Week 30

Hooo boy! Is it that time already? I'm now 30 weeks along (or in my 31st week as Scott felt compelled to point out...thanks for that, Scott).
30 weeks.
30.
The big three-oh-my-friggin-gawd-why-the-hell-did-I-sign-onto-this-for-and-how-do-I-get-off-this-train week?
Yup. 30 weeks and the fear of giving birth to a full sized baby (or - cringe - oversized) is now in full swing.

Ahem...well the calendar don't lie so here's the updates for this week: Baby Center is here and the 3D preggo picture and info can be found by clicking here. Again, I refuse to subject you to the Visible Embryo's "artwork" but I did learn by reading the info there that Bug's irises are now pigmented (blue until well after birth and then we'll see). Other than that, everything they have to say is covered by the other blurbs.

Bug is doing well. She's getting very strong (ouch! ooof!) and more than a bit crowded these days if the amount of fidgeting she's doing is any indication. Also, now when she "fins" it is more like watching someone trying to stretch their way out of a plastic bag.
Weird.
Funny.
And sometimes, if you happen to be the plastic bag, not overly comfortable.

I'm not sleeping all that well but that could be due to any number of things, including Bug's little late night/early morning forays into interpretative dance. Since she actually seems to be a good little sleeper for the most part, I shouldn't complain...although I apparently just did.

I'm not quite sure why but suddenly I'm absolutely crazy about milk. I've always liked milk, loved it even, but these days I can't get enough of the stuff.

My Newly Dulcet Voice

Scott was away this weekend drinking copious amounts of froo-froo beer and playing golf with his buddies over in Victoria. Me? Well I spent the weekend running errands like buying a crib, matching paint swatches with the furniture we have yet to receive, buying maternity clothing that is suitable for fall/winter and shoes that will fit the snausages I used to call feet. It didn't quite fit the "lolling around eating junk food and watching chick flicks" weekend that I had originally planned, but them's the breaks.

Other than missing Scott, my main problem this weekend was exhaustion and insomnia. Although I was running my ass off all day, every day, I was too discombobulated by Scott's absence to actually sleep so I was up waaaay past my bedtime on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

My poor cats were also apparently suffering a bit of anxiety with Scott gone. Essentially, when I was home, I had 2 cats glommed on to me like Velcro OR 2 very whiny cats trying to figure out where I was so they could re-glom. Most times, this would be heaven for me but as the weekend progressed I was getting more and more tired which translated into a frightening dip in my tolerance. I still loved the cuddling but the whining? Not so much.

6:30 AM Sunday morning. Neelix decided it is time for me to wake up so I could a) pet him until he melted into a puddle of cat slobber and then b) feed him. We spent the next hour engaged in an epic battle of wills that ended in me screaming "SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUUUUUUUUUP!". Not very mature, I know, but it felt remarkably satisfying at the time.

Usually, that's where things would stop because Neelix is no dummy...he knows if I'm shrilling obscenities at him, it is time to be quiet for a little while but this time my tirade ended up affecting someone other than just him. Poor Bug had apparently been happily snoozing away because when I yelled at Neelix my stomach convulsed and then she began a series of painful internal gymnastics I'm sure were intended to be the fetal equivalent to a stern talking to.

I felt awful, first for scaring her and then for yelling at my cat so I immediately got up, fed the cats and petted Neelix while he happily chowed down and then shlumped back up to bed where I spent the next 45 minutes talking softly to Bug and reading her a couple of bedtime stories as an apology.

The moral of this story? I now definitely have to watch how I express myself because I don't want to upset my little passenger. Don't expect me to turn into Mother Goose or anything but now when I tell people off, I'll do it using my best dulce de leche voice on low volume. That way, people will have to lean in to hear me sweetly tell them where to go and what to do to themselves along the way.

Trials and Cribulations

I am now the proud owner of a piece of paper that says I spent an overly large sum of money on a crib that I may or may not actually receive prior to giving birth to the child said crib is intended for. My version is off white.

Has anyone else noticed that there's a pattern developing here of Scott and I buying furniture only to leave the store with vague promises of delivery weeks or months in the future? Just once I'd love to hear that they have it in stock and it can be delivered immediately...

I've also added a pic showing the bedding we bought last week although I can guarantee Bug's room will NOT end up looking like someone vomited pepto bismol all over the walls like in this photo. And do you see what I mean about the baby accessories? Good God! Everything in this bedroom is so matchy matchy that it makes my eyes itch. Ug! If you want to see a bigger version to look at the actual bedding rather than all the other distracting crap, just click on the picture and it should come up.

Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave...

I tend to cherry pick which societal rules I follow because I find so many of them rather stupid. (Yes, I'm one of THOSE people) I don't mean that I chose not to recognize the law or the golden rule or whatever. I'm talking about those rules that force us to say or do things we don't mean. I refuse to be forced to do stuff simply because some stuffy Miss Manners type with a stick up her ass way back when decided it was more important to appear perfect than to actually be genuine in what you do and say.

I also tend to ignore those societal rules that require us to lie. Generally, I suck at lying. No, really, ask anyone I've tried lying to and they'll back me up on this one. Mom? Scott? They pretty much laugh in my face when I occasionally give it a good old college try because it is apparently most often a pathetic exercise in futility. Needless to say, that's plenty of motivation for me to avoid situations where I am required to tell lies, even those little polite ones. I prefer approaching things the Worth way: silence, suppression and complete avoidance. In other words, I'll do whatever's necessary to keep my yap shut although I have been known to throw caution (and good sense) out the window on occasion by blurting out the awful truth (most definitely NOT the Worth way). Again, needless to say, I try to keep that to a minimum since it rarely ends well.

So how is this an issue for me these days? Well now that I'm showing, I've noticed I'm a mommy magnet. Complete strangers with strollers (or snuggles or Baby Bjorns) seem to gravitate towards other strangers with pregnant bellies. (Let's just call it "Leigha's Law of Maternal Gravity") People who would have never even said boo to me before are now lulled into a relaxed and friendly state by my big belly so they often start "stranger chats" with me. Nice, right? I kind of like it for the most part but what I've realized during these exchanges is that I'm expected to use that opportunity to gush about how incredibly cute their little one is, whether he or she truly is or not.

In other words, I'm expected to say something which I may or may not mean. eep!

How difficult is this, really? Honestly, in most cases it isn't difficult at all because I find babies the most fantastically cute things in the entire world BUT there are exceptions to every rule. I've come across a few babies in my life that seriously looked like a cross between Danny Devito, Rodney Dangerfield, and Mr. Magoo and therein lies my dilemma. Oh don't go rolling your eyes and thinking what an awful person I am...you all know you've seen kids like that and don't try to tell me you didn't walk away muttering to yourself, "oh now, THAT'S just unfortunate!" See? Not so evil now am I...just unfashionably honest.

I also know there are at least some of you who are thinking, "well just don't say anything in those situations then, duh!" Ah, if only it was that easy, my friends. If you say that, then you obviously don't know about "The Code." Apparently, once you are or are about to become a mother, The Code begins to apply and SOCIETY BEGINS TO DEMAND THESE LIES, DAMMIT and god help you if you buck The Code.

I am now seriously conflicted about how to deal with this inevitable encounter with a mom / ugly baby duo. I can tell you right now that this will not be one of those situations where I bite the bullet and tell it like it is. No way. Nope. Never. NEVER EVER EVER. Who could seriously look any besotted mother in the eyes and tell her that her beloved child is the most unfortunate blending of genetic smegma that you've ever seen? Not this little black duck.

There are a million and one reasons not to tell the truth in this case and I, for one, am perfectly happy to push the truth waaaay down, never to emerge. But can I always keep my yap shut? Will I always be permitted to do so? Probably not, but if at all possible I will try because I don't want to lie or (even worse) tell a poorly executed one. In the meantime, I'm going to work on developing a sentimental blind spot in the hopes that when that duo do come along I'll be prepared. Hey, if I have to practically sell a piece of my soul to pull off a kindly fib like that so the mom walks away none the wiser, I would count it a price well paid.

You are all, of course, NOT expected to gush about my little Bug since I don't want to subject you to the crappy etiquette rules I spent most of my life trying to circumvent but since I know she's the most beautiful child in the entire history of the world, I'm not overly concerned about uncomfortable silences in our future.

29 Weeks or Hie Ho, Hie Ho, 76 Days to Go

This pic is off the internet showing a baby that is 29 weeks along.

The Baby Center update (as sparse as it is) can be found by clicking on this link and the 3d rotatable picture and info is available for your viewing pleasure if you click on this. I know I usually post the link for the Visible Embryo website but since the visuals remind me of movie posters from "Night of the Living Dead" or "28 Days Later," I'm just going to leave that for now. Besides, the only cool stuff from that website indicates that Bug now has hair on her head (not lanugo) and her bone marrow and brain stem have now developed enough that they are operating as they should (producing red blood cells, regulating her body temperature, etc).

So what's up with Bug and I? She seems to be having a grand ole time swishing around in my uterus, blissfully unaware (or uncaring) of how difficult that can make it for me to get a good night's sleep. Most nights she's pretty good but last night she seemed to be as restless as I was and her movements were strong enough and painful enough to keep me awake or to wake me. Given how much I love my sleep, you would think I would have been a wreck half way through the night but I just can't seem to get upset when the reason I'm heading for sleep deprivation is that she's performing her little internal gymnastics. I know, I know...I'm already putty in her teensy little hands.

However, even without Bug's little nocturnal tumbling routine, last night was a bit rough because every time I moved to relieve the painful pressure point on my left hip my stomach would clench up, making me feel like someone was jabbing me in the gut with a hot poker. Being the magnanimous person I am (as I am sure you are all aware), I was expending a mighty effort to keep from screaming, grunting or crying so as not to wake up Scott but he's so dialed in to how I'm feeling these days he woke up every bloody time anyway.

So, I spent a ridiculous amount of time and energy last night awake smiling like a besotted eejit while our daughter pummeled my internal organs or in the throes of pain quickly followed by spousal guilt. Ah, c'est fun!

The Financial Hemorrhage has Begun...

On Friday I came to my most shocking realization yet: we've got about 10 weeks (give or take) to get our house and our lives in order before Bug comes and that, my friends, just isn't very damn long!

I know it sounds like I've spent more than half this pregnancy being surprised by the obvious, but for some reason I just can't help it. Every single time I think about certain things I'm struck by how scary and wonderful having a baby is, how unprepared I am and how incredibly excited and twisted up I am inside. You know, my typical self, but the bonus pack version NOW WITH 50% MORE CRAZY!

So with this realization came a renewed push to "take care of business" - aka buy the basics. Scott and I have been putting this off for quite some time. At first, we justified it by saying we wanted to wait until after a certain point to make sure that everything was going to be ok. Then, just when we thought we were in the clear, things got a little NOT ok so we used that to justify further procrastination. Mind you, we knew at the time that it was poor tactical thinking but it sure helped our sanity to wait until things settled down before dipping our toes into the baby shopping pool.

The problem is that now we're about 10 weeks away from D-day (Delivery Day) and Scott and I have bought exactly squat for Bug besides a cute little cloth doll (see pic in my Aug 1st post here). I imagine just about everyone reading this is thinking we're nuts but fear not, we've now fully immersed ourselves in the very scary (and ridiculously expensive) world of baby crap. Car seats, strollers, furniture, clothing, and...accessories? We need to accessorize our child? We need accessories to have a child? To care for a child? To keep ourselves from looking like idiots while fumbling around trying to figure out what the hell we're doing with our child?

Apparently so.

And what a bloody racket baby stores are running! They are like the bambino mafioso.

You need a stroller? Have we got the one for you...however, you'll probably have to sell your firstborn in order to afford it...

Oh you like that convertible crib? Here's the form to take out a second mortgage on your home...

No, this doesn't come with ANY of the features we have on display. Those will cost you an arm and a leg but we do have a special going on this week...you get to choose: right or left...

I swear, if I win the lotto, I'm going to set up a baby store. It is quite literally a license to print money and maybe THEN I could afford some of the junk we saw on sale this weekend. Gah!

Some good news? Well, we bought the cutest crib bedding AND I'm pretty sure we found her a crib we like with a price tag that didn't send us both running for the TUMS. Oh happy day!

Sir Walter's Legacy

I was riding the skytrain home yesterday when I realized something...all but one of the people who have offered me their seats on transit since I started getting noticeably preggers have been men.

All but one!

I realize that this post shows how much things have changed for me over the last few months. A couple of months ago I laughingly wished that someone might someday give me a seat on transit and now I actually have the gall to complain when - on occasion - I'm forced to stand.

My, my...somebody thinks she's more special than the rest of you now, doesn't she?

You have to admit though, it can't be a coincidence that the "offerers" are almost all from the same demographic - mature men. Absent from this gallant group? Teenagers, men under 30, and - surprisingly enough - women of any age.

I kind of understand the teenager thing because I'm not so old that I can't remember what a completely vacuous idiot I was back then. I was so wrapped up in my own little daily dramas (What do my friends think about this or that? Does this boy like me or my best friend? Does this outfit make my butt look big? You know, all the earth-shatteringly important crap that makes the Dalai Lama look like a poser) that I just didn't have room left in my pea-sized brain for ridiculous social niceties like politeness.

Men under 30? I'm not quite sure how to explain this one except perhaps to note that men mature so much slower than women. Maybe before they hit 30 they are still stuck in the teenage stage where nothing much makes an impression because they are too busy stewing about such mammoth issues as "what is the correct amount of hair gel to get that 'Edward Cullen' hairstyle the girls all seem to like without having it go all crunchy?" (Twilight movie reference for all you out there who aren't into vampires.)

Women though? Quite frankly, I'm baffled, befuddled, bewildered and bemused. (and apparently overly fond of synonyms for confused that start with the letter "B") Why? Well, there isn't a woman out there that is completely clueless about the discomforts of pregnancy, either through firsthand experience or via someone they know who clued them in and yet when I walk onto a bus or the skytrain suddenly every woman there finds their phone, grocery list, knitting, shoe laces or split ends the most fascinating things in the entire world. So fascinating, in fact, that they won't even look up if (and when) I accidentally step on their foot...and I know this from numerous instances where that has actually happened (remember...I can't see my feet, let alone anyone else's...)

Why do women always wait for a Sir Walter Raleigh to throw down his cloak for the damsel in distress instead of doing it themselves? What ever happened to feminine solidarity?

This realization has opened my eyes so never again will I let a pregnant woman stand without offering her my seat (you know, provided I'm not pregnant, tired or completely busy counting my split ends.)