10 Months!

This is it- we are done 40 weeks. The due date has come...and is almost gone. 

Where are we now?


Aches and pains

Yep...plenty. Particularly in the front of the pelvis- who knew that such pain could occur? 

The pelvic pain is rivaled only by sudden pinched nerves in the butt, causing embarrassing leg paralysis. Which results in walking/falling with one jelly-like leg- often in public places. 

Who knew pregnancy could be so dignified. 

Oh yeah, and dry skin...and braxton hicks contractions... and an inability to sleep...and...you get the idea. 

Total weight gain

34 pounds. Make that 35...I just bought chips and chocolate pudding. 

Cravings this month?

ANYTHING.  FEED ME!

Judah's thoughts on baby now?

Judah, like his mother, has taken to shouting to the baby in-utero. Yesterday he screamed, "Come out baby! I have things to show you!" I hope those things don't include his obsessive toilet- flushing or dog- licking habits. 

Current state of the baby?

Baby's head is still riding pretty high in the pelvis. I am assured this is common is consecutive pregnancies and that she will drop when labour commences. Fetal drop zone, coming up!

Her heart rate is lovely, and amazingly, I can frequently feel her practice breathing. Super cool. 

As for her position, she's been stubbornly posterior - her back is to my back - meaning potentially late, long, back labour. This is what happened with Judah. His labour stretched out over 3 days. THREE DAYS!

In order to avoid this fate a second time, I spend much of my waking day crawling around, hanging over my exercise ball and generally creating a human hammock out of my stomach to get baby to rotate. Judah sees this as an excellent opportunity to get hourly horsey rides. My back should look like an Olympic swimmer's shortly. 

Induction attempts?

So far my induction techniques have been limited to drinking copious amounts of raspberry tea, taking long walks and willing baby out with my mind. All have proven lame. Monday, if I'm still pregnant (is there a reverse knocking on wood that can be done here?) I'll be at the midwife for a stretch and sweep. If that doesn't get the ball rolling then... I got nothing... I'll just keep waiting. 

"The whole point of woman-centered birth is the knowledge that a woman is the birth power source. She may need, and deserve, help, but in essence, she always had, currently has, and will have the power." 
Heather McCue 

Things a woman may do while awaiting labour...

Crawl around the living room, kitchen and bedroom. Draw the line at the bathroom. 


Eat everything with a splash of hot sauce. EVERYTHING.


Take up residence on an exercise ball... Bum in the air when possible. 


Walk up stairs sideways.


Try to quell constant heartburn with meditative thoughts about calcium tablets.


Take long showers and try to tempt the baby out with renditions of early Roch Voisine songs.


Shout at your stomach. Cries of "GET OUT!" seem to be the most satisfying. Encourage your toddler to do the same - the baby may as well get used to the sound of the toddler shouting. 


Field calls from interested relatives, friends and acquaintances. Assure them you would know if the baby was out, and no, you wouldn't keep it a secret. 


Take long walks with chocolate at the final destination.


Pretend to sleep.


Pretend to sleep with 4 pillows between your knees.


Pretend to sleep with 4 pillows between your knees, and a toddler smushed up to your face.


Pretend to sleep with 4 pillows between you knees, a toddler smushed up to your face, and a snoring husband.


Don't sleep.


Try to convince your midwife to do some sort of labour inducing magic.


Try to convince your husband to do some sort of labour inducing magic.


Try to convince your mailman to do some sort of labour inducing magic.


Apologize to your mailman for your freakish behaviour.


Wrap a stuffed animal in a receiving blanket, put it in a bassinet and pretend the whole thing is over and done with.


Pretend your water is breaking in the express line at the grocery store. 


Look at pictures of yourself in pants that would not fit mid-sized farm animals. 


Try not to think about the fact that tomorrow is your due date and you will, inevitably, deliver late...again.

The Waiting Game

Although baby isn't technically due until January 12th, I'm feeling mentally and physically due...make that overdue. 


My ever empathetic father (he actually is) says waiting for labour must be something like waiting for death- just a terrible thing you know you have coming to you. Thankfully, I have a slightly sunnier outlook on the whole labour process (and if this pregnancy goes any longer, I'll even have time to blog about it), so when I woke up at 2 am last night, with strong, close contractions I thought the end was nigh and I was psyched!!!


I paced the halls- the contractions continued. I laid in bed shifting positions- the contractions continues. I woke Luke up and informed him something was happening- the contractions continued. And then I started thinking of the things I hadn't done yet... 


I had no Powerade in the house. HORRORS! How was I to push out a baby without a sugar-laden supply of elecrolytes? 


Not to mention the fact that I still hadn't gotten around to buying an exercise ball- CRUCIAL. I'm sure ancient cave paintings show women labouring on exercise balls. 


I hadn't gone out and found a bassinet for baby. I couldn't give birth, Judah would immediately crawl into our bed and crush her. TERRIBLE!


And worst of all, I hadn't baked muffins to have on hand for my birth team. How could I reasonably expect my midwife and family to go through my birth without a banana muffin in hand? UNTHINKABLE! 


And so, with all of these realizations floating through my mind, I can only assume my brain told my body that this was definitely not a good time to have a baby. The contractions abated sufficiently and Luke and I drifted off to sleep, hand in hand.


Today, I set about giving my brain fewer excuses for keeping baby inside. Braving the first snow squalls of the season, my mom, brother, sister and I set out for a shopping expedition and came home armed with an exercise ball, a baby bassinet and build-it-yourself, rocking bassinet stand. 


After getting in a long nap, to make up for my pretend labour, Jude and I set about constructing the bassinet stand. Much of the process involved the following dialogue:


Me: Judah, pass mommy that piece please.
Judah: No, I need dat piece, Mama.

Me: Judah, aren't you going to help Mommy make the baby's bed?
Judah: No, I building a tower, Mama... I need candy!

Me: No you don't. Give me that, please.
Judah: *running away with said piece, shrieking with delight* I build tower! I get candy too!!!

Two hours later, and with come correlation to Luke's arrival home with a drill and Judah's removal from the bassinet basket, we finally finished our Mama-Judah project.

Now I just need to get my hands on some Powerade and rotten bananas...

Christmas Calm

It's 8:30. I'm awake, because 8:00 seems to be the latest I can "sleep in"- ever. I can't even blame this poor record on being a parent. I was this lame as a teenager. My much cooler spouse and kid are still fast asleep.


The house is quiet. All of our gifts are wrapped. I'm feeling really happy and calm.


This afternoon we'll celebrate with my amazing in-laws, complete with ham buns- a family Christmas Eve tradition of ham, potato chips, celery, mayo, peppers, almonds, all mushed together on a toasted bun. Yes, it sounds really disgusting, but I swear to you, it's SOOOO good. Only took me three years to choke them down...and now you can't stop me from devouring half a plate- pregnant or otherwise. 


Tonight, the children's choir I direct will sing at the Christmas Eve service, and my mom and I will crack out Oh Holy Night, with Lukie on the piano. If I'm lucky, I'll go into labour during the first verse and we can fill up the manger on the stage with something more believable than a cabbage patch doll by the end. Yes, I really do hope labour is that fast, this time. 


Tomorrow, bright and early, we'll head over to my parents so Judah can wake up all my comatose siblings. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a toddler shouting "BOO!" in your face at the crack of dawn. 


It's been a calm Christmas so far. We've just been home- no big out of town gatherings, thanks to my burgeoning belly and fear of delivering on the 401. Luke is done his exams and doesn't resume school until January 9th. I'm all done work for mat. leave. It's all very lovely. 


I'm taking these final quiet moments to relish our little family of three and prepare a big part of my heart to welcome number four. We're so excited to meet her, even if we did nothing at all this Christmas, I think it would still be one of the best I've ever known. 






Merry Christmas everyone! I hope it brings each of you some small measure of peace and joy.

Yep...

The fridge is clean.


Cutlery drawer has been scrubbed and reorganized.


The bedroom closet is purged.


Every square inch of carpet is vacuumed.


Tops of artwork have been dusted.


Window sills have been scrubbed.






Day one of maternity leave. I think the nesting phase has begun. 


:| 

9 months!!!

We are officially done 36 weeks, or 9 (lunar) months of pregnancy. On Thursday we will be "full term" and good to go at any time... any time at all.... Wednesday would also be fine....

Where are we now?


Things that are kind of crummy: 

I am HUGE. 

On Friday, I visited the Children's section of the library with Judah. The conversation with the two librarians on duty went something like this....

Librarian 1: "So, when are you due?"

Me: "On January 12th."

Librarian 2: "January? Not December?"

Me: "Nope...January."

Librarian 1: "They have your due date wrong."

Librarian 2: "Definitely. That baby is huge."

Librarian 1: *nods knowingly*

Me: "Ok... do you have any books about trains?"

To the librarians' credit, I am suddenly measuring ahead of our gestational age. Up until this point in the pregnancy, I've been bang on - measuring 34 at 34 weeks etc. Then this week, week 36, baby is suddenly measuring 38! 

Eeeep. 

Time to cut back on the Christmas chocolate.

Luckily, the growth has remained completely centralized in my belly. I retained water at the end of the pregnancy with Judah. Like, a lot. You could have wrung me out and used me as a sponge. As a result I regained the chubby cheeks of my youth. Adorable on a 2 year old, not so cute when you're 25. This time, it's all belly, all the time. 

All belly, all the time, unfortunately means that "simple" tasks like rolling over in bed, require full wakefulness and a good deal of concentration and sighing. Needless to say, between 3 am bathroom trips - "MAMA! Me do it!!!" *Judah in a sleepy stupor stumbles into the bathroom to ensure he is the only one in the household who flushes the toilet...
midnight diaper changes -"Mama, Me need a new diaper!" *drops wet diaper on pillow beside head... 
and the antics of our street at night  - "Dude, I totally just left my pants like four blocks ago!"...
A solid night of sleep is a distant memory. All in good preparation for baby's milking schedule. :|

Things that are awesome:

Baby has dropped! Hopefully, the only time you'll hear mothers celebrating the dropping of their babies is when baby is still an internal organ, and not a suddenly delicate, tiny little outdoor creature. In my case, baby dropping means I can breathe again! My ribs can point inwards again! And I can climb a flight of stairs without sounding like I smoked a pack of Marlboro's on the way up.  


I'm almost done work! I work with an amazing group of people. I also work from home. I'm an extremely lucky person. Even so, I'm really happy to be wrapping things up on the work front. I'm ready to nest, rest and start this new chapter of our life as a family of four. 

Cravings this month?

Pomegranates! A little Persephone is perched on my bladder. 

CHOCOLATE! Doesn't matter how good or bad, large or small. No chocolate- be it sprinkle or bar- is safe within my visual range. 

Otherwise, this month my appetite has decreased significantly. Funny how you can't eat much when a tiny tenant is using your stomach for a foot rest. 

Judah's thoughts on baby now?

This month Judah is positive that the baby in mommy is "Baby Doe" aka - Joe, the baby brother of his friend Tobin. I'm not sure how he thinks Joe can co-exist, both with his family and in me, but apparently, he does. He frequently gives "Baby Doe" toys to play with. Baby Doe, so far, has proven a pretty boring playmate and the sessions are brief.


Judah is also fond of explaining to people that I can't carry him around anymore, because "Mama has a whole baby in dere!" However, when his shoes bother his feet, or it's getting close to nap time, he'll make an exception and ask "uppy mama?"


He has also taken to having mad jumping sessions in the crib. I hope baby is born with a helmet at the very least, she's going to need it. 

Finalists- woot woot!

We made it as one of the three international finalists in Ohdeedoh's contest. Best of all, it's an all-Canadian list!
Voting only goes until noon tomorrow.

If you would be so kind, do give Neve's Lemon Drop Nursery a little vote :)

http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/family/your-finalists-vote-now-for-your-favorite-colorful-international-room-small-kids-big-color-2011-162861