Nesting Is Weird

Nesting is a thing, who knew?! It is also incredibly weird. I'm finally in my due date week - 3 or 4 more days, depending who you ask - and I'm picking my mom up from the airport in the morning. Somehow, at 10:45pm, I am compelled to oil all my bamboo cutting boards. It is, for reals, a top priority. No matter that I haven't bothered with this task in certainly 8 months... Oiled cutting boards are now mission critical. 

Did I clean the downstairs bathroom? That pesky task that's been on my To Do for the last 4 days? Nope. Am I finished with Thank You notes from my shower this spring? Obviously not. 

But all the cutting boards are oiled and Little Miss has THE most complete and fully decorated room in our entire five bedroom, three story house. And my mom has a carafe for water and the cutest hobnail drinking glasses I could find next to her guest bed for her 3 week stay with us. 

These are clear priorities, folks. Crystle clear. 

The Final Countdown

Less than a month. In fact, under 4 weeks! One of my apps tracks the daily countdown and I'm at 23 days to go. Honestly, there were times I never thought I'd get here. Not because I had "doom and gloom" ideas that something could go wrong, but it just seemed so far away! The weeks that this little biscuit was the size of a raspberry, the length of a carrot, or when she finally hit that crown-to-toe milestone instead of crown-to-rump... Well, the prospect of her being flesh and blood and in my arms just seemed like an impossible dream. I'm so excited. I'm so scared. And I'm so uncomfortable!!

Naively, I always believed that the pregnant women who complained about the "last month" or the "last stretch" were just tired out and over the whole glowing mama-to-be shindig. Now I know. The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me god. I am so thankful to have this experience and I would never trade in this little girl to get rid of the discomfort. But DAMN this last bit really, truly sucks. It ain't no joke. 

In the last couple weeks I've developed for-serious edema: my sausage feet can't possibly belong to me and it is actually painful to put weight on them first thing in the morning; my beautiful wedding rings have been off for a week or so; I don't recognize my face when I see pictures 😕. Sleep comes only in 2 hour spurts (I suppose that's practice for newborn life?) due to the discomfort in my hips, in my abdomen every time I need to move, in my constant need to empty my bladder, in my temperature. When she's awake and moving, I could almost believe I'm having contractions because of the top-to-bottom stretching pressure she causes through my whole uterus - her head hits my bladder so hard that I get a pins and needles type of stab down there. She also makes a lot of moves in there that are just flat-out uncomfortable and force me to focus on my breathing. I'm on my third yeast infection in as many months. And I guess the relaxin has kicked in hard because my pelvis feels like someone is trying to peel it open periodically throughout the day. 

Fear about labor and delivery creeps in from time to time, but there isn't much to do about it other than accept the challenge to take on the pain and be amazed by how the body works. In an acupuncture session I was listening to a Circle + Bloom relaxation clip specifically for labor and I really believed it was altering my perception of the process. Later that day, checking email, I saw a 20% coupon off their downloads. Meant to be, right?! I'll take care of that today so I can start listening and prepping. Gotta shake the nerves in favor of pulling on my Brave Big Girl Pants!

A Tip from My Blog to Yours

Do not google "mucus plug" while eating. The pictures posted will a) make you lose your carrots and b) call into question the sanity of anyone who stops to take a photo of a mucus plug and then post it on the internet for all the world to see. A simple description, in my humble opinion, would suffice: What is a mucus plug? It is mucus that looks like snot departing your body by way of your vag and not your nose. There might be streaks of brown, pink, or red because small capillaries around your cervix may break as your body prepares for labor. It's totally normal, you don't need to take a photo. 

Grossssssss! Not eating dinner for a while at this rate...

Parenthood: is the show like real life?

Ohmigsh I'm totally emotional right now. I never watched Parenthood until I saw all the social media hooplah about it's finale and got curious. This show started in 2010?! For serious? Goshdarn that sounds like 4 lifetimes ago. I was still living in the city, just nabed myself a roommate named J, working in the Madison Ave office before it moved down to Wall St... Being a parent seemed so far away that watching a show titled as such, felt unrelatable. I saw ads for the show pop up again when we moved the CO and, being so frustrated by my lack of children, watching a show about being a parent felt like a firebrand to my chest. 

Now I feel safe watching it. So here I am, 3 episodes deep. One of the kids has Asperger's syndrome. Having worked in a special needs school that was predominantly autistic, I relate on a small level to how hard that life is. He just got accepted to a special school and watchin the joy of all the family members is so touching and just makes my heart smile. 

Is this show like real life? I'm finally 4 months into this preggy adventure and things are finally starting to feel real. Are we for real gonna have another person? A family of our own? It's an overwhelming thought. Weeks have gone by - ok, well over a month - without me writing down a thing precisely because I'm so overwhelmed with thoughts that I just never know where to start. How much of this experience will I forget because I haven't made a single note? All these little things like when I get headaches, what makes me wanna puke, which yoga poses feel great and which ones are totally awkward - I feel like I'd want to know or remember all this stuff for the next guy (or girl!)

Gender gender gender. Everyone wants to know! According to my midwife practice, we won't find out til our big 20 week scan which will be March 10. That sounds soooo far away! Ironically though, I'm going to try to wait until April 11 to do a gender reveal at the shower. Not 100% convinced that I can actually wait that long :p I've felt pretty certain for a while now that we're on the boy train. Why? I can't explain it. All through our TTC journey, I knew I was desperate for a girl. And still I definitely want a daughter in my life. But despite whatever desires I have, something about Little H is screaming "I'm a dude!!!" to me. Haha. We'll have another chance or two to see if a lady is in the cards for us if this one is gonna be a mister. 

Total rollercoaster this is. And my goodness do I love it. 

9 Weeks Graduated!

Well there's Little H. I got to visit with him/her yesterday at my CCRM graduation appointment. Those folks there are really fab and I especially love Ruby, the new lab technician. Emily has been a sweet ultrasound tech, doing nearly every one of my appointments, and Dr. M herself gave me a lot of confidence in the two appointments we had with her. My new nurse, Lana, as darling as she is, was really only the harbinger of my exciting change of status - I've hardly seen her at all since she was assigned to me only for our pregnancy cycle. But, when all is said and done, I don't want to see any of them ever again!! If you've had to work with a fertility clinic, you know what I mean. If you've been diagnosed as "unexplained infertile," you get it. I'll spend the next 18-24 months praying that the next time I want to be pregnant, I'll be able to do it the good ol' fashioned way. I mean, who knows?! Stranger things have certainly happened.

So I was very unceremoniously graduated from the clinic yesterday, praise god. The u/s tech and my nurse were extremely pleased with how the little bugger was measuring and moving. My, oh, my, this little one has places to be! We got a look at him at approximately 2:30 in the afternoon and he looked like he was getting set to sprint across some imaginary finish line! Hands were waving, feets were shuffling, it was really incredible. And I could see her little heart muscle pump-pump-pumping. Emily was especially enamored with her feet flying around. The head is laying near my right side and the feet extend sideways to my left. Seems like an odd position but what do I know...

At 9w4d I am feeling remarkably unpregnant. Virtually no nausea and my exhaustion could easily be chalked up to the crazy move we did about 10 days ago and my daily 5:20am alarm setting. Not feeling crazy emotional either, peeing seems to be a rather normal schedule. Some days I feel nervous about the lack of typical symptoms, but Nurse Erin said to roll with it and love every minute. So that is what I shall do :) I do have pretty tender boobs though. And a funny moment today: one of my colleagues is in her 2nd trimester and I was in a meeting with her this morning that wrapped up close to 12. She was commenting that we really needed to finish soon cause she just had to eat and I agreed saying, "Yeah I'm ravenous. I don't know why I'm so hungry!" Her response to me? Amusingly: "Hey, maybe you're pregnant." Haha. yeah, maybe I am ;)

Thus far, I think I've been subconsciously very guarded about this little one. While I've been very outwardly excited with anyone who knows, deeper in my heart I keep feeling concern and I think I've been staying a bit disconnected. In a way that's an easy default setting for me because of how difficult the last year+ has been. And I'm sure most first-tri mommies go through that when there aren't many (or any) physical signs of what's happening. But now, after such a strong showing at her 9 week appointment, I think I'm ready to really go all-in, emotionally. I also took a hospital tour over the weekend and that helped push me forward a bit. Our chances of having a healthy, full-term birth are no better or worse than anyone else's - I need to just believe in this, 100%, no questions asked. So I'm going for it.

Emily printed several extra copies of our best u/s images and I promptly cut them out and placed them in the engraved silver frames that are currently on a flight to my dad in NY and my grandmother in FL. The news is seriously on its way and we plan to tell the family friends we're spending Christmas with. 

Surprise! 

Baby H

Arriving July 2015

Face Plant

I hate when you bite into a "veggie" burger and are met with a completely beige patty of grain. Where's the veggies, man?! How is this considered a veggie burger when the veggies are conspicuously lacking? Not a speck of green, a spot of red, forget orange or yellow either. It's just freaking rice and other unidentifiable grains. I basically ate a rehydrated ricecake for lunch, on a buttery toasted bun. Oy.

That could explain my headache and nausea and complete, utter exhaustion.

Or it could be the raspberry I'm growing... hard to say.

Moving and Sleeping

We've moved! Officially homeowners for the very first time. We closed on our house on Thursday afternoon, took 2 car loads of boxes over to the house after leaving work at 6pm, did a similar clown dance on Friday with the addition of picking up a friend at the airport, we packed and moved all blessed day on Saturday until about 11pm and then got up after a fitful sleep in the new house and cleared out the old apartment. Up at 5:30 today, woo!

Not a lot of time for sleep.

In the big picture, life is totally awesome and I'm supremely excited about so much. In the smaller, mundane, day-to-day snapshots, I feel kind of grumbly. My panic at maybe not being pregs anymore is starting to subside; there is truthfully no way I could feel this completely "ick" without having a raspberry growing down in that uterus. But, it isn't completely wiped away. The only thing that would help is the next ultrasound which was scheduled for Thursday morning. And thanks to an annoying scheduling issue at work, I can't make it anymore. The reschedule is now a whole week away, next Monday. Sad times.

Also, that Thursday appointment had me looking forward to getting some time out of this office. My boss told me Friday that they won't be hiring my contract position full time after the end date. So, provided I still in fact am pregnant, I will be looking for a new job when I'm about 15 weeks along. Mother hecker. That piece of information has also left me incredibly unmotivated with this job. I'm just so not feeling it anymore. I want to go home and furniture shop and job hunt and freaking sleep already.

I just really want to sleep. pleasey please.

My diet has gone to total trash, also. I've been working long hours since J and I share a car and I have virtually no attention span or time to meal plan and grocery shop. We're been eating a ton of take out and restaurant food and not nearly enough good, healthy, nutrient-dense meals at home. I can tell my body is aching for my old eating habits but I just can't get into the swing of things. Oy! That surely is contributing to my grumpiness. I always feel better when I'm eating well.

Three cheers to getting my house in order. Literally and figuratively. Probably next weekend...

Neurotic & Paranoid

Can you still be pregnant if you don't feel queasy or nauseous anymore?

• I woke up a little hungry but not too bad. 
• I had no need for my requisite bag of Cheerios on the way to work.
• Yogurt for breakfast didn't turn my stomach.
• The raw onions in my bean salad aren't making me want to hurl like they did the last 2 days.

What if my little blueberry stopped growing? What if this is all over? I have to wait an entire 8 days until I go for another check-up.

I've read one too many horror stories about having a great ultrasound and then, expecting everything to be sunshine & daisies at the next appointment, discover that the little life apparently flickered out just in the day or two after that beautiful photo op. (Well, frankly, if I've read 10 stories of that happening then it's about ten too many...) My boobs barely hurt anymore. The weirdo pregnancy-insomnia seems to be gone. Is this because I had an acupuncture appointment on Saturday? Is that why all the symptoms feel better?? Or did all that needling disrupt the perfect harmony in my body and make everything stop? :(

Gosh I want to be positive but this is just gnawing and me deeper and deeper with each passing minute! I totally have the sads right now.