Some more random bits

I spent most of last week telling people I had ten weeks to go. My yoga instructor, my parents-in-law, my mom, my Birthing From Within mentor, my co-workers, etc. "Ten weeks to go, ten weeks to go, ten weeks to go." Then on Sunday I opened my iGoogle page - which has my adorable little widgetbaby on it - and saw this: "9 weeks and 6 days to go". I freaked right the hell out. Ten weeks seems entirely manageable, but I was not ready to see that shift to single digits. Hyperventilation ensued.

(Note: and now I've sat on this post for nearly a week, so I'm about to experience the weekly freakout when the widgetbaby shifts to "8 weeks to go". I rock!)

I don't know why these numbers make me so nervous, when in fact I am ridiculously excited about baby's arrival. Maybe it's the black-and-white of it? My most common pregnancy dream so far seems to revolve around the theme of me skipping that countdown altogether: either the baby is born and I miss it completely, or the baby is born and I forget to tell anyone about it. Like, my sister calls to see how I'm doing and I tell her I'm fine, the baby slept really well last night, oh shit, I didn't tell you the baby was born, did I? Pretty realistic, huh.

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Random advice received recently: prepare your nipples for breastfeeding by rubbing a wet facecloth on them. Sounds painful. Which is probably why I need to prepare. Two young moms were over at my house the other night, swapping stories and giving me advice. One said pumping hurt way more than nursing, the other said it was the other way around. Either way, the girls are in for a rough time.

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At last week's midwife appointment we learned that the baby is now head-down. This makes me really happy, but on the other hand, if she'd still been head-up the midwife would have reassured me that she still had lots of time to flip. So, just because she was head-down last week doesn't mean that she'll stay that way, right? When do babies get too big to somersault around, and pick a birthing position once and for all?

By the way, one of the ways the midwife determined the baby's position for sure was by using a pinard, which was really cool and made me think of Rhea. See, when listening for the baby's heartbeat via Doppler, you can get echoes and so you can't be sure how baby is positioned. With the low-tech pinard, however, you can't hear the heartbeat unless you are directly over baby's heart. Voila, you can pinpoint exactly where baby is situated! So cool! Also, the midwife guided my hands to just above my pelvic bone so I could feel my daughter's head. That was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Chris was too squicked out to try, though.

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I was asked recently if my pregnancy had been normal thus far. I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but yes, it has - and that makes me really happy. No blood pressure issues, no placenta problems, no gestational diabetes or abnormal test results. All the unfun stuff I went through (and still go through) - vomiting, soreness, fatigue, moodiness, bizarre appetite - is still unfun, but it's also completely, blissfully normal. There's no reason to believe the next few weeks, and the labour and birth, will vary from this. This makes me feel really good!


(KNOCK. ON. WOOD.)


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Pregnancy is funny. Things you took for granted before, little niceties, suddenly become impossible. I said to Chris last night, "Honey, love of my life, prince among men," (he always knows I am building up to asking for a favour, I am not subtle). "There's something I'd really like you to do for me. It's the sort of thing I would normally do myself, but this gigantic and wonderful belly of mine just makes it impossible. I feel sort of awkward about it, but it really needs to be done..." I think he was getting nervous about what this task might be! I guess I paved the way pretty well because when I finally got to the point (Can you please remove the toenail polish from last December's pedicure) he was relieved enough to agree. One can only imagine the sort of intimate, personal task he was dreading me to ask ...

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My mom came to town for a business meeting and spent the night at our place. Our pre-natal class for that night ended up being cancelled, so we went shopping - no big surprise, my mom loves to shop and I love to shop for my baby! We spent another $200 on baby/nursery stuff, half of which my mom paid for. We bought some adorable clothes, but more importantly a bunch of important layette stuff - diaper rash ointment, lotion, talcum powder, baby facecloths, a couple soothers, and so on. Even bought a package of newborn-sized disposable diapers in case we are too knackered to deal with cloth diapers right off the bat. (Many people have given me that advice.)

Purely by virtue of having to figure it out, for the first time in my life I am starting to understand baby clothing sizes. My mom pointed out that they are sized by months (ie, 0-3 months is newborn size) but in actuality they are all about the weight of the baby (in this case, newborn size is 5-10 pounds). So she cautioned me against buying stackloads of stuff in newborn sizes, since it's likely Baby B will be on the large side, and thus will only fit newborn clothing for a very brief time. Any outfits I find too adorable to resist, therefore, should be purchased in the 3-6 month size, so there's a fighting chance she'll get to wear them more than once. Very wise advice!