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So 37 weeks is considered full term. I saw my OB today and everything is pretty much the same as it was last time. Belly is a little bigger, I may be about 1cm dialated, and 60% or so effaced. I’m officially in the “could happen any time” zone and the doc is still predicting I won’t go the full 40 weeks. Collective fingers crossed on that one, please.
I’m still having the same list of complaints, but everything is marginally worse. My fingers are more numb, hands are more swollen (feet are a little better), sleeping is getting more and more difficult, more hip pain at night, more heartburn, and mostly more exhaustion. I wear out fast. Being awake makes me tired. Some days are better than others, though, and I have some latent nesting instinct that’s making me organize my closet. So that’s good, I guess. Also, most nights I have some Braxton-Hicks contractions and let me just say, do not eat a large meal if you’re having those. Not. Good.
The glider arrived this weekend so the nursery is pretty much complete. I also got a cool floor lamp. Pictures when it’s all cleaned up and pretty. David’s work threw us a shower on Monday and they got us this wicked cool baby food maker that I’m excited to try out as soon as she’s able to start on solids.
The other thing I’ve been dealing with is having high blood pressure at the doctor’s office. But since my doc asked me to take my BP at home every other day and it’s been pretty much normal, she’s refrained from diagnosing me with preeclampsia. This is a good thing. I tried drinking tea and meditating before my appointment today but to no avail, it was still a good bit higher than at home. But I think I’ve found the cure for all stress-related problems. Let me know if it works for you.
 This is the beginning of the decoration on the dresser we painted. I used to do mehndi (henna) style painting on stuff and sell it, so this is a fun project for me. Painting furniture is a huge pain in the ass, it turns out. And there is many ways to eff it up. This puppy took 4 coats, and probably could have used another. Also, when you’re painting in a dusty garage, stuff gets stuck in the paint. Which makes decorative painting all the more useful! Now it just has character. We’re putting the mostly finishing touches on the room next Weds, and hopefully I’ll have some pictures that day. Unfortunately, my glider won’t be arriving till mid February so it won’t really be finished until then. I just hope the glider gets here before the kid does!
 Tiny Miss Quimby at 32 Weeks - that's a profile! Today Tiny Miss Quimby is 32 weeks and 1 day old (though we reset the counter when she decides to come out). We went for our final ultrasound yesterday and everything seems to be good. She’s on the smaller side of average, which makes her mama very happy. The Quimbys make big babies, and luckily it looks like she’s taking after Oster babies which are smaller. Her heartbeat and all other indicators were good. It was fun to see her wiggling around, though it’s pretty hard not to notice her presence these days – she’s very active.
I’m continuing to be a yoga junkie. I go to at least 4 classes a week. It’s nice to be with other pregnant ladies and share some of the discomforts and fears that it seems like everyday people don’t want to know about. Or want to exaggerate, depending.
Remember when I blogged about a terrible song one of my favorite yoga teachers played during final meditation? So she’s back from maternity leave and I’ve been going to her classes. But she still plays that godawful thing at the end of class. And now that I’m in my 3rd trimester, as predicted, it makes me want to cry. Except I still hate it so I end up fighting back the tears while thinking evil thoughts about the artist and her lack of musical and verbal talent. It’s interesting to be me.
While I’m getting more of some of the annoying 3rd trimester symptoms (swollen hands and feet, occasional heartburn, difficulty sleeping) I actually feel better than I have in a while. The round ligament pain gave me hell last week, but seems to be lessening this week. I think I have some pubic symphesis pain (look it up, it’s fun!) but it’s not that bad right now. I ordered yet another belly support apparatus and when the weather stops being truly horrible I should be able to take some walks.
Work on the baby’s room is progressing well. I’m going to wait until it’s doneish to post more pictures. I still have to do a bunch of decorative work on that dresser that took me forever to paint, but it’s going to look really cool when it’s finished. The only bummer is the glider that the grandmas ordered probably won’t get here till mid February, which kind of blows. Apparently Dutalier shuts down operations for half of December. Oh, to be an employee in France. I want my chair!
Sometime in the last several days I think I swallowed a bowling ball. Suddenly, dragging my sad carcass around is getting really difficult and increasingly painful (again). I can only hope that I get some kind of third trimester second wind before it gets really bad. My yoga teacher said I may be experiencing a lot of pain because I was already very flexible before all the relaxin hit my body. If this is true, then amping my my walks may help some.
I wish I could say I was sitting around eating truffles and relaxing, but I don’t have a lot of room in the belly for food and while I do spend a lot of time sitting, it gets uncomfortable too. Sleep is getting more elusive because of the pain and stiffness. What I wouldn’t give for a handful of Advil right now. I’m still going to yoga as much as possible, my body doesn’t seem to disagree with that too much.
Mostly it’s terribly scary to realize that the baby is going to double in size over the next few weeks and I already feel like a beach ball filled with lead. I guess my body will deal, somehow.
We had a nice, low-key holiday with minimal activity. I cooked a few things, but mostly just relaxed with David. We got ourselves a Kindle with a nice gift card from my parents. Guess what? You can read with it one handed! This bodes well for feeding and reading at the same time. I guess I should work on my one handed typing as well. We also got a nice blanket and cute outfit for the baby (she’s not even out yet and she’s getting Christmas presents) and best of all, David and his dad finished work on the nursery! Now it’s up to me to put things away and get on the decorating. It looks really nice. I hope the glider gets here soon, because it’s a neat room to hang out in. Pictures when it’s cleaned up a bit, right now it’s covered in baby clothes and power tools.
One thing I am not short on is clothes. Two big batches of hand me downs from two generous ladies makes for a well-dressed kid. Right now I’m just trying to figure out how to best organize everything so it’s ready when she gets home. I’ve also already got some great blankets, socks, shoes, hats, and various other things. This child will not be lacking in the fashion department. And in spite of my physical complaints, I’ve gotten a good start on organizing and storing them all. So glad we re-purposed grown up furniture that has room!
Time to stagger back into the living room and socialize with my husband.
So the room is progressing. A few weeks ago David and his father started on the painting. The wall color is a lavender-tinged grey; neutral, but a little girly. The carpet is made of tiles from Flor. They’re great because you can mix them up, switch them out, and replace them piece by piece if they’re damaged. If you have a bad spill you just pull up the offending tile, wash it, let it dry, and lay it back down. The only issue is if you’re doing wall to wall carpet and you have an irregularly shaped room, you have to do some interesting cutting to make everything fit. And if your husband and father in law are engineers, this becomes a task of epic proportions:
 Look closely and you'll see all sorts of measuring devices, graph paper, and much seriousness. You will never see a puzzle that fits together better than the irregular tiles in this carpet.
Anyway, it looks great in the room:
 This is as close as I could get to true color, but it's still a little off. The inset carpet matches the walls pretty closely. The outer layer is dark gray (we used a really cool post-consumer tile called Fedora that we also use in the rest of the house), the inner border is a plummy purple, and the center is a gray-lavender. It’s really cool. Now we start layering in the furniture, some of which we’ve painted complimentary colors. Then the fun decorating!
My 29 week appointment went just fine. All systems seem to continue to be normal. I’m back in three weeks, and then down to two, and then every week until TMQ makes her appearance. I can’t believe how fast it’s going now! I thought the first trimester would last FOREVER. But boy does it pick up speed towards the end.
I still haven’t totally shaken the round ligament pain and I’ve got a little mid back strain, but it’s all pretty tolerable. Starting to get some heartburn which is ick. Tums is my new friend. One of my regular yoga teachers is on vacation this week, so I guess I’m going to have to venture out and try some new ones.
Our main holiday activity is going to see movies at the Alamo, an activity that will be seriously curtailed after the baby gets here. We saw Avatar last night which was pretty cool. Very imaginative, great use of CGI, but rather clunky in the Good vs. Evil department. Still, it’s so nice to just chill out and eat dinner and watch a movie. I also finally tried Gourdoughs, which may signal the end of my relatively healthy eating habits. We had this amazing, fresh fried huge doughnut covered in caramelized bananas and brown sugar. I’m already craving another one. But hey, at least I had milk with it…
The nursery is well underway now. The painting is done, and the carpet has been pulled up. Once the carpet is installed, we can start moving furniture back in, which means I can start putting away clothes and organizing stuff. Yay!
The child is more and more active. She had taken a break from kicking my bladder until yesterday. Ow ow ow. Let’s just say she’s much stronger now. She also likes to kick anything that’s touching my stomach. David, my hands, the dogs. Round ligament pain comes and goes, often in the same day. Yoga keeps me going – I go at least 3 times a week now, more if I can fit it in. It keeps my back from shutting down and helps me relax (and strengthen the muscles I’m going to need for labor, yikes). It’s not as intense as Vinyasa, say, but it’s still a decent way to exercise. My hands and feet are more swollen. Some of my shoes are tight, and I may have to temporarily say goodbye to my wedding ring 🙁 I’ve been sleeping more, though EVERYONE likes to tell me that will end soon. Luckily I’m an insomniac by nature (so is David), so army napping is normal for me. I feel bad for new parents who are used to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Speaking of weddings, our 2nd anniversary is on Weds. We’re keeping it pretty low key this year. Paying for medical bills, dental work, a room re-do, and a new fridge does not leave much room for extravagant gifts. I’m actually enjoying the idea of a low-key holiday season as we will probably not have another one of those for a looooong time.
I forgot to mention one other stressor in my list of stressors from the last post – I failed my initial glucose screen and had to go back for the 3 hour test. So far I’ve had a decent experience with the doctors and nurses at ADC but the administrative staff and the lab kind of suck. Getting stuck 4 times in three hours and drinking a bottle of sugar syrup at 7am on an empty stomach is no fun to begin with. But nurses who can’t be bothered to keep track of when you’re supposed to get tested, and a bathroom that looked like it belonged in a gas station did not enhance my mood. On the plus side, I passed with flying colors. Yay! A word to the wise – if your doctor says you only need to fast for 4 hours before your initial screen, fast for at least 8. I turned out to be only slightly over the cut off point on my initial screen. If I’d fasted over night I probably would have been fine.
I can’t believe I’m going to be 28 weeks on Thursday. This means I could easily only have 10 weeks left. Yikes!
So the last couple of weeks have been filled with lots of stupidly stressful events. Our internet went down for two days. Our refrigerator died right before our trip to California. Our flight from Santa Barbara to LA was canceled (American stuck us in a cab which got us there just in time). And my (tooth) crown didn’t fit on Weds. and had to be broken up and pulled off. Like I said, stupid stressors. Nothing catastrophic, but inconvenient and annoying. Maybe the universe is preparing me for parenting. Let’s see – unexpected delays, unplanned for expenses, yep. Sounds like parenting.
We got back to Austin just in time for some really chilly weather. We even had a little bit of snow today! I know I’m supposed to be warm all the time right now, but I don’t think it’s kicked in yet. I still get cold a lot.
I’m hoping we can make some progress on the nursery this weekend. I need to put a final coat of paint on the dresser and start figuring out what kind of decorative painting I want to do on it. David is going to (hopefully) do a second coat on the walls, and then up comes the carpet. We got our carpet tiles last week right before we left. Another good reason to get the room done is we’ve started getting gifts for the baby and they’re piling up! We now have some of the essentials, which is really nice.
I’m due three months from today, but I’m not officially in my third trimester until next Thursday. I guess that means more frequent poking and prodding from my doctor. And getting bigger. And bigger. I’m fine with the size of my stomach right now. Can it stay this size until I give birth? Probably not so much.
Decorating is coming together – though I haven’t actually touched anything in the room yet. We’ve picked the color for the walls and the two pieces of furniture we’re painting, and are waiting on carpet samples for the floor. The grandmas generously teamed up to buy me the coolest glider on the planet, which I got to pick a custom cover for (charcoal microfiber with big textured swirls). This is going to be one hip baby space. The walls are going to be a lavender-gray, and the carpet will probably be a combo of dark gray and purple (with possibly a little pink throw in – don’t tell David!). I am soliciting help for the furniture. I will have to sand, prime, and paint a large dresser and large bookcase. You will be compensated in cookies and undying gratitude.
I’m visiting IKEA on Monday with the Design Guru with plans to buy the crib, mattress, and possibly some bedding and frames. And that’s pretty much going to do it for furniture for the nursery, since we’re using a lot of existing stuff.
TMQ is not only wiggling a lot, but sometimes I suspect she’s remodeling . And she’s way too close to my bladder. That can be fun. All the sensation is still very low in my abdomen so far, though I guess my uterus has expanded up to my belly button by now. As of Thursday she was 12 ounces. I see my regular OB on Friday this week, she usually does an ultrasound, but I don’t know if I’ll get one this time since we had one at the perinatal doctor on Thursday. I hope so anyway. I need some good pictures!
 Cool stuff from Nerdy Baby. Check it out! The final amnio results came back this morning and all is good in genetic babyland. Even though our insurance company will probably gouge us, getting the early results were well worth it, as I would have had several heart attacks by now if I’d been forced to wait. And while I’m mostly loving living chemical free, I’ve missed my xanex like you wouldn’t believe over the past two weeks.
Still, now we know stuff is good, and we can RELAX a bit. We’re having a high-power ultrasound in a couple weeks with Dr. Barry, and I think after that it’s back to regular old prenatal care.
Things are stretching. Ever heard of Round Ligament Pain? Look it up. I’m hoping it stays as intermittent as it is right now, because OW. I took a good long walk today, so hopefully that won’t make it worse.
Plans are underway for TMQ’s room. All I can say is it’s not going to involve any baby pink and it’s going to be wicked cool. I will probably want to move in. We should have the paint and carpet picked out shortly, and then Daddy and Grandpa will get to work! I may get enlisted to paint some furniture, but I’m cool with that. Anybody enjoy sanding? Anyone?
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