Carving some time out at the pumpkin patch

Baby does his first trick balancing a pumpkin on his feet while standing on his head My friend Ashley and I originally had the same due date. It is still the same give or take a day. Still we both thought we would have delivered by now. That's what we get for thinking, right?
So we decided to spend the day together and pamper ourselves with Pedicures, lunch and then some fun with our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch...




39 Weeks and counting...

SLOW COOKER

I am entering week 3 of maternity leave and still no signs that little Buster is making headway. (pun intended)

I have way more free time than anybody should be allowed to have. I get to sleep in every day, but don't hate me yet, it's not all it's cracked up to be after the millionth time. Sleeping in is a luxury, a treat, something you look forward to when you have such very few days when you actually GET to sleep in. Then, you appreciate it.

Right now I'm sleeping in as a way to KILL MORE time. Time that is now spent WAITING. Not only that, but since a month ago, I had this very strong feeling that little buster was going to bust into this world on October 19th... I don't know why, I just had this feeling and dreams, etc. Even my mom agreed with that premonition. Now October 19th has come and gone and I've accepted that he's not coming until November.

Thinking that he was coming a bit early has had me in a perpetual state of hypervigilance. Every day I think it could be THE day, so every day, after I wake up and eat breakfast and take my vitamins...I clean. I clean everything, including the FLOORS.

I make sure everything is put away in its rightful place, that there is not a single stitch of clothing that needs washing or folding and if Dan takes but a single picture with our camera, I make sure I recharge the entire battery and place the whole camera bag back by the front door. I keep refilling the cats' food until it overflows and changing their water bowl.

I'm pretty sure I snapped at Dan the other day because he was drinking the orange juice. Poor guy. What was he supposed to do? Look at it and imagine what it tasted like? Well, but then I have to get more. Because we are going to need it!!! Whew. No wonder I'm so tired and short of breath all the time. (Huge baby and belly up in my throat aside).

So today I decided to break my routine. Well, I did clean the floors again, but that's when I stopped. Dessy came over to visit me, so that was a HUGE treat and break in my daily solo routine. We went to the store and bought all the fresh ingredients to make my fabulous home made chili. I'm NOT a good cook, but making chili is not really cooking. It's more like a production line of ingredients and items that all need to end up in a crockpot in a certain way.

Mostly, making chili from scratch takes TIME. Time and attention and patience. So as we chopped onions, bellpeppers, garlic, tomatoes, etc. and just talked, time just flew by easily and I was happy and calm, and I let dust settle in places and didn't jump up to clean it.

Today, I have officially given up reading the message boards on babycenter.com, have stopped obsessing about my baby's lack of "dropping" even though people continue to remind me of it. And I have stopped Googling the word "induction" and "reasons for induction" because after reading several sources on this it just made me feel like a selfish whiner. What kind of mom am I already that I want to change the natural course of things, just because I'M so uncomfortable? What if he's just perfectly fine in there and him, my body and GOD know best.

Today, I accepted that, like making chili, making a human takes time, attention and patience. And it's not about me, at all. My little chili pepper is just not cooked to perfection yet.

He doesn't want to come out and I guess I can't blame him. He has probably been listening to the news on TV and is like... "Sounds like healthcare sucks anyway, why bother?
And ...."Who the hell is Falcon?"


:)

Pregnancy: It's bad for your health

No amount of hormone level fluctuations had made me feel so out of control or emotional as my current inability to breathe or move has done. This has been a tough week in the sense that we SHOULD be close to delivery and my baby boy SHOULD have "dropped" some by now but he's still pretty cozy right up in there. Problem is, that he continues to grow, but seems to be growing farther into my throat than down the birth canal.

This results in the most discomfort I've felt this whole pregnancy. And I don't want to complain but I'm starting to run out of patience... and there's nothing we can do about it. I can't breathe, therefore, I also can't sleep. I can't move without feeling uncomfortable and the kicking and moving is super painful because he's so much bigger and stronger. For that, I am thankful, though. I love to feel him move still. Now it's just got me black and blue, beating me up from the inside. Oh, and I can't breathe.

Momma is out of WOMB!!! Yet he's making no moves towards the light... anyway, you get the idea. Oh, and I can't breathe.

On a positive side, my husband continues to be superb and the best, most supportive husband ever. Still trying to sneak in those date nights. We had the most amazing sunset last weekend at the Top Of The World in Laguna...

And every week that I've been going to Karate I say "this is probably my last week coming in" yet up until last week I was still going and feeling pretty good. It's the only thing that makes me feel sorta normal. This week, though, might be the one. I think I'm done with the Karate unless baby drops and lets me breathe again. You would think that all the kicking around might have encouraged him to get a move on, but no dice.

So now I wait. We wait. And pray that whatever happens is just exactly what baby needs. We're not going anywhere! Have I mentioned that I can't BREATHE? Thirty Eight Weeks... and waiting.

.

It's a jungle in here

Ok Baby. Your room is ready. Come home soon!

This is the bed in the baby's room where Dan will be sleeping and getting up with baby so I can sleep. That's how this works, right?
It's so sweet and cute in his room. I like to take naps there and think about him being home.

The birth plan

I recently read on Babycenter.com that I should be thinking about my Birth Plan. I have so many other things to think about... now I have to have a birth plan? Doesn't it just happen all by itself? Ok, to a point I can understand having some sort of idea of what you'd like to happen. But just don't go overboard. There were some sample birth plans on there that were out of control. Don't get me wrong, I like to be in control and I like to plan... but the past 9 months I have not been able to predict nor plan anything. And I've accepted that.

MY BIRTH PLAN:
My plan is to have no plan, just remain calm. The rest will take care of itself. I will make in-the-moment decisions and that's it. I will go with the flow, I will do whatever it is I need to do and keep my baby safe. I don't think I need a plan, since I'm pretty sure it will go out the window the second my BODY's plan is initiated.

WHAT IS MOST LIKELY TO HAPPEN:
1) The way I understand it, Your body goes into labor, when IT is ready. Yay. Your baby finally took his eviction notice seriously. Your due date is nothing but an approximation. A gauge of how much time you have to get your affairs in order, set up your nursery and count how many more times you'll be able to watch a movie all the way thru.

2) You call your Doctor and let her/him know that you think you're in labor. Or you could be having muscle spasms from your squat workout the day before. You call your husband, who will be thrilled you're getting him out of that snoozer meeting early anyway.

3) You get your ass to the hospital in a calm, leisurly manner. If you have an ACTUAL emergency, like, there's a tiny hand sticking out of your vagina, then all you have to do is remember those 3 magic numbers, then an ambulance will be at your house in less than 5 minutes and those boys will take really good care of you.

So having an emergency could even work out better. A) You don't have to call anyone or drive yourself anywhere and B) You might then still have time to run a curling iron thru your bedhead and slap on some mascara before your ride arrives . Plus, you'll be cruising right thru all the red lights!

4) Once in the hospital, you just wait. And wait. Your body knows what to do! That baby comes whether you like it or not. Whatever plan you may have had, it is guaranteed to change. Have a drink with any Labor and Delivery nurse, they will tell you that. They HATE it when moms to be come in and hand them a pre-printed, all illustrated, un-yielding birth plan. My doctor also was telling me that people are obsessed with knowing how big their baby is in utero. She says, why does it matter? It's coming out anyway! Well said.

5) As far as who I want in the delivery room with me, it's very simple. With the exception of the medical team, if you were not there when the baby was MADE, you need not be there when he is born.

I'm pretty sure I don't remember anyone else there when it happened, but if you were there, please send me an email and a picture that proves what crazy fun we had that night, and I'll eat my words and get you a gown and mask, STAT, because, hurry! We're having a baby!

De-evolution

There comes a time when it's just not cute anymore. A few days short of 9 months and I think I'm there. Thankfully, I am officially on maternity leave. What a BRILLIANT option. This is the first time that I've ever taken advantage of something I've been "paying" into my whole life. The good ole state of California can now take care of me in this state. And thank GOD for that.

I had to go out on leave a few days earlier than I had planned. I had been feeling pretty good up until the few days that I COULD NOT SLEEP. I could not breathe, therefore could not get comfortable enough to sleep. So after a few days of not sleeping I felt like crap. Not to mention my already annoying clumsiness and forgetfulness was heightened as whatever little ounce of concentration capacity I had left was wiped out by my lack of sleep.

This of course, led me to get sick, with flu vs cold symptoms which freaked out my doctor, as I had NOT gotten the damn flu shot that she so much had tried to get me to do. To make matters worse, at the time this occured, we were housing five N1-H1 (Swine Flu) patients in our ICU, which meant me going to work was, well, kindda stupid. Not that I would be taking direct care of these patients, but hey, let's be honest, they're there, they're breathing, other people are going in and out of their rooms, there's a pretty good chance of some sort of exposure. Under normal circumstances, ie, feeling well, healthy and NOT pregnant, I would not have worried about it. But it's amazing what happens when you have no brains left, and another tiny human being to worry about.

Since I don't worry much, my Doctor did it for me. She took me out on leave right there and then and my manager was so kind and understanding and called me a "trooper" for even "lasting this long." Well, damn, I was never going for trooper, had I known I was entering trooper status, I would have quit a few weeks ago...

So after almost a week of concentrated resting I am starting to feel better, but for the other symptoms: inability to take a deep breath, getting short of breath when walking up stairs, having to rest after any activity, and messed up depth-perception... I can't even see my feet

(And I keep running into things with my belly, can't reach into the sink to do the dishes), for all these, unfortunately, the only remedy is giving BIRTH.


:)