I Don't Know Whether to Blame Baby or Blondeness

I had another doctor's appointment yesterday afternoon. After being weighed (always a pleasant experience when you're pregnant, trust me), I was sent to the bathroom with my sterile cup to provide the standard urine sample.

I went in, did my business and was fastening my capris (mentally noting to sling the waistband under my burgeoning belly so my doctor could measure my tummy and listen to Baby's heartbeat) - then looked at the sink and saw the still-sealed specimen cup, which was empty.

There have been eight doctor's visits, and each one has maintained certain elements - like providing a urine sample. I have no idea where my brain went for that block of time. I was left wondering whether I should rush into the exam room, glug the entire contents of my water bottle and try to put a rush order through to my bladder OR put pressure on my bladder to deliver even just a little more. Thankfully only a few drops are needed for the tests they run, so Option #2 worked well.

Could've been worse. One of my girlfriends spent the morning of her birthday providing a urine sample at an OB appointment while her 4-yr-old serenaded her with "Onward, Christian Soliders."

At least my dilemma didn't have a soundtrack.

It's Official

...I'm now a certified fuddy-duddy.

Just consider what splendiferous find I rejected this afternoon: perfect maternity underwear from Victoria's Secret.

I made a trip to the mall today to stop by Old Navy and do some other things. Walking past VS, I glanced at the windows and did not a double-take, but a triple-take. One of the mannequins was wearing what I can only describe as reverse-thong underwear: material for both sides of the gluteus maximus, but a gap of material in-between to display the cleft between the buttocks. Don't worry about the whole modesty thing; there were three perky pink satin bows holding the gap closed like safety pins across a gaping tear.

My response: What on earth would you wear over such an underthing? Panty lines have nothing on outlines of bows under a skirt or pants.

My mom's response when I described them: How does one sit down in them? Isn't it uncomfortable to feel bows embedded into one's rear?

Trent's response (which cracked me up): Does this mean you'd no longer have to put your underwear down to go to the bathroom?

Hallelujah that I'm past the age where I would have pooh-poohed this publicly but secretly wanted to have the body to wear them. Now? I wholeheartedly, 100% consider them utterly, insanely ludicrous.

Victoria can keep this secret, for all I care.

I've Got a Terminal Disease...

That's the only explanation I can find where medical insurance is concerned. Outside of being on an employer's plan and not going without coverage for more than 60 days, any insurance company considers pregnancy a pre-existing condition and will not cover someone in my situation: we moved, I had to give up prior insurance (since I was no longer working for the same place), Trent's employer has a reimbursement plan for insurance instead of plans through the company and... we'll be paying the remainder of Baby Stanley's costs out-of-pocket.

I'm really glad we moved from an area where prenatal care and a normal delivery runs $7,000-$10,000 to an area where it's just over $5,000... -Oh, and happy parenting!

In other news, I've come to resemble a storm front: I have my own leading edge. As I explained to Trent today, I no longer bend at the waist - I have to tip forward. Pregnancy is not an upright proposition. I must either tip (to reach forward) or recline (when seated). Here's hoping I can maintain at least a 30 degree range of motion forward and backward until delivery - Trent will have to be tying the drawstring on my shorts/pants, not just tying my shoelaces.

What on Earth Have I Been Doing?!

It continues to astonish me how little I do during the day, yet how little energy I have... Today, I can only say I read, worked on a gift for a friend, attended a home party for Usborne[sic] Books, and slept. It was supposed to be a nap to catch up on missed sleep the night before.

I went to bed at 1:15 p.m. and woke up at 5:06 p.m.

So much for that grand idea of getting back on a 'normal' schedule... I'm only just now feeling sleepy again.

Master, the Monster is Alive!!!

This morning I woke up and thought I had a knot in an abdominal muscle from my sleep position. I probed the knot to see how deep it was - and it moved to the other side of my rib cage.

Revision of diagnosis: knot!=cramp; knot=baby appendage

Talk about bizarre... For a few minutes I felt all over again like I'm hosting some kind of alien that's going to burst out of my abdomen when it's fully matured. Trent told me we won't be watching any of the "Alien" movies or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" between now and when the baby's born to prevent nightmares.

The kicks/jabs/punches are getting stronger, too. Trent's had his ear against my stomach a couple times now and gotten kicked in the face. Whether Baby knows it or not, he/she has already received lectures about not kicking Daddy. : )

Baby's First Tornado Warning

In the Midwest, severe weather is a foregone conclusion, particularly in spring/early summer or winter. Last night was Baby's first [in utero] exposure to incoming storms... Lights off, local radio station on, all people in the house with flashlights, waiting to see if the sirens blew or not, guys at the windows to watch for the approaching damage, etc. This last item must be a control thing, since it's hard to see anything approaching at 11 p.m.

As usual, the storm actually split around our small town. I'm sure once would be enough, but just once - once - I'd like to actually see a tornado. I feel like my Midwest membership is in question until that day.

Don't get me wrong: it was nice to have a roof over our heads this morning and have everyone in the family alive and uninjured.

Welcome back to springtime in Iowa.

Woo-Hoo!

Read 'em and weep: 10 straight hours of uninterrupted sleep last night. YAY!!!

Now... if I could just convince my three-year-old nephew to sleep past 7 a.m., the rest of the family would be set.

I Got Those Benadryl Blues...

Would someone please tell me how I'm supposed to "get sleep while you can before the baby comes" if my body didn't get the same message?

Sleep has become like a logic problem, with a rapidly decreasing number of solutions. Lying on my stomach? Um... You try sleeping draped over a good-sized melon and let me know how long you last.

Lying on my back? If pregnancy books are to be believed, the baby will (uncaring) cut off blood returning to my heart from my legs as casually as stomping on a garden hose. The result is numb legs and lower oxygen delivery to the baby - it kind of makes me wonder if we're masochistic from conception.

Lying on my left side? This, according to experts, is best. For whatever reason, my body responds to this position by putting the entire left side of my rib cage to sleep - numb, but with tingling sensations that don't let up. It's like trying to sleep while lying on a vibrating massager from Homedics.

Up until last night, lying on my right side worked (provided the pillow configuration was correct; I'm up to four pillows now, three regular-sized, one body pillow). Last night I was determined to get a full night's sleep, so I took two Benadryl. I knew I'd wake up the morning after with a really dried out nose and mouth, but I value sleep more at this point than moist nasal passages.

Last night the Benadryl betrayed me. I learned later that antihistamines can kick off Restless Legs Syndrome in pregnant women. RLS is a lovely, innocuous acronym for a tingling sensation or even waves of pain in your legs. The mind associates the sensations with muscle cramping or nerves falling asleep. Solution? Move your legs. Problem? To sleep, you have to ignore these sensations for X amount of time until you fall asleep.

I finally fell asleep in a recliner in the family room around 2:30 this morning, trying to keep my mind off the tingling. I woke at 4, moved to a couch, slept 'til 5:30, then went back to bed and crashed until after 10.

No Benadryl tonight. I guess my body will let me sleep when I really need it.

Chinese Water Torture

I decided last Friday to bathe our two dogs (one 70 lbs., the other 45-50 lbs.). I'm not completely clueless - I used a wading pool and a hose.

My miscalculation didn't involve forgetting shampoo, tying the dogs up as I washed them, or even wearing my swimsuit (all of which I remembered). No, my error in judgment wasn't clear until that night when I realized I'd gotten badly sunburned - as in, you can tell what sort of back my swimsuit has without my swimsuit being anywhere in the vicinity.

Problem #2 (which resulted in the Chinese water torture analogy): I'm just enough allergic to sun that my skin itches unbearably for the 48-72 hours following a bad sunburn, even when I've used lotion with lidocaine on it.

Trying to get a full night's sleep while 5 months pregnant and suffering the allergic reaction of a sunburn is futile. I can state with certainty that the clock beside my bed is still functioning at each hour of the early morning - I've seen it.

I'm still fighting the urge to scratch my shoulders.

Crashing

So sorry for the lack of posts... No sooner did we close out a chapter of our lives (put our house on the market, give notice at our jobs, pack up, say goodbyes and move to the small town where I grew up) then my husband started his new job and my body rebelled. For the last two weeks I've had cold #4 since January - massive congestion/runny nose (would someone PLEASE explain how these two things can happen at the same time?!) interrupted with hacking coughs. I usually get one cold every other year. Greater love hath no mother, I guess.

Headed an hour south today with my sister-in-law (who is also expecting) to the nearest Target. It's baby registry time! Hopefully she won't feel nauseated and I won't feel absolutely drained by the time we get home. Maybe lunch and I.C. mochas at Panera plus a visit to Barnes & Noble will help...

Put in Perspective

I got an email from a buddy stationed in Iraq; his unit is one of those patroling Baghdad, and up until now, it's been pretty boring (his words).

Not so anymore:
Things have been quiet in Baghdad since we got here... stuff happens but not around our area. Maybe we get some info about some guys who are anti-coalition and we do a raid and sometimes we find weapons. Mostly it's like being a beat cop... you ride around watching to make sure everyone is behaving. It really doesn't give me much to talk about...

That changed last night. Our 1st platoon, while out on patrol, took contact from about three men, and while distracted, another man drove a car filled with explosives into their squad. Two of my friends were killed instantly... four others were wounded, two of them severely enough to warrant them being moved to a higher level hospital in Germany. Needless to say, the mood has been pretty gray here all day... there are questions that seem to have no answer, and things don't make sense... trying to think about what happened is useless, because our minds can't fit around the situation... we just all somehow know that we lost two of our brothers last night to an act of terrorism.

Make no mistake: it has not shaken our resolve to carry out our mission here and fulfill our sworn duty to the people of the United States and to the people of Iraq whom we vowed to defend... I believe that if anything it will strengthen our will to rid this country of terrorists.

The reason I let you all know about this is so that you can continue to pray for the guys here, specifically for the six fallen men. One of the KIA's was twenty-two years old, married with an unborn child... he had plans to attend college and pursue a degree in sound engineering. The second KIA was a twenty-year-old kid, unmarried, who was dedicated to serving the country in the army... he talked about nothing else. He was like everybody's kid brother, always tagging along trying to do what the big kids were doing... he wanted to go out for Special Forces with me when we got back after this deployment. I think he would have made it, too, with a little more maturity... he certainly had the heart.

So... please remember them and their families... they will need your prayers.

I am and will remain safe in God's hand - I love you all very much.

God bless and keep thee, even though you're half a world away - I'm fiercely proud of being able to call you my friend.

From Ships to Shoes to Sealing Wax...

-no cabbages or kings today, though; my apologies to Lewis Carroll.

I work in a front office as the main secretary, and the broad ranging requests I get... I've had to track down a missing baby gerbil, figure out when a wood-carving class met, answer a question of whether rain fell on the earth prior to the Great Flood - you name it, I've probably had it.

Today it included figuring out which genus specie of fig tree was the biblical one and how tall they grow (ficus carica and 30', if you wanted to know) and if it's possible to make gummy candy at home.

I'm an information geek; I like to know how to do things or what they mean or how they work. The internet and libraries (to say nothing of bookstores) are my friends - particularly this site, which is a gathering site for used bookstores around the world. I've found all kinds of incredible deals on books there...

Is it any wonder I'm paranoid I'll have a child that doesn't want to learn?

Life is Never So Bad...

...that it couldn't be worse. I don't know if 'worse' in this case is that Ms. Spears is about the same point in her pregnancy as I am in mine, or if 'worse' would be going through pregnancy under the hot lights of tabloidal glare. Just imagine if there'd been eager photographers snapping pictures of me at 5:30 this morning regurgitating a recently-ingested pear down the garbage disposal...

I would say that pregnancy symptoms and Hollywood don't mix, but hormonal swings, a skin glow, weight fluctuation, mammary alteration, appetite abnormalities, marital miscommunications and unaccountable brain absences are right up Hollywood's alley. Maybe I should be saying that Hollywood's the perfect place to get pregnant; I mean, c'mon... who'd notice a difference in behavior?

Recipe for Insanity

Take one (somewhat) normal couple, add two lab-sized dogs and allow to marinate for a couple years.

Now add in a pregnancy, a job change (out of state), sorting/packing/staging/selling a house, moving aforementioned dogs and blend for a period of three weeks.

We move May 2nd.

I think I'm gonna' cry - that or sleep for the next 20 days; I don't know which yet.

Nesting and No-no's

Hel-looo, nesting instinct...
Last night I wiped down all kitchen cabinets and drawer fronts (38 of those turkeys) with Orange-Glo wood cleaner/polish. You'd have thought the Midwest had its first citrus grove.

I also attempted to clean the brass pulls for all of those doors and drawers, which was less successful. Now, I may be nesting, but I'm not stupid; no scrubbing for hours with a rag and nasty-smelling metal polishing agent. I found a site that said I could soak them in ketchup or vinegar for two hours, wash with cool water and a soft nail brush, and voila! Bright, shiny, clean brass pulls!

I overlooked a gross assumption: you must first have brass pulls. Ours, I discovered while scrubbing, are brass-plated pulls.

Turns out two hours in vinegar removes brass plating. Who'd a'thunk it?

-Oh, and we realized this morning that after unloading groceries last evening, we forgot to close the driver's side back door on my car. It was still open this morning. Hallelujah for the neighborhood we live in; I think the pregnant-stupids must be contagious...

A New Four-Letter Word

I've discovered a new four-letter word for expectant moms - 'chip.'

While we were at my in-laws for Christmas, I was introduced to Plocky's Black Beans 'N Rice chips. We took two bags home with us, which were gone in a week. When we were down there again this last weekend, two more bags came back with us.

My doctor said to avoid foods that start with C except for fruits, veggies and chicken. I asked about chocolate (since I'm a dark chocolate fiend), and when he said it started with a C, I responded that "Andre's" (a Swiss chocolatier in the area) didn't.

Well, I've decided 'chips' might be bad, but 'black beans 'n rice crisped tortillas' aren't - esp. with mildly spicy cheese dip. Yum, yum, yum... I'll lay you odds that first bag will be gone in a day or two. [crunch]

Movement

Me this weekend at my in-laws, to my husband: "I felt the baby move this morning."

H: "You did?!" [w/ an instantaneous, lit-up grin]

M: "I think so..."

H: "What did it feel like?"

M: "Kind of like a muscle twitch, only one I wasn't moving."

I really have no idea how to explain it. Part upset stomach that isn't gas? Kind of spasmodic and innocuous, but could possibly become injurious if it increases in force? I don't go along with the whole 'butterflies in my stomach' feeling. I know no butterflies that could give me that sensation - and besides, I've been in too many nerve-wracking performance situations to confuse that feeling with 'complete other being moving inside me.'

How wrong of me is it to rejoice in having felt movement at 17 weeks when all the books I read said 1st time mothers normally feel it at 18-20 weeks? I can't tell if I'm rejoicing in my apparent over-achievement or Baby's. Either possibility has frightening soccer mom implications.

Now I Know Why 1+1 = 3...

In bygone days when I was single, I had times when I wondered if I'd lost my mind. Meeting people I'd only spoken with online, for instance. Well, I no longer wonder... I know.

Q: What kind of engineer agrees with Barbie that math is hard?
A: A pregnant engineer.

I've lost my ability to do simple arithmetic. We're not talking complex polynomials, here; I mean mistaking 328 for 330 or having totals off by more than 100. I'm even losing some of my language abilities - yet another argument for waiting a few years in my marriage before having kids: at least there's a prayer my husband can figure out what I meant to say.

"Did you let the corn out yet?"
"You mean the dogs?"
"Yeah."

No wonder one of my friends calls the 2nd trimester the "Pregnant stupids" stage.

Humility, here I come.

What kind of world is this? Is just ANYONE allowed in?

Maybe there's something about impending parenthood that creates a lower idiot tolerance threshold... I'm with someone who posted a feedback comment on a blog I read who said, "It would be really handy if every keyboard was equipped with a 'Dumb---' key that we could use as a shortcut to comment on guys like this."

Amen.

I know they make universal remotes to mute/turn-off TV's in public places; can they make a version that mutes/freezes/immobilizes people? I'd like one for my keychain. or situations like this one... or this one. (I'd personally like to use it on both parties in that last instance)

Saving the Chest for Last...

Pregnancy has, er, significantly altered facets of my physique.

I'm not suddenly an automatic implant suspect in the spirit of, say, Spamela Anderson, but I could technically give a believable interview at Hooters - at least until my stomach protuded from beneath the skimpy halter top. Do they have redneck-ian versions of Hooters?

Though I used to think it might be nice to be more well-endowed, now I'm not so sure. I keep running into these things. Rolling over in bed at night was never so fraught with peril. Before, things stayed put and out of the way of arms, pillows, other skin... Now? There's immediate pain if I forget to factor in added bust size - never mind that it's 2 a.m., when my brain is always on vacation and I'm never in a pleasant mood.

It's also dismaying to realize that outfitting these new features could cost a significant chunk o' change. I have plenty of serviceable bras - and they used to fit, and may someday fit again, post-baby. For now? I really don't cotton to the idea (or silk, for that matter; har har) of shelling out X times $20 to make sure I'm decently attired above the waist. I'm down to four that I can wear - and let me tell you how slim the wardrobe can get if all you have clean is a bra that's navy blue. Sheesh.

So... they're nice to have for test drives; I like a bit of the gratis 'feminine mystique' they grant me, but... can I have mine back? Please?