Still baking in the oven: t-12 and counting

12 days or less. 10 days or less if you use my estimated according to my last cycle vs. the doctor's measurements. Both of these numbers seem inflated. It's hard for someone who had an early baby last time (37 1/2 weeks) to fathom going the full 40 weeks. And not just an early baby, but a big early baby. Myles was nearly 8 pounds at 3 weeks early. At the standard gaining rate of 1/2 a pound a week, he would've been nearly 9 1/2 pounds! This baby seems a teeny bit smaller, but not by much. The older he gets, the bigger he gets.

Not that I mind. It's such a gift to have an easier gestation than last time. Always worrying about him staying in. That's why I feel conflicted when women in my baby groups complain about "wanting it out!" Yes, we're all uncomfortable. Yes, we are in shooting distance of our due dates and having healthy babies that will need no NICU time. But it's best to be a good host and let nature do its thing.

I guess last time, not only did I have a shorter cervix, but I had a big fibroid, the evil twin as I called it, sharing space. Myles probably ran out of room in there. This time, Cole has more of that space to himself. I still see the fibroid hanging around - much smaller this time, but still present. And when it outgrew it's blood supply and started to die, it didn't disappear, so the shape is still visible when my stomach shrinks into a hard ball during Braxton Hicks. Speaking of which, I didn't even know what they were last time. I asked my sister and she had no idea what I was talking about - which is pretty much our pattern. I ask her about stuff, or she volunteers up stuff that are faint memories from 29 years ago. Only slightly more useful than my mother's foggy memory would be if we were on speaking terms. And our experiences are so different from each other's that it's hard to compare. She was a healthy, older teen, probably not really worrying about the minutiae, moreso the grand scheme. I'm in my late 30's with ONLY concerns about the physical stuff. I'm not worried about husband or housing, just my ability to house a little one for 9 months.

Some of it's logical and correct and some is just programming because OBGYNs have pounded it into our head that any pregnancy after 35 is high risk and complicated. And if I didn't have the fibroid, I don't think that'd be true. I've had a fairly easy pregnancy this time. And I think picking one blanket age for egg degradation, when all women didn't start their period at the same age doesn't make sense. Someone who started menstruating at age 9 and someone else at age 16 have a 7 year gap in when their egg supply stopped. So how could we all be identical at 35 all of a sudden?

Last night, I had severe cramping that I thought wasn't any of the usual impostors of pregnancy: constipation, gas, Braxton-Hicks. It lasted from about 1 am until at least 5:30, when I finally was asleep deeply enough to not care. Positive that I was in early labor, I thought about what would have to be readied (my bag is packed, but some things still in use are not in there) the next day. I was sure that since it was a steady pain and not pulsing contractions that I wasn't very close and that it was okay to go back to sleep. Imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up to Mark's alarm. I'd slept the whole night through and no labor or water breaking. No labor.

I have an OBGYN appointment today, so we'll perhaps see what that was all about, but usually it's not much help. It's just a guessing game. Experience is the best teacher and I think it'd probably take about 3 pregnancies to really be a pro at understanding it all. But I'm not planning on a third pregnancy, even if I wanted a third child. It's demanding on your body and spirit. I'm not sure I could withstand a third. And I'd be so much older by the time I was ready for another child that it'd be even tougher physically. Imagine trying to take a nap with 2 young boys? Yeah right.

We keep speaking to Myles about his brother coming. I'm not sure what he understands, but we're trying to ready him for the concept of a new baby coming into the house, and my beloved belly going flat. He loves the bump. He kisses Baby 'cold' all the time. Hopefully, he'll learn how to pronounce Cole soon enough.

Shower's over and we're at 37 weeks.

Congratulations to us - 37 weeks! Full term baby. No more hearing the words "pre-term." This baby's done anywhere from now til when he feels like coming out. I just finished watching disc 1 of the Lamaze DVD I bought to make up for the birthing class that we probably won't make it to. If my husband's sullen, sleepy disinterest is any indication. We'd scheduled one for 34 weeks and then my doctor banned me from going, and now it's late enough that they might not have one soon enough or might be booked up.

My baby shower was fantastic. It was a bit rough preparing. I had to get the house ready, but I wasn't really supposed to be cleaning much. It worked out fine. My two friends who were planning it, and couldn't ever meet up or talk before due to scheduling conflicts, got it together the last week and had perfectly complimentary schedules on the day of. They tag teamed it and it worked out perfectly.

I got some really thoughtful, really great gifts. Board books, about 3 blankets, a footprint kit a cradle swing, a floor gym, about 15 more outfits, a carseat head support, a boppy baby pillow, a baby food book and at least 1 or 2 more fabulous things that I can't remember without getting up and walking to the nursery.

We brought the furniture back in, painted all white. We've got 2 more wardrobe things from Ikea to put together still, but the room's getting close to done. I finally took all the clothes and gifts out and comingled them (had kept the pre-shower gifts separate) and sorted them by age. I have tons of newborn stuff and almost as much 6 month old stuff. I also have a few 12 month and older outfits. Very nice. He won't be naked.

I have so many blankets and receiving blankets and lap pads. Tonight I finally got the courage to do a load of baby laundry. No Dreft for me. I'm using All-free, which we already use. It has no dye, no perfume and gets good word of mouth ratings from people. Found out today that fabric softener isn't a good idea, especially if it's dryer sheets. I was a little terrified of washing stuff because I felt like, in addition to making the wrong choices, I might not be able to remember what all the various squares are without their little tags and boxes. Would I recognize a lap pad? Would I remember which sheets go to the bassinet vs. the crib? All sorts of silly fears. I got over it (only took me all day of procrastinating) and just washed.

I also discovered that the 9 onesies I have for newborns were apparently made from baby dolls and not real children. They call it newborn, but it's really for preemies. It's for 5 to 8 lbs. Most babies would be out of those things in like 2 weeks. My baby probably weighs 8 lbs in utero already, no exaggeration. So they are going back to wherever. Not sure, but I think they sell them at Walmart - the Gerber onesies. The Carter stuff had more reasonable size estimates for newborn stuff.

I'll post some shower pics tomorrow. I'm really sleepy. And now that my inlaws are on Facebook (yes, roll please) I don't have to rush to post stuff here for my MIL to see - she can just check Facebook.

I'm not really having many signs of labor yet. I might be having Braxton Hicks, but they are really subtle and not painful. The baby hasn't dropped yet, or not entirely. He's still living under my right ribs. I'm getting these not-so-cute side stitches and plucking of some groin nerves like Sciatica, but worse. But none of the really strong symptoms like I had before at 28 weeks. This baby may surprise us all and be a full 40 weeks.

But I sort of doubt it. It's easy to stay in when I'm on my back all day, but now that I'm up and about, I start feeling it if I stand more than about 10 minutes. I kept hopping around at the shower, but I really paid for it a couple of times. And I refuse to keep sitting down because 1) I've got to finish his room and 2) I'd like to strengthen myself for labor - I hope everything hasn't atrophied after two months sitting on my booty. I'll need a little more endurance than that.

So without me artificially keeping him in, I don't know how long he'll stay. I didn't want to ruin the baby shower, so I took it easy last week, but this week I want to go to the movies, go out for dinner, finish the baby's room, buy the last things that we need that no one else got us, return stuff, etc. We should start a little betting pool. My bet is that he'll last til about 38 weeks and then come a little bit early. I also predict that I won't feel the initial contractions until he's right upon me.

I'm so thrilled we made it this far! We'll soon see, right?

Baby kicking video #1

Things are going well.

Today our new motion sensor lights were installed! Yippee! Gate was fixed, blinds in bedroom fixed, bathroom heater cleaned out, yaddah, yaddah. Found a new space heater that doesn't beep. We had a tower ceramic space heater that drives Max crazy. It beeps when you press any button to turn the temp up or down, turn it on or off. Max hates it so much, he runs away. So on the winner that I got today. It does about the same thing as the Lasko heater, but without the beeps.

Life is looking up. My sister's coming to visit for 1 day, but that's better than nothing and she'll get to see me pregnant in the flesh. Got a sofa slipcover to cover the godawful southwestern lodge themed sofa they left behind. Mark bought some throws to camouflage the jean/denim sectional other sofa they left as well.

Got some videos of the baby kicking. It takes a lot of luck to capture it because he somehow knows when Mark's around now, and stops. Or if I pick up the camera, he stops. There is some way that he knows, I don't know if my muscles tense, or my breathing changes, but whispering doesn't help fool him, neither does talking more - I've tried it all.

Moods and Cravings

Most of my cravings and food aversions left at the end of the first trimester. The first 6 weeks of pregnancy were nuts. There was one week of only roast chicken, then a week of only fried chicken, then a week of pizza and red sauce, then several weeks of everything seeming disgusting!

I'd been introduced, earlier in the year by one of the Perry sisters from the singing group Perri to red velvet cupcakes, which are chocolate cupcakes in disguise w/some coloring and flavoring. I hate chocolate cake, but somehow love red velvet. Go figure.


A particularly strong craving for red velvet cupcakes was cured by a so-so cupcake that just made me say, "enough!" I'd had 2 before at this place called Yummy Cupcakes, which I found through internet research at midnight one day after a particularly strong, specific craving. Yummy Cupcakes got great reviews and is only about a mile or two from us, in Burbank, so it could've been dangerous being so close. But this third cupcake was just solidly OK, and did me in for those, so no more chasing that sugar high.

I did however, last night, have a craving at 10pm for tortilla soup. I'd had a good one at a generic chain restaurant called Islands, but they close at 10pm on weeknights. So I looked in Google (thank God for google) and typed "tortilla soup Burbank" (not in quotes - if you put something in quotes in google, you get instances of the EXACT phrase only) and found out that in addition to Islands, Coral Cafe has a good chicken tortilla soup.


I went on their website and it's open 24 hours, so I called and ordered us 2 tortilla soups to go. Mark got a cold in the middle of the week, so I went and picked them up. (I love night driving anyhow - the roads are open and all the signs are lit up! Lovely!) The place is 5 minutes away, the soup was $3.50 and Mark and I thoroughly enjoyed the late night snack. The only thing was that the soup didn't have avocado in it, which I consider a bit of a deal breaker, so I vow to learn to make my own chicken tortilla soup. I found a bunch of recipes, but I think I draw the line at frying my own tortilla strips.

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As for moods, I was moody yesterday. Not having had any PMS for several months, I'd sort of forgotten how it felt to be irrationally, inexplicably cross and spent part of the day trying to diagnose what was up until I remembered: Oh yeah, I'm pregnant, probably moody and not really pleased at the moment-for no reason at all. For most of yesterday, no one could do any right and I had a permanent frown on my face. I tend to be naturally happy, so it's extra distressing to me to be not so happy and since I didn't know why, I couldn't really solve it or talk myself out of it. I settled on reading a book and that was about as good as I could get.

Don't get me wrong, I've had a couple of blowup moments during these last four or so months, but they were all in reaction to something displeasing. They made sense. Yesterday, I was just crabby Patty for no reason. And when I thought about it, I'm pretty lucky if this is just now hitting me at almost five months pregnant. In general, it's been a mild-ish pregnancy. I've had weeks where my ribcage felt like it was going to split and weeks or stretching pains, but in general, not too bad.

A friend of mine who's a Tina Turner tribute singer had a pregnancy so bad, that I thought she was dying (I didn't know she was pregnant, nor did she for a bit) of some mystery illness. She actually LOST weight for the first few month. So bad was her pregnancy, it's taken her four years to get enough amnesia to want to try for round two for another baby. Wish her luck - I want my kid to have some local playmates!

Itchy Stomach

Took it really easy for the first two days post amnio. Didn't leave the house on Monday and stayed either in bed or on the sofa. I heard a horror story from a friend of mine who made the mistake of cooking dinner on the same day as amnio, started leaking amniotic fluid and got rewarded with 6 weeks of bedrest! I prefer prevention, so I was a big, fat couch potato, loaded up with the final 2 Sookie Stackhouse (Trueblood) novels, a couple of other books and some DVDs from Netflix. Mark was a pretty good caretaker too. He made me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and cooked dinner.

But the next day or so, my stomach started to itch. And although it felt topical, it was so itchy and burning that I started to worry. I removed the bandaid, tried Neosporin and hydrocortisone alternately. The itching woke me from sleep on Wednesday night, so I called the doctor on Thursday finally. I was a little annoyed when the lady said, "oh it probably has nothing to do with amnio." I said, "it most certaintly has something to do with amnio, it's itching for about a 3 inch radius from the injection site." She put me on hold, talked to the doctor and said that they thought it was an allergy to betadine, since they spread it far around the actual injection site. While she's yammering, I look it up and see a couple of buzzwords that say bingo! Shellfish allergy=allergy to iodine and sometimes betadine. They forgot to ask me, and lathered me up w/betadine so I went back in, and they told me to get some hydrocortisone (didn't work, already) or Benadryl cream.

I bought it and all is well. Welts are almost gone and not much itching. And most of my amnio tenderness is gone as well. We're heading to 19 weeks folks! This seems to be flying by.

List of No-No's for Pregnant Women

Upon getting pregnant, somebody should present you with a golden list of no-no's. But alas, they don't and you usually find out that you've eaten or used something you shouldn't have after the fact!

Here are some fun ones I found out about:

Food

• Honey - some say it's fine to eat while pregnant, but not fine to eat while breastfeeding and universally forbidden for children under the age of 1 (unique type of botchulism)
• brie, camembert, mexican queso, goat cheese - basically anything soft and white is suspect, also no bleu or moldy cheeses
• hot dogs
• cold cuts unless warmed to steaming (listeriosis)
• soft serve ice cream and yogurt (haven for Listeria)
• sushi, raw shellfish or any shellfish if you or spouse have allergies in your family
• tuna and a couple of other fish like shark, marlin, swordfish (high mercury content due to age and size of fish)
• wine and alcohol, of course
• caffeine - coffee, tea, green tea
• ginseng, echnicacea and almost all types of herbal supplements - many stimulate contractions
• a couple of herbal teas, black cohosh, among them
• peanut butter (experts are split)
• soy products (controversial)
• pate
• liver

Medications

• Benzoyl Peroxide (experts are split)
• all topical acne medication, retina, fade creams
• Ritalin
• psychiatric medications
• ASPIRIN!
• vitamin a supplements

Ill-advised Activities

• Hot baths or jacuzzi
• High temperatures for any reason, especially w/in first trimester (linked to lower birth weight and IQ)
• standing in front of the microwave (questionable)
• breathing in secondhand smoke
• avoid high altitudes
• high risk of falling activities like horseback riding, waterskiing, rollerblading
• amusement park roller coasters
• changing kitty litter

Wow. I didn't know the world was so dangerous! Peanut butter? Really? They can't seem to decide if early exposure causes peanut allergy or not, so to be safe, I just avoid it even though it was one of my favorite, safest food the 2nd week of my pregnancy (technically week 4).

Mostly, my food habits haven't changed so much, other than being a slave to cravings, but the cheese thing has been harder to live with. I pass the cheese counter, gazingly lovingly, wondering how many weeks until I can eat it again. Well, it's 28 weeks and some change until my next Brie sandwich or greek salad!

It's weird going out with friends and family, trying to not order questionable things while simultaneously not tipping them off to why. Everyone is skeptical. If these things were so bad for pregnant women, wouldn't we know it? So obviously, I'm just a paranoid nelly, making it up. I read it several books folks! And although I don't believe everything I read, and I know that people who don't know eat these things and give birth to healthy babies everyday, you wouldn't risk it if you knew. Ignorance is bliss, and being a grown woman with a lot of time on my hands, I have significantly less bliss than some. I may have had one week with cold cuts where I didn't know, but I started reading early and all the goodies got taken away.

Talk to you soon. I need to go figure out what I'm not eating for dinner.