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November 17, 2001
November 17, 2001
21 Weeks
Unfortunately, I have hardly anything of interest to report this week, it has been quite an uneventful one.
How I Feel
Very tired. This whole sleep issue that seems to be a common gripe of pg women has finally caught up with me. Of course, I still suffer from severe bouts of insomnia at night, but during the day, I now cannot make it without a nap in the afternoon and I often fall asleep around 9 at night. Before, I could stay up half the night with insomnia and still not fall asleep before midnight. I guess because my little baby is growing so much at this point in the pg, I am finally beginning to really feel drained. It is still a great feeling though, fatigue and all.
I feel kicks so much more frequently this week as well. They are stronger and more distinct but not at all painful or anything. I love just lying on the couch with my hands on my stomach and feeling all the little kicks and pokes, it is all so amazing. With every little kick and poke, with each week that passes I find myself becoming more and more bonded to this child in ways that I never thought I could. I mean, of course I love my baby because it’s already mine, but for all intents and purposes, it is still an intangible object to me, more of an idea than an actual entity. But that changes with each little movement it makes and like I said in my last entry, I simply cannot imagine how attached I will feel at the actual birth if I feel like this already.
I started putting headphones attached to my Discman on my belly so the baby can listen to some of my favorite tunes. The baby has now been officially exposed to the Beatles, Nina Gordon, Carly Simon, Prince, Janet Jackson, Simon & Garfunkel, Phoebe Snow and Edith Piaf. (I have a wide array of tastes). If the baby is quiet and hasn’t been moving for awhile, I can always rest assured that a “blast” of music will get it going.
One thing actually did happen to me this week that I guess I could consider a milestone - I had my first Braxton-Hicks contraction on 11/15 at 4 in the morning. I was up because I couldn’t sleep through Charles’ snoring, so I went upstairs to read a book in the den. I was lying on the sofa, reading peacefully when all of a sudden my stomach started to tighten and get really hard, like a rock. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening but then I realized that it had to be a BH contraction. I looked this up in a couple of my pg books both of which reassured me I had nothing to worry about unless I was having more than 4/hour. I didn’t have another one until 10 am that morning and haven’t had another since. I thought it was kind of early to be having these, but according to my books, BH can often start right around week 20-21.
And that’s another thing I wanted to mention. So far, my pg has been what I would call a textbook pg. Whenever I read my pg calendar or a pg book, whenever a particular milestone is supposed to occur, I am usually right on target with that milestone. What I mean is, I read that a lot of pg women start feeling distinct kicking around weeks 16-17, and as soon as I reached those weeks, I really started feeling the distinct kicking. When my doctor told me that around week 19-20 I should really be able to feel rolls and movement outside my belly, that is exactly what happened at around week 19-20. And now the BH contractions appear to be right on schedule. Not that any of this matters, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.
I also read in one of my books that right around now is the time that a potential incompetent cervix can rear its ugly head. I was wondering if this is anything I need to be concerned about. At my last OB visit 3 weeks ago, my OB did a complete pelvic so apparently nothing was wrong then. At my U/S last week, the U/S tech checked my cervix and said all was perfect. But I guess my question then becomes, unless a doctor consistently/regularly checks for an incompetent cervix, how does he/she know that there could be one? I mean, what if I were to start to have an incompetent cervix the day after my appointment, how would I even know? I have my next monthly visit this Wednesday, the 21, and I was wondering if I should ask my doctor to check, just in case. What do you all think?
How I Look
Pretty fat, actually. I can really see it now myself in my face and somewhat (I know this will sound ridiculous), in my nose. It looks...flatter. I also noticed the other day that I have a couple of green veins peeping through my skin around my knees. Much to my dismay and disgust, I started to get teary when I saw them. I know I shouldn’t feel bad about something so superficial, especially since I always said I would do anything to have a baby, but still, I am a woman after all and a vain one at that. I don’t mean to even remotely imply that I think I am some raving beauty, because that is definitely not the case - I don’t think that, and it certainly isn’t true. But what I do mean by saying I am vain is that I’d like to maintain what little bit I’ve got. I have never liked my legs or the way they are shaped, but I did like the fact that they were once blemish free. Nevertheless, I got over this newest discovery in about 5 minutes. I figured it’s such a small price to pay for having a baby and besides, there is always vein surgery.
Charles always teases me about my stomach looking exactly like the fake one they show in the Beginning of a Baby Story. He says it is so perfectly smooth, blemish free and round, it barely looks real to him. I say that the only reason it looks so “perfect,” to him, is because it is such a contrast to the rest of my heinous looking shape, that being my hips, butt, thighs and pie face. Besides, he is my husband. What is he going to say to me - Hey Honey, did you know you look like hell?
Maternity Undies
Before becoming pg, I swore I would never wear these hideous creations. Maternity underwear has got to be some of the most foul looking “attire” for women ever created and I never saw the point in wearing them. I thought I could always just wear my regular bikinis under my belly. And keeping true to my promise, this is exactly what I have been doing - until today. Let me backtrack a bit. After my little “green-knee-veins breakdown,” I looked up “veins” in my pg books to see if anything could be done about them. I was surprised to learn that the underwear you wear during your pg can greatly influence the amount of veins that appear on your legs. As I said, up until now I have been wearing the exact same underwear I wore pre-pg. My bikinis and thongs even, fit perfectly fine, right under my belly. They weren’t tight, they weren’t cutting off circulation, but admittedly, they didn’t feel quite as comfortable as they once did. According to my pg book, wearing non-maternity underwear, even if it is only slightly tight in the groin area, can increase the appearance of veins on your legs! Well - that’s all I needed to hear! It is completely stupid of me to be vain about something as silly as underwear, especially since no one else except my spouse can see it. Maternity underwear is only for 6 months or so, green veins could last a lifetime. With this thought in mind, I went straight to Target and bought a 2-pack of maternity underwear to give them a try. I thought if I liked them, I could always buy more.
This morning after my shower, I opened up the package and pulled out a pair. OK, let me just say that I think I have already seen this underwear featured in a WWII documentary. American soldiers were using them to parachute out onto enemy territory - they are that big Still skeptical and particularly grossed out by the whole experience, I slipped on the maternity underwear. After about 60 seconds of assessment, I sheepishly acknowledged to myself that these were the best damn underwear I have ever worn in my life. Oh my God, were these some comfortable undies! I felt like I had just put on the softest pair of sweats, made of the cushiest cotton - to die for. Of course, the comfort factor did not change the fact that looking at myself in the mirror was quite the painful experience. The only way to describe what I looked like is to say I look like a bumble bee. You know what a bumble bee looks like of course, a big, bulbous lower part, a slightly smaller (but still large) middle portion with the smallest part of the body up top. That is basically my new body shape - bumble bee. Again, I am not at all pleased with the look but at this point, that is the least of my problems. I am so much more comfortable and maybe, I am even aiding in the future appearance of my legs. So for now, I will live with it. FYI, if anyone is interested in this underwear, the brand is “In Due Time” at Target.
Harry Potter - 5 Babies
Not a true movie review, just my personal HP experience. If you are not a HP fan, do not even bother reading this as none of it will make an ounce of sense to you.
What a great movie. I know it has been eons since I have done a movie review, but they seemed more appropriate to write for my Precon Diary. I had so much less to write back then that pertained to an actual pregnancy. However, with all of the Harry Potter hype and all of the HP fans out there, I at least wanted to offer my commentary on what I thought was a very well done movie.
First I must say that when HP books became the hot new item, I tried to read the first one and simply could not get into it. (I have actually heard many people say this about the first HP novel in the series). The reason being is that in the first novel, the first chapter is basically full of a lot of necessary character development. For someone like me who has the attention span of a gnat, I found it so boring and annoying to follow, even despite the fact that I love to read and will read almost anything. So, I put the book down and never finished reading it. Then a girlfriend of mine named Michele, (who is actually going to be our child’s Godmother), convinced me to give it one more shot insisting that once you get through the initial first chapter, it is a great book. So, I gave it one more shot, got through that first chapter and was immediately hooked. I proceeded to finish all four in the series in record time. I soon got Charles hooked and he too read all four of the books one right after the other. Needless to say, we had been waiting for this movie to come out all year.
Yesterday afternoon I went to buy tickets and almost all the shows were sold out. I bought tickets for the 9:45 show strategizing that there would be less bratty kids there to ruin my HP experience. It turned out that there were a lot of kids at this late showing but surprisingly enough, none of them were the least bit annoying. What WAS annoying were the ADULTS who felt it necessary to show up to the movie wearing their “Hogwarts robes.” OK, if you have a child who wants to wear his HP robe to the movie, I have no problem with that. If YOU, as a an adult, want to wear a HP robe to the movie in support of your child, I have no problem with THAT. But there is something terrifyingly wrong with someone who is 45+ years old and who shows up with their spouse, both of them fully clad in HP gear, complete with wand. I mean, yes, the book and the movie are both great, but can we get a grip here? There were quite a few people like this at the movie, all of whom caused the entire theater to break out into gales of laughter as they walked down the aisle. I tell you, these HP fanatics should have taken their “magic wands,” and waved some damn sense into their brains, either that or they should have made themselves disappear.
All in all the movie was very good and VERY long, but not too long. Almost all of the characters appeared exactly as I expected them to, with the exception of Hermione and Dudley Dursley. Hermione was way too cute and pretty in the movie. In the book, J.K. Rowling made her sound like a complete reject. Additionally, Dudley wasn’t nearly as fat or as revolting looking in the movie as he was described in the book.
Almost everything that happened in the book was represented in the novel. There were a few scenes left out, specifically the ones pertaining to Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback and the Potions Riddle at the very end of the novel. But as the movie is already 2 1/2 hours long, I suppose they had to cut out some scenes somewhere or we all would have been sitting there for another 2 hours.
If I had any complaints about this movie, there would only be one: if/when you go to see this movie, take a good look at Harry at the beginning of the film and then again at the end. At the beginning, you will notice that he is shorter than he is at the end - in my opinion, significantly so. Also, you will notice that his voice has dropped an octave by the end of the film. I guess this little “boy,” started to embrace puberty while in the throes of film-making and that basically nothing could be done about it. I found it kind of interesting though, especially since Hermione and Ron definitely seem so much younger than Harry at the end of the film than at the beginning.
And finally, it was funny to see how I had been mispronouncing in my head, a lot of the different terms and names. For instance, I always thought “quidditch,” was pronounced like “kid-ditch” but it is really pronounced just as it is spelled, quidditch, like “queen.” Hagrid is not pronounced like “Hay-grid,” but instead “Hag-grid,” with the same “a” sound as in “cat.” And Hermione, which I first thought was pronounced as “Her-mee-own,” and then later saw it was pronounced in the book as “Her-my-o-nee,” is actually pronounced in the movie as “Her-my-nee.” Again, none of this really matters, I just thought it was interesting.
So, even if you are not a HP fan, the movie is so well done, the story is so interesting, the special effects (especially with respect to quidditch), are so spectacular, that you really should consider seeing this film. If you have kids already, they will love it and if you don’t, I am sure you will enjoy it anyway.
Until next week,
Corinne and her baby
EDD 4-1-02
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