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February 18, 2002
February 18, 2002
34 Weeks
It is amazing to me how tired and lethargic I have become in the last week. Today I feel like I am in a fog and could sleep for days. This is a very new experience for me as I have always been a pretty energetic and active person. Right now, I feel like an invalid. But - a happy invalid nevertheless.
Swelling
My hands, fingers and feet are so incredibly swollen and stiff. Oddly enough, the middle finger on my right hand has lost all feeling whatsoever. You know that feeling you get when your hand falls asleep and you have to shake your hand to get it to “wake up?” Well, my hand, specifically my middle finger, never wakes up, it just feels like someone has tied a permanent rubber band around it about 80 times.
The other day I went to the store to buy a new pair of shoes since none of my old shoes fit. I left the house in sneakers (something I never do, I am not a sneaker wearer) and after I came home and took off my shoes, my socks were all bloody because my toenails (which are rather short) had cut into the swollen flesh of my feet. So, from now on I only wear Birkenstocks to the pool or mules during the day, it’s the only way for my feet not to hurt. Again, there are many worse things to be going through and I think I have it pretty easy for the most part, but this recent swelling issue is getting pretty annoying.
Doctor’s appointment
At my last appointment on the 13th, I told my doctor about my swelling and she said that since my urine was normal and my BP was fine, there was nothing to worry about, I am just your average swollen pg woman. Unfortunately however, my little “no weight gain” streak came to a screeching halt as I was informed I had gained 6 lbs in these past 2 weeks. Lovely. When my doctor asked me what I had been eating, I got the definite impression she thought that I was sneaking Big Macs and fries in the wee hours of the night. When I told her I had had a recent craving for fruit in the last two weeks and had been indulging that craving, she said “Oh, you really need to stay away from fruit, that is not good for your weight gain at all!” Now, I know this woman is the doctor and I am only the lowly patient, but I still couldn’t help but become a little peeved at the doctor’s reaction. I mean, since when is it a crime to have a pint of strawberries or raspberries? I know the sugar is bad but my GTT was low and at least the fruit was non caloric fruit for the most part, it wasn’t like I was eating 10 bananas or anything. I guess I was just a little resentful of the fact that here I am trying to eat healthy by buying fresh fruit (that I eat plain with no sugar or yogurt), and I am being told that that is wrong. Normally, I always listen to my doctor and really heed his/her advice but in this particular instance, I left the doctor’s office and headed straight for the supermarket where I proceeded to buy 3 pints of strawberries. The hell with it, I thought. I know it will make me gain weight and that my doctor told me not to eat them, but you know what? I really do not think some little strawberries are going to make or break my health or my baby’s, certainly not my weight. I mean, when the day comes when a person cannot have a few lousy strawberries, you might as well just give up on life, in my opinion.
Baby Milestone
The baby is doing really well as far as I can tell. S/he has been moving around a lot lately and I was thrilled when I finally received my first “rib kick” on February 12. I actually felt what I know had to be a body part of some kind, get caught underneath my rib and then fight to get “uncaught.” It was an extremely weird sensation. Not painful, just weird. Another awesome milestone baby movement is that I noticed a HUGE bump in my stomach right near my belly button. I noticed it with my sweater on and at first thought is was just a fold in the sweater. When I went to smooth it away, the bump felt all hard and cartilage-y and naturally freaked me out because I wasn’t expecting it. I am now waiting for the next movement in the progression, when the “bump” actually moves all the way across my stomach. Sure, I see rolls and little bumps move across, but never the huge ones your stereotypical pg woman is always talking about. One thing I find strange is that I notice that some part of the baby’s body is always literally on the side of my stomach, and when I say side, I mean side as in the part of the stomach right above my hip. When I lie on my side (mostly my left), I can feel that I am squishing something and the baby always squirms away. I didn’t even realize that a baby goes over that far in the womb. Could it mean long limbs?
Baby’s Room
I am so pleased to say that finally, the baby’s room is completed - what an incredible relief! We worked like madmen getting everything together and it was well worth it. We hung shelves and pictures and a quilt on the wall, and we bought lamps and a rug, as well as a ton of little toys/knickknacks, etc. It is a very colorful room, mostly raspberry red, violet and blue, not too masculine, not too feminine. I especially love all the little diapers I unpacked and put under the shelf of the changing table, it is such a weird thing actually seeing these tiny little objects just sitting there waiting to be used. My favorite part of the whole room are the photos I framed and hung - one is of my MIL holding Charles when he was about 6 months, the other is of my mom holding me when I was just about that age. After the baby comes, I will frame a picture of me holding our baby to complete the trio. I thought it was a sweet and quaint little touch that has special meaning, much moreso than anything that could be bought in a store, you know?
I have also hung all the little clothes we have so far in one of the armoires and I must say, thanks to my mother, we now have a ton of stuff. My mom just got back from Switzerland and France from visiting her sisters and she spoiled us greatly by coming home laden with a lot of really adorable little outfits. I think that we are now pretty much set on newborn clothes for awhile, that is unless we have a really big baby. All the stuff we have right now is for this teeny tiny thing we expect to have, but who knows, s/he could be huge.
Pregnancy Pictures
I am really excited for this upcoming weekend as we are leaving on Friday to drive to CT for my first baby shower. More exciting than the shower is just knowing I will get to see friends and family I haven’t seen in ages. I can’t wait to just hang out and see all my friends and have fun. I have been so tired and inactive for so long, I am craving some group interaction.
I am also really excited because while in CT, Charles and I are having our pictures taken professionally to capture the last few weeks of my pg. The photographer is someone I used to work with and he did the pictures for my wedding which I loved. So naturally, it only made sense that I should have my friend be the one to capture yet another milestone event in my life. We plan on taking a series of black and white photos of Charles and I together, some of me alone. I will be wearing black pants and a white blouse with nothing underneath. I want some of the pictures to be of both of us with my shirt on but my belly exposed and Charles’ hand on my stomach, that sort of thing. Maybe one or two of Charles kissing my stomach would be nice, nothing too corny or contrived, just a nice depiction of our little “family.”
Mother’s Nightmare
I went to Buy Buy Baby the other day and was shocked to find as I walked toward the store that there were ambulances everywhere and fire trucks parked almost right on the curb of the store. As I got closer, I saw paramedics trying to revive an infant in a car seat. The infant was so small, I couldn’t even see it under all its blankets. It appears what happened is that the baby’s mother was crossing the street from the store into the parking lot with her baby in its infant seat in the front of the cart, the way you are supposed to. She crossed on the white crosswalk just as she should have, when out of nowhere a car came barreling toward her, striking the cart and knocking the baby out of the cart, still in its seat. The baby wasn’t hurt physically (no body part had actually touched the ground), but it wasn’t really moving either so the paramedics were trying to get the baby to cry or react in some way. I didn’t want to just stand there and gawk, plus there were so many people around you couldn’t even really see what was going on, so after I got the initial story from someone, I just left and went on about my business. Still, the whole scenario haunted me. Can you imagine what that had to be like for that poor mother? The guy who hit the baby was devastated, he felt awful and stopped to see what he could do to help. In my professional opinion, he needed to be hunting down the best lawyer he could find, as well he should. I know it had to be traumatic for the guy driving the car but why must people insist on racing through parking lots? I can’t tell you how many times I have come close to getting run down by impatient drivers, especially now since I lumber across the street so slowly. It is so scary to think that someone could actually harm your CHILD like that, bad enough to be hit as an adult. I just pray that little baby suffered no permanent damage.
How Will I Handle It ?
I was in the supermarket last week, engrossed in my grocery list, when all of a sudden I heard this distinctive and annoying repetition of a child’s yelling voice over my shoulder. I turned around to see what looked like to be a 4 yr. old running up and down the aisle screaming “AY-OOO-GA!!!!!!!’ “AY-OOO-GA!” “AY-OOO-GA!” over and over and over again in an almost trance-like fashion. The mother followed behind him calmly doing her shopping, ignoring the child’s antics as if she were deaf. Well, she may have been but I was not. I looked at the kid like he was crazy and the mother saw me do it too, I suppose this finally compelled her to say “Come on now Jason, do you have to yell like that?” Of course as she says this she is chuckling to herself as if her child is the world’s greatest genius for coming up with his phrase and screaming it at the top of his lungs. I got out of that aisle as quickly as I could and went about my business, only to be followed for the entire shopping trip by this lovely pair. No matter what aisle I was in, they were right behind me, it was the weirdest thing! So, as I placed cans of peas in my cart, I was graced with the sound of “AY-OOO-GA!” As I grabbed cartons of milk off the shelf, I felt the vibrations of the scream of “AY-OOO-GA!” on my back. As I waited in the check-out lane reading the latest issue of People, all I could see on the pages was “AY-OOO-GA!” because of course, this obnoxious little demon was right behind me. I tell you, I was ready to crack and really make this mother’s day miserable. But, I am proud of myself, I held it together. I couldn’t stop thinking about one thing though and that was - how will I handle a situation like this with my own child? Of course, my immediate response to that question is that my child will never behave in such a manner in my presence, but how can I really guarantee that? And then I caught myself thinking, oh man, what have I gotten myself into because there is no way in hell I could live with that type of behavior. I really felt guilty because here I am pg, and all I could think about was how annoying children can be. Nice mother I am going to make. But I guess no matter how much you love and want children, everyone gets annoyed by bad behavior from time to time. And in this case, annoyed is putting it mildly. That kid needed a genuine muzzle and a leash to cure what ailed him. That and a mother who gave a damn.
Lamaze Class Can be Traumatizing for Some
This past week in Lamaze class was one I won’t soon forget and neither will one of the other pg mothers in the class, I am sure. If you were ever pg you will know what I mean when I say gas can be a common problem during pregnancy. I am not sure if I ever wrote this in an entry (I think I did), but when you are pg it makes you very gassy and always feeling like you could pass gas at any moment. I have spoken with numerous other pg women who have confirmed that what I say is true. Despite the veracity of the situation, it is still a humiliating event to endure, should one ever have to endure it. In a Lamaze class, the feeling of needing to pass gas reaches an all time high (it seems) when you are on the floor and pushing and breathing through all the exercises. As I have often told Charles, I don’t put much of an effort into the pushing and breathing because I would just DIE if one ever “slipped out,” I mean, I probably would have to go home and hide under the bed for two weeks.
Well, the other night during Lamaze as the instructor told us to push down like we were having a bowel movement, I heard the distinctive loudness of a whoopee cushion-like sound come from the couple across from us. Charles looked at me, I looked at Charles and we immediately looked away because we knew we would both lose it if we spent one more second looking at each other - maturity at its best, what can I say? Apparently, everyone else in the class heard it too and looked over at this poor woman (the “offender”) who was as red as a beet. I felt so incredibly awful for her because let’s face it, that could happen to anybody, right? It’s a natural function that occurs quite frequently and it doesn’t make this woman a worse person because it happened to her, but still - how horribly humiliating that had to be! For the duration of the class the woman looked like she was in agony and as soon as the class was over, she raced out of there like a bullet. Poor thing, why is nature so cruel? Better her than me though, I have to be honest.
Valentine’s Day
Because our Lamaze class is from 7-10 on Thursday nights, we were unable to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the traditional way with dinner and a romantic night on our own. Charles mentioned that he felt bad we “missed it” and suggested we do something on Friday night instead. I then explained to him that I had already had the best Valentine’s Day ever - I got to spend it with my husband, laughing until we split, enjoying his company and reveling in the new life we are about to bring into this world. Two years ago was when Charles had given me that beautiful, symbolic, little red sweater as a Valentine’s Day gift in celebration/anticipation of our new TTC journey. We just recently bought a red, heart shaped hook for the wall of the baby’s room. We attached it to the wall and hung the little red sweater on a hanger from that hook as a decorative yet symbolic reminder of all we have gone through, and all that is yet to come. Two years later after the receipt of that gift, that sweater is about to actually be worn - by our child. Can you think of a better Valentine’s Day gift than that?
Until next time, love always,
Corinne and her baby
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