So I was feeling .. off? .. yesterday and had an already scheduled doctor’s appointment. I knew I felt weird, but didn’t realize I was showing it as obviously as I was. (I only realized it this morning, when I came back into work and people were 1) surprised to see me back and 2) glad that I wasn’t “looking like [I] did yesterday”.)
We’re in the phase of weekly checks now, being this far along, but last week’s visit wasn’t groundbreaking or anything. No dilation, no eff..acing(?), but the baby was down. So that was a good start.
Then yesterday, I got the unexpected check that I’m already at 3 cm dilated and 75% effaced. For non-baby folks, that means that The wheels, they are a’turnin and everything kind of flew into high gear yesterday.
Well, I should clarify: things flew into high gear for everyone else yesterday. I really don’t feel like I’m in immediate Any day now! territory or anything. Bryan, however, was hesitant to let me out of the house, and instead went to buy a waterproof pad for my side of the mattress.
See, I just remember Tony’s last few weeks. This conversation happened every week, and happened again yesterday.
Me: So, I’ll see you at next week’s appointment!
Doc: Unless you have a baby before then, in which case we’ll cancel that appointment!
Which reminded me then (and now) of this conversation.
Dread Pirate Roberts: Good night. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.
So, no news on the baby front. Not really. I mean, this past weekend was ROUGH, but that was a combination of an ongoing sinus infection (BOOO) and the fact that the baby is head down and making his way toward the runway, causing painful back contractions. But my doc – whom, again, I love – just basically threw some antibiotics at me and told me to suck it up, buttercup and so I’m doing just that.
Mother’s Day is coming up, and there’s a certain feeling when Mother’s Day falls when you’re nine months pregnant. That feeling is I DON’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING AND EVERYONE LEAVE ME ALONE, but I’m going to repress that. We have our final soccer game on Saturday (weather permitting .. if it gets canceled again, I’m going to go insane), plus a family visit on Friday night, and then a Mother’s Day Brunch on Sunday. I’m excited about Sunday because, well, FOOD. I am, however, debating wearing pajamas because do you know how much fun it is to wear real clothes now? The answer is: negative. Negative fun.
In trying to find the silver lining, I will say that having the baby lower is helping quite a bit with the crippling heartburn AND the breathing issues. Also, he we play high-five through my stomach. I like balancing bowls and things on my stomach and watching him knock it off.
I’m starting a list of shows that I should watch during late night feedings. So far, I have Mad Men, Justified, Game of Thrones, and possibly Duck Dynasty. I don’t know anything about the latter, but folks seem to like it. And the rest of my list is a little drama-heavy. Am I missing anything? Oh, probably Downton Abby. I don’t know how I lived through a baby before DVR.
There is currently a Verizon commercial running that features a little redheaded boy growing up and while that description doesn’t exactly sound groundbreaking, it RIPS ME APART every time. The realization has hit our house that in a matter of weeks, we will house not only a newborn but a thirteen year old. A teenager and an infant. BECAUSE WE ARE INSANE. And OLD.
Ooooh, and this: I am TERRIFIED that I will have this baby on Jack’s birthday. Wouldn’t that just be awful? Like, I am debating asking for an induction two days prior OR a written guarantee that June 2nd will NOT be the day, because I cannot imagine taking the child’s birthday from him. His thirteenth birthday, of all things.
Also, funny story: for weeks now, Tony has been talking about being onstage at Chick-Fil-A. Well, you know, he’s five and he makes up wild stories anyway, so we’ve kind of just ignored him. But then he started asking me about when I was onstage at Chick-Fil-A. So we wondered where we’d led him astray, thinking that there was a stage inside a fast-food restaurant. Then he mentioned that his pre-K’s teacher was a teacher at Chick-Fil-A. So I realized we needed to dive deeper.
“Chick-Fil-A, huh? Like, where we eat chicken? With the big slide?”
“No, Momma – where I’m going. In August.”
“The big school?”
“Yeah! The big school!”
“You mean, the Acad.. OOHHHHH, TRIPLE A.”
The Academy for Academics and Arts. Triple A. Chick-Fil-A. So now that we’ve got that ironed out, I need to figure out how many folks believe we’re sending Tony to receive an education at a place with exceptional chicken biscuits.
I am what most people lovingly (or not so lovingly) refer to as Type A. Also known as a Virgo. Also known as OCD. I like to be in control of all things at all times. And I want everything I touch to be perfect.
Usually, this can be turned into an asset. I’m known for killing myself over details, for working insane hours to make sure that everything is done and as close to perfection as anyone can muster. This also means I may pick up slack from others who don’t .. share my drive. It means that a lot, actually.
But we’ve reached a point in my pregnancy where I just. can’t. anymore. I’ve been trying – and it’s hard because last pregnancy? I worked until PAST my due date. Like, in the office, working 8-9 hour days two or three days after my due date, until my boss just finally got skeeved out at the thought of my water breaking at an event or a meeting. Even then, I worked virtually until the day of my induction. So I have this standard of insanity that I SET BY MYSELF that I’m trying to hold myself to. But this time is so different.
I have another kid, as it turns out.
My job is a bit more stressful now than it was then. (Although I love it! I really do!)
I’m in school.
This fetus is harder on my body than the last one.
While I’m textbook healthy – and therefore hate complaining – this pregnancy has been so MISERABLE. I’m not sleeping because I can’t get comfortable. I have allergies that are causing me to have a reflex dry cough that has caused me to vomit on more than one occasion. And y’all. Let’s not even TALK about my feet. I have ONE pair of shoes that fit. ONE. My feet/ankles/calves/knees swell to two or three times their normal size. To the point that coworkers stare at me with a mix of sympathy and disgust and say, “Oh, honey.” I KNOW.
I am HUGE. I literally cannot turn around in my shower without having to open the door to allow room for my belly. (It’s a standing shower, to be fair.)(NO, SCREW IT, THERE IS NO FAIR HERE.) I have to wake up to roll over, because it is an event. I get winded walking from my desk to the bathroom.
AND I STILL HAVE FOUR (and a half, in reality) WEEKS TO GO.
So we’re getting to the point that I’m just getting by. Work stuff gets done, but it gets done when I can get it done in a realistic (i.e. normal person’s) timeframe. If stuff is not getting done by the person who should be doing it – I’M LETTING IT GO UNDONE. (This is massively painful for me.) I am currently holding a high C average in the class that’s caused me heartburn all semester. I have an opportunity to retake the final for a better grade, but I’m really like, Meh. That’s passing.
The house is not spotless. I haven’t cooked in AGES. Bryan has picked up more than a fair share of the household duties and I just can’t help any more. It is all I have to not come home from work and go straight to bed. (Mostly to get my feet up.)
The boys’ room is done; they are now sharing a (pretty cool, if I do say so myself) room. The nursery .. well, we have a bassinet, so it’s not like we need a nursery on Day 1, right? RIGHT?
It’s only a small amount of weeks left, but each day seems so looooong (especially when I can’t sleep) that I don’t know if I can make it. (.. you know, like I have another choice.)
Right now, it’s all about just getting by. So that we can get better later.
I am currently living this song, although I don’t look half this good.
Everyone has read this amazing email from Julia the Sorority Girl, right? Um, if you haven’t and you’re easily offended, let me just suggest that you avoid this. But if you enjoy a woman articulately spell out her expectations, then I would suggest you take a quick glance. I think about Julia often, yesterday in particular.
We have made the decision to room the two older boys together while we list and sell the house, leaving the baby in a room by himself. I am still unsure that this is the RIGHT decision, because everyone ends up getting shafted by the newbie kid and I’m all Well, THIS is a great way to start of resentment of a new sibling! but you know? We have no room. This is life. I guess.
So we spent a good amount of money on a loft/bunk bed that utilizes the boys’ existing beds (a twin over a full size) and we paid for the delivery and assembly because, HELLO, I’m eleventy frillion months pregnant.
Randomly, they called us mid-morning yesterday from outside of our home with the bed. That had not been scheduled or coordinated. And I offered to come home in just a mere hour to accept the delivery and facilitate the assembly, but they said this was an EXPRESS delivery and they’d be leaving town immediately. So we gave them access to our empty garage, where the bed still sits in boxes.
Agitated, I contacted Customer Service because, you know, STILL TOO PREGNANT TO ASSEMBLE A LOFT BED. I waited for a response, and then they responded. With a $50 store credit, if I choose to accept that gracious offering.
I basically looked like this.
“You bring this to me? To my table? THIS?”
And I thought, Man, I would hire Julia in a heartbeat to handle this for me right now.
I am just currently a level of tired that I didn’t believe was humanly possible. Just moving.. ANY movement, at all.. is just a herculean effort. One that brings a string of grunting and curse words because my belly? Is massive. I cannot sleep on my back because my vital organs fear collapse under the weight of my massive belly. Sleeping on my side is fine for about two hours at a stretch, but then my hips are all WTF, SARAH? and I have to adjust. I cry a lot at night.
I remember (vaguely) with Tony that I had the “nesting” phase about now, where I got a sudden break from the tired and was all LET’S DO ALL THE THINGS!, but.. I don’t think that’s happening this time around. The swelling? Is exhausting. Whereas the swollen feet were just a nighttime joy before, now I wake up with them swollen and by night, I can’t walk anymore. My fingers are swollen. MY GUMS ARE SWOLLEN. This child, man.
I am looking at another potential month of this. Which is fine. The end is in sight.
This is unrelated to anything, other than Bryan and I now spend several nights a week in bed by 9:00 and watching funny videos on YouTube. He showed me this one half-heartedly, thinking I wouldn’t find it funny, and then I almost wet my pants.
Lastly: Tony came to visit me in bed one evening (I had my feet up) and he was just giggly. I asked what he had been doing and he confessed that he was drawing. For his princess. Olivia. And I was all – cautiously – SAY WHAT NOW ABOUT THIS FLOOZY? and he admitted that Olivia was his princess and he was her prince.
(He drew her a ROCKET SHIP, for pete’s sake.)
I hissed at Bryan – who was supposed to be SUPERVISING THE CHILD, not allowing him to become betrothed through crayon – if he knew about this. Did he know about this Olivia child?
“Yeah, she’s the little blonde-headed girl,” he said, NONCHALANTLY.
“WHAT? Well.. is she cute?”
He looked at me blankly. “Yes, Sarah. She’s a total hottie AT FOUR YEARS OLD.”
Let me tell you about this thing they call Baby Brain.
Because it’s REAL, y’all.
On Saturday, post-soccer game (the Limes scored a goal this week! and one of them was an actual point for THEM instead of the other team!), Tony went with my mom and dad and Bryan went with me to test drive some minivans.
This is not something I wanted to do, mind you.
In fact, I cried when I realized that this pregnancy meant I could never drive a Fiat. So a minivan? Meant that I was officially Mom of Many.
Anyway, so we headed over to CarMax, determined to drive a couple of models and then we’d come back later to buy. We looked at a nice Honda Odyssey, a Nissan Quest, a Toyota Sienna, and a Chrysler Town & Country. Since we were familiar with the Honda and the Toyota vans, we decided to drive a Town & Country.
And we LOOOOOOVED it.
We drove a 2012 model that had been a fleet vehicle, and when he showed us a 2008 model that was $4k cheaper, we said we’d take it. And we high fived ourselves at being done with car shopping within a two hour window. Because we were! WE WERE DONE. We figured we still could hit Babies R Us for the travel system before we even picked Tony up and we’d have TWO things off of our “Before Vinnie Gets Here List”. Giddy with the Crossing Things Off the List High, we cleaned out the Saturn Vue and Bryan handed me the keys to our new van.
We got down the road when .. things started going south. First, there was an overwhelming burning smell. Which, hey! Could be the A/C hadn’t been run in a while! And then the brakes kinda .. failed. And the car got REALLY loud in 4th gear. And all of these things put me into serious Braxton Hicks and Bryan made me turn the car around and we took it right back.
CarMax, admittedly, was AMAZING about all of it. They were incredibly apologetic (to which we were like, Um, we’re the morons that DIDN’T DRIVE THE CAR BEFORE WE BOUGHT IT), and within an hour, we drove off in a 2012 Town & Country. (Bryan drove. I was still .. contracting.)
Every resident with a penis in my house is currently felled by the insane amounts of tree pollen we’re suffering from here in the south. Tony’s poor eyes are almost swollen shut entirely and his face swells from the reaction, and Bryan’s just a leaky mess.
This is Bryan.
I mean, damn. I’m sorry that you’re allergic, but MUST YOU BE SO LOUD? (Seriously, poor guy. He’s been miserable for awhile.)
Anyway, so I went to the grocery store alone so I could hear myself think for awhile no one else had to be troubled. I sped through the aisles, having done the meal planning and list-making for the week, and swiftly loaded approximately $200 worth of groceries onto the checkout belt. (We.. have not been grocery shopping in a LOOOONG time. Because I’m tired.) I plopped my wallet out on the check-writing thing, and I noticed that my “old” keys (the set to the Saturn Vue) were missing from my purse, and I got all sweaty and panicky. Not because I needed them, mind you, but because I started to freak out that I had lost something. I am OCD. I do not lose things.
I was small-talking the cashier and the bag boy and frantically trying to find my keys – which, again, I did not need as the van has a weird key – and the time came to swipe my credit card. I went to my purse to grab my wallet and .. it wasn’t there.
“Wait, stop,” I said. This is such a nightmare. Like, literally. It is literally a recurring nightmare that I suddenly don’t have something I vitally need and now I’ve inconvenienced someone and embarrassed myself. And before I could stop myself, I WAS CRYING IN KROGER.
“I don’t have my walllllleeeeettttt,” I sobbed. Because I am a terrible mother, who loses her keys and her wallet and probably a child.
Both the cashier and the bag boy – teenagers, at most – stopped and stared at me, not really sure how to proceed. OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE. And behind me, a slightly-less pregnant lady had emptied HER cart of $200 onto the belt as well.
Finally, the cashier said, “Ma’am, it’s okay. Also, your wallet is pink, right?”
My eyes flashed with hope, “YES! How did you know that?”
She pointed to it. On the check-writing thing. Where I HAD PUT IT.
* Be pregnant. Enjoy it. Make it meaningful.
* Allow some wiggle room.
* As many overnight adventures as we can fit in.
* Refocus finances.
* Post-pregnancy, get back into running.
* Read a book a month (not school or work related).
* Get a bigger car. * Make a definitive decision about the house. * Get Tony in kindergarten. * A functional, happy Jack. * Get the boys to play frisbee golf several times a month.
* Make a difference in my community.
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About Sarah Lena
Mom to a 5 year old, StepMom to a 12 year old, and Wife to a 40 year old, Sarah Lena is busy. She is a wrangler of rocket engineers by day, and a student and voiceover artist by night. She has an unabashed love of food, local theatre, and beauty products.
