassline my freshman year, it seemed only fitting...plus she seems to enjoy trumpets already, because my usually acrobatic fun-sized mini human will calm way down and sit perfectly still whenever I play, or I'm around someone who is playing.

I mean, little did I know that when I decided to march The Pride, I'd end up with a daughter.
I don't think I would change my mind if I knew. :)




Time has just been crawling since I hit thirty weeks. I was thinking I was having some pre-labor signs yesterday and the day before, but that may have been (and probably was) wishful thinking, especially since I'm still three weeks from "term." Ma had me at thirty-four weeks, and Ethan at thirty-six, but she was also sick with Chron's Disease, and I spent time in the NICU. Baby has passed my birth age, at least. I'm just starting to get those "pregnancy blahs," not to mention I am starting to get incredibly excited to meet our little Trumpet Baby. The process of coming to terms with the idea of becoming a mother took a very long time for me (as I'm sure it does for a lot of new moms,) but now I'm definitely just anxious to actually see and hold her.





During the past two days of my deluding myself into believing I would have a baby to hold within the week, Alex and I ran to Walmart to get some simple hospital stuff for her. I keep playing with a pair of the teeny little socks...wanting her little toes to be in those socks...and not between my ribs!

Let's hope I can keep her socks matched better than I do my own.

A lot of people have mentioned the baby, lately, probably because my bump can no longer be contained in ANYTHING I wear. Usually, I just make some kind of remark like "I can't wait to be done!" or something along the lines of how sick I am of pregnancy.
I guess the issue here is not that I'm not excited to have my baby, it's just that I don't want to be one of those obnoxious moms that acts as if there was and is no life before baby. I've always wanted to be a mom, and even though Trumpet Baby is a little bit early, I am still incredibly attached to her already. I just don't want to be defined just as the "girl who got pregnant in college." I want to show her off, but I don't want to shove her existence into everyone's' faces. I hid my bump for as long as I could, not because my pregnancy was a big secret, or that I was ashamed of her, but just because life is easier when I'm still a normal face-in-the-crowd.

I suppose I just don't feel that I have to prove to anyone else that I love my baby. I know that I do, and she will (and maybe already does) know that, too. She will be a lot easier to show off once she makes her appearance, too. :) In my opinion, a cute little girl will be a lot more fun to look at than a lumpy Sam.

new game

My daughter was in an the mood for some kung fu tonight, as usual. This included anything from alternating between feet and fists to smashing into my stomach so hard my computer (which was sitting on my abdomen) literally lifted off a few centimeters, then slid to my bed.

I decided to get some payback by firmly pressing down on her wherever a particularly offending bump or nudge originated from with two of my fingers. This caused her to stop for a few seconds, and then do what I can only assume was retaliate by kicking back extra-hard. The laptop slides off onto the bed, once again. Follow that kick up with another nudge from me, and a moment later she did it again. We repeated this process for what was probably a good ten-fifteen minutes.

Either it's all coincidence, or this kid thinks it's a game. I was having a real-life poke war with my five-and-a-half month old fetus. Either I am a crazy-awesome parent already, or I have just set myself up for a world of hurt.

ba-a-a-a-ck.

Hey, I have a blog! I remembered!

Seeing as I actually completed a decent-sized project tonight, and don't really have any pressing assignments or studying hanging over my head, I decided I would do some catch-up with this bloggy-thingy that I used to be so good at updating.

I suppose ultimately the reason I quit writing last fall was because I kind of just fell apart. I received the news that I was pregnant in early October, and everything deteriorated pretty quickly after that. My mood disorder, which I had been battling for some time before that, coupled with psycho-pregnant-lady hormones and the typical "freak out" that accompanies an unplanned pregnancy for an unwed college junior, basically turned me into an endless ball of crazy. So that's where I have been for the past few months: up the crazy tree.

Luckily, I've escaped the crazy tree, and with more than enough hours logged there to avoid another visit in the near future.

As far as being pregnant goes...I had no idea. No. Freaking. Idea.

I've always had this odd fascination with pregnancy, childbirth, and babies in general. I guess since my brother was born, and my mom handed me the giant, illustrated pregnancy month-by-month book to look through, I had this weird interest in the whole process. Pregnancy always seemed beautiful, and fascinating, and the birth process equally riveting.

I now consider myself sufficiently disenchanted with this idea.

First and foremost: pregnancy is NOT BEAUTIFUL.
Pregnancy is laying on the bathroom floor, crying involuntarily after having expelled every last remnant of whatever was in my stomach. It is, in two words, disgustingly unpleasant. I can not, for the life of me, figure out why the human body's reaction to its new job, supposedly nurturing and protecting a new life, is to make it virtually impossible to eat or drink anything. I am not exaggerating. This is perhaps the dumbest of dumb things the human body does. Any attempt at nourishing myself and, in the process, my new baby, was immediately rejected. This really, really, unbelievably stupid circumstance, known as morning sickness, was not just limited to the morning hours, either.

No, I'm pretty sure I barfed for about three months straight. I wish I was being dramatic.

Apparently, my body took the instructions of "sustain two lives for nine months" as the cue to cooperate as LITTLE as possible. I now eat Tums like candy.

Another thing I should mention:
Everyone talks about how magical and special it is to feel the baby kick. People rub pregnant women's bellies like they are some kind of fertile Buddha.
Nobody ever talks about how flippin' scary it is.

No, seriously. Imagine that you're just laying on your bed, reading a book, with the book resting on your stomach (which has now acquired its own gravitational pull), when a LIVING BEING INSIDE OF YOU KICKS THE BOOK OUT OF YOUR HANDS AND ONTO THE FLOOR. I kid you not. I promise, I tried to be all "D'awww, that's so cute," but I just can't shake the thought of some little mini-human parasite, feeding off my blood supply and practicing martial arts on my literary material. Maybe I've watched a few too many Alien movies, but I don't doubt this kid's ability to rip through my chest cavity if she felt the desire to.

Don't get me wrong; I am very happy that my baby is thriving, especially since I thought I was going to die for the first trimester-and-a-half of her life, and was concerned that she wasn't getting what she needed. I was convinced I was going to vomit up part of my digestive tract, which is totally possible. It was on an episode of House. I just wish she could maybe just keep her acrobatics down to a nudge or two every so often, be all "Hey, Mom, I'm doing well, and just chillin'. Don't mind me," instead of "MOM. MOM. MOM. MOM. MOM. MOM. HEY. IS IT TWO IN THE MORNING? THAT'S THE TIME TO WORK ON PERFECTING MY BICYCLE KICK, RIGHT? MOM. MOM. PAY ATTENTION TO ME."
There she goes again as I type that. I seriously don't think there's a baby in there. It's like something went horribly wrong somewhere, and she's actually an octopus. There is NO WAY four limbs from a fun-sized mini-human can move THAT MUCH AT ONCE.

Infuriatingly, she also only calms down to a FREAKING HALT when Alex is involved. It's like he gets anywhere in the proximity, and she turns into a little angel. I call B.S.

Don't even get me started on maternity clothes. Or attempting to come up with a name for the being that is now waging war on my ribcage, as if my bone structure did her some great personal wrong.
I also seriously cringe thinking about anyone other than a medical professional, my boyfriend, or myself touching my midriff at all. Luckily, everyone has kept their hands to themselves up to this point...I just feel so awkward about the idea of having people rubbing my stomach. There is nothing but a hard, twitching bump there. I promise that she will probably be cuter, and a lot more fun, once she's left my body and can wear fun hats and such.


The next three-and-a-half months cannot go fast enough. Despite all signs that she is demon spawn with about ten limbs and an attitude problem, our sonogram/ultrasound pictures of her indicate that she's just about perfect. At least, she's perfect to me. We are getting closer to deciding, for-sure, on her name, and I haven't had to call the dinosaurs in weeks. I may be young, and she may not have come at the most convenient of times, but she's our baby girl, and I love her already.

I just want her in my arms, and not bouncing on my bladder.

Don't let her fool you: she's got an attitude.

announcement

"And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

- Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.

[1/23/2011 - 21 weeks]