Sweet Yet Sour

Here we are at the beginning of the 37th week of my pregnancy.  That means at most I have 3 more weeks until my son enters the world.

12 days.  12 wonderful days – that’s how many consecutive days since the beginning of December I have not been sick.  Otherwise I have been battling a cold or stomach virus each week.  Apparently for this pregnancy my immune system completely shut down.  As I sit here with my trusty box of tissues with lotion and my Mentholatum, I can only hope that it will come back up after the baby is born.  During my 12 days of not being sick I was able to visit with friends and have my baby shower – so I should probably be grateful.  I sincerely wish that I was one of those wonderful people who never complains and is always perky, despite being sick, but unfortunately for Mike – I’m not.  I’ve been sick, grumpy and unable to sleep for the past few months and he’s been such a great husband throughout.

I’m at the point in the pregnancy where sleep is generally a problem anyway.  The baby is so large and heavy at this point that turning over is something that requires a forklift and a major pillow shift.  I sleep on one side for a little, until the bottom hip begins to hurt, and then I have to turn over, move the pillows that are under the baby belly and behind my back and start the whole process again.  I generally have to pee at least 4 times a night, and with this latest cold, I wake up to cough or sneeze fairly often.  This latest cold did bring some relief to Mike however – I lost my voice on Wednesday and didn’t really start to get it back until Saturday- so he has been spared some complaining…

I’m also at the point in the pregnancy where I go in to see my midwife every week.  Don’t worry – I’m not one of those “Do It Naturally At Home with a Midwife” kind of gals. My midwife is a certified Nurse Midwife, so when the time comes, I meet her at the hospital, she hangs around, but not annoyingly so, and then if something goes wrong there are nurses and doctors around to help.  It worked out great with her for Anna and I’m glad that I have her support again for this second pregnancy.  I can clearly remember a conversation I had with her last time that went like this, “Dorrie, the breathing isn’t working is it?”, “No, Jayne, it isn’t.” to which she replied, “Epidurals are our friends.”  Damn that was good advice!

At last week’s appointment the midwife did some checking and announced that I was making progress, but we weren’t going to have the baby this weekend.  This all has to do with the state of my cervix, the status of which I am going to spare the details of – it’s the internet after all.  I have lately been having lots of contractions and with the lack of sleep was pretty much hoping to go into her office and come out a few hours later with a baby.  There comes a point in my pregnancies where I get to a “I’m done with this crap” point and I am so there…

On the homefront I have been nesting a little.  The baby’s room is as decorated as I can get it right now – we’re doing a farm animals theme with red as our main color.  I got so nesty this past week I scrubbed a few baseboards, and even picked up all of the dog poop in the yard – although what contact the baby will have with the backyard is beyond me.

We’ve also been trying our best to prepare Anna for what is about to happen.  We talk a lot about the baby and how when the baby comes she will go her Aunt’s and Mama will go to the doctor.  If you ask her what babies do Anna says, “Cry”.  She visits the baby’s room a lot, mostly to find her old toys and say, “It’s mine!” and we have been reading her a book about being a big sister.  This will be a bumpy road for her coming up, but I’m hoping that all this prep will make it a little less of a shock.

Hormones willing my next post will be a post of pictures of my son and how the whole birth thing went down.  But if I get bored in the meantime, I’ll post some pictures of the cutie/soon-to-be big sister.