I’m in the middle of being induced. Cer.vi.dil rts like a motherfucker.
Ok, so my fussing paid off. My blood pressure spiked (and returned to normalish thankfully) and my Dr. was willing to talk induction. So, provided there are rooms in L&D the whole shebang begins tonight!
Well, it’s the 12th. My due date. Day 280 of pregnancy. This whole, damn time, they’ve been prepping me for pre-term labor, and he’s been measuring ahead, so I’ve kinda been gearing up for an early baby.
Bull shit.
As of yesterday, day 279 or pregnancy, I was 1cm dialated and 30% effaced. A lot of women go through their whole pregnancy like that.
Fuck. [yes, I know that can help bring on labor but it one more person, particularly my sister, suggests that, I'm going to shoot them in the face. Not literally, but really? Don't ever suggest that I go have sex with my husband. Ever. Since when is that ever anyone's business?]
If you can’t tell, this is an angry pregnant lady rant. I’m tired of being pregnant, I’m tired of gaining weight, I’m tired of cervical checks, of back aches, stretch marks, and carpal tunnel. I want to be done.
So, in an attempt to let off steam, I’m going to give you a list of things that have made me angry this week.
1) people giving me asinine tips about going into labor. First, you’re probably a stupid redneck who’s perpetuating a stupid old wives tale. Second, it’s none of your GD fucking business.
2) people asking, “how’s Sam?” How the fuck do I know? I guess he’s fine. I mean here, let me pull out my x-ray glasses and super baby communicating gun.
3) people telling me to “tell Sam we said hi!” He doesn’t give a fuck. He’s living in a water filled sack. He can’t hear words. He has no idea who you are and frankly that’s just a bizarre way of continuing a conversation about the baby in which you probably told me to go have sex, and then go for a bumpy car ride as long as Sam said he was doing ok after I asked him.
4) Calling my child Sam-I-am just for the hell of it. Without asking. Ok, so only my sister does this. And it didn’t make me mad till she told me repeatedly to go have sex with the boy. Because she’s on spring break. And this would be great timing for her.
5) General redneckery. You know I had a co-worker tell me that I had to put my child in day care so that he could get really sick as a baby and be immune to colds and flus later? Yep. This coming from the man who came to work with lice. LICE.
6) Surprisingly, not my mother. As you know my mom is generally a source of great stress and anger, but she’s not lately. She asks for doctor’s visit updates and calls occasionally but seems to have picked up on the “stay out of my face” vibe. She’s been great.
7) Yelling. Seriously? Is it ever appropriate to just yell at work? Just because you feel like it?
8) Deductibles
I’m sure I’ll add to this list as the day goes on and I’m still pregnant.
..I figured I should write a pregnancy post. I am 9 days away from my due date y’all. 9 days. That’s two hands. Can you freaking believe it. It seems like 1000 years ago and like yesterday at the same time that I didn’t know if my pregnancy would make it past 9 weeks. Wow. God is so good. He’s good either way, but when he chooses to bless me in this way, it’s amazing.
Little Boy has been moving a lot. It’s turned pretty painful and he loves to sit in my ribs and smack my pelvic bones. He seems like he must be a pretty big kid because I have a very long torso and he’s taken up every last inch.
I have about 5000 angry stretch marks. Around 28 weeks, I got one that I named Thor and then Thor brought his army. I dunno if you’re familiar with the Battle of Stalingrad, but the success of the battle was based on the use of the pincer movement. Basically, the armies made a pincer around the city. Well, just think of my belly button as Stalingrad. It’s bad. They’re red and PAINFUL. Apparently, if you’re having a boy you’re more likely to develop some sort of rash over your stretch marks called PUPP and I’m pretty sure I have a minor version of that. Very, very, very itchy and very painful.
Currently, I’m a half a centimeter or so dialated and starting to efface. So..that’s good. But at 38w5d, I was hoping for a little more. After all my panic about the bicornuate uterus and pre-term labor, this Little Boy looks like he’s staying put for a good long time. I’m even still at work. It’s intense.
I just want to meet him. I want to see the wiggles in person and kiss his face and rub his tummy and see if he looks like me or The Boy. I’m ready to be a little family. I want to stop worrying about things like cord accidents, and 3rd degree tears, and shoulder dystocia. I want him here, safely and in my arms. Then I can move on to worrying about things like SIDS and Whooping cough..
Mm..that’s all I got for you. I’ll try to post some belly pics later this week 
It’s been a little while. I tried to share Disney’s Story of Menstruation (I kid you not) but apparently that link didn’t work too well. If you can copy and paste it though, it’s really worth a watch. You know, just in case you needed a cartoon to explain your body to you (again, I kid you not).
Well, I know that when the blogs I read don’t update for a while, I start to get antsy. I want something new to read, dammit! and then I don’t blog for months at a time, so here’s an update and because it’s been far too long, a “my mother is bat-shit crazy” story.
Tomorrow I will be 36 weeks y’all. We’re down to fingers on the count. No thumbs, 4 fingers. Thank God. I know that I will miss being pregnant when I’m done with this whole ordeal. I will miss someone jumping around every time I eat, and I’ll miss ultrasounds and little feet in my ribs. I’ll miss knowing he’s safely tucked away, too. But I will not miss the nausea, the back aches, the worry that something is happening to him that I can’t see, the feeling of not owning or controlling your own body. Those things, I won’t miss.
I’ll miss The Boy pampering me too. I mean he’s a good husband usually, but now that I’m pregnant, damn. It’s like being royalty around here. He says maybe he’ll keep that up simply for being the mother of his kid though 
I think one of the things I’m most worried about, and this may sound strange, is the placement back in the nether regions of infertility. It may seem like it, but having a baby, does not, a fertile, make. I’ve been able to feel fully woman, and even with all the strangeness of my uterus, and the bleeding and the nausea, strangely healed. The respite from feeling less than whole as a female has been beautiful. I mean outside of a mental health thing, I think I’ve just been all around healthier. For the first time, my hormones are in balance. I didn’t realize how out of whack they were and how much they affected my moods. So, when I’m not pregnant anymore, I really don’t know what to expect. Will I feel better than before? Worse? For some women, babies reset everything, for others, it makes is quite worse. I don’t know where I’ll fall.
But anyway. Things are going well. Too well for someone who wants a baby OUT as soon as 37 weeks hits. I’m 0% effaced, 0 cm dialated. I have rock star blood pressure and my weight gain is spot on. Yes friends, my baby is staying put. Everyone in my family goes early, even on first babies, but everyone in my family reproduces like rabbits, has a normal uterus and has their first child by 20. So, if I’m the first to break all those guidelines…why not be the first to have a late baby. We shall see. If he’s here healthy, I really don’t care when he decides to come.
There’s only been one rather large hiccup in the third trimester, my iron. Starting around 27 weeks, my iron started looking a little low. So, they told me to start iron supplements which, let me tell you, are a BEAST. I was way more nauseated, had other GI “issues”, felt dizzy. I mean these things were monstrous. I tried changing my diet, I tried new prescription iron pills and my body just couldn’t take any of it. Every time they checked my iron, it was lower. I was starting to feel fatigued all the time and even a little depressed. I thought this was just part of the 3rd trimester, but once my hemoglobin got below 10, my doctor said it was time to see a hematologist. Sitting in a waiting room full of cancer patients and $400 later, I was signed up for an iron infusion. They had to pump iron straight into my blood, folks. I still don’t know how much this cost, but whatever it is, I’m paying 20% of it. Moral of the story? Eat your spinach.
It was a pretty mundane. I went to an infusion room where old dying people were getting blood transfusions and trading colostomy bag stories (yep) and sat there for about 8 hours while iron dripped in to my veins. I had a mild allergic reaction which required a shot and a steroid, but it was all good. I was just a little fuzzy at the end of the procedure.
Now I know y’all were waiting for it, but here’s where the “My Mother is Bat-Shit Crazy” story beings. At the end of the infusion, I called my mom to let her know I was driving home. My mom has a hard time separating illness from death. For example, sinus infection=death, stomach flu=painful death, anemia/iron infusion/allergic reaction=SUDDEN DEATH. So I was calling to let her know I was ok, on my way home, and wouldn’t be going to work that night. She told me answer all of her calls and take a phone with me to the bathroom just in case I passed out. I said, “Fine, whatever.” But I assured her that I was fine, just tired and groggy and I just wanted sleep. But to humor this woman, I keep my phone with me at all times. At about 8 pm, my mom texted me to tell me something inane, I don’t remember. But I didn’t hear the text because there was a big storm where I lived and my reception was going in and out. But I did see the text come in and was able to respond. At that point in the evening, I was half asleep, so I quickly shot off a text telling her that the volume on my phone wasn’t working so I didn’t hear her text. My mom read “volume” as “I can’t hear you when you call me, so just keep texting.” So she did. Frantically, because apparently in my last text message I had misspelled two words. I don’t know what they were or how I spelled them, but I was tired and made the conscious decision not to fix either of them because I was tired and assumed my mother was smart enough to know that people don’t always spell things correctly when they are texting. That last bit was a big assumption. Unfortunately, right at this time, the storm got worse and my reception cut out completely and told neither me nor my mother. I like to think my phone was protecting me from my mother’s neuroses. I was able to put my phone down and get some much much needed rest and I received no phone calls or texts. My mother on the other hand was texting and texting and calling my husband (who cannot get to his phone) at work, and calling my dad and telling him to call me, because clearly people who misspell words in texts are GOING INTO ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK AND WILL DIE.
So while I’m blissfully recovering from a rough day at the hospital, my mother is doing her best to interrupt any and all healing on my part so that she can calm her nerves. Whatever. Now, I might be understanding if this has been going on for several hours. I would start to worry too. But this all happened within the span of one hour. My mom starts panicking as soon as she cannot get me to answer the phone. She spends one hour summoning all her cell phone powers to contact me. When that doesn’t work, rather than waiting and calming herself down she goes for the kill shot. Now, my sister and I have always known that she could and had threatened to do this if she couldn’t get ahold of us and thought something was wrong. She even warned me when I last talked to her, but I think we all give her the benefit of the doubt. We were wrong.
My mother’s trump card is 911. Yes friends, my mom, from her home two hours away, because I had misspelled two words on a text and dared to have spotty reception, called the police to check on me. THE FREAKING TAX-PAYER FUNDED POLICE. So, an hour and a half later I am awakened by three violent bangs on my door. Thankfully I had been sleeping on my couch (in decent pajamas no less) and could hear them. I could have easily been upstairs in my bed in my bra and underwear and had the police break in because my mother thought I was dying.
I almost didn’t answer the door because that kind of knocking is scary and who is banging on my door at 9:15?? I got up and looked out the peephole and saw two local police officers. At this point, I have no idea that my phone hasn’t been working, so I don’t know why they are there. The last person I had emailed was my husband who had offered to come home and take care of me. I told him I was fine and just to stay at work. But why do police officers come to your door that late at night when you aren’t having a party. 1) to tell you there is a criminal loose in your area 2) to tell you your family member has been in a terrible wreck. At this point my mind is racing back to my husband and the slick roads. It had only stopped raining a half hour or so before. I timidly open the door.
“Are you Ms. C?”
“…yes..” I’m frantically searching their faces for sympathy or sadness or something to clue me in what is going on, but as soon as I tell them my name they start to smile a little. So I smile a little, “Can I help you?”
“We received a call from your mother. Apparently, you misspelled a few words in a text message and then didn’t return any of her calls. She’s very concerned.”
“My mother?”
“Yes ma’am”
“You’re here because of a misspelling?” (at this point I am mortified and have on hand holding the door and the other covering my eyes)
“Please call your mother. She’s very worried.”
“Oh God. Yes, I will officers. Thank you for your time and I’m very sorry.”
So I called my mom and the second I picked up my phone I got all the alerts for the missed calls and texts. Thanks phone, thanks for that. She still stands by her decision and says she would do it again.
My mother is bat-shit crazy.
“They’re all very pretty. But i can honestly say I have seen few people who are as truely stunning as Kim. But man, she is retarded. I mean there is nothing going on in her head. Nothing. She’s attractive till she opens tht mouth.”
-
Sticking his tounge out
- Profile 2
So if you haven’t figured it out, I’m among the most paranoid mommas out there. This is part of why I don’t post as much any more. Everything scares me. Was that a cramp or a back ache? Am I leaking fluid? Do I have enough fluid? What if he’s a hermaphrodite?! I really do think these things several times every day. If I put them in a blog, I fuel my own fear and get the other crazy mommas out there going, “Go to the doctor now!” and then I really panic and drive my poor OB nuts. She’s such a sweetheart. She endures my paranoia and never ever makes me feel foolish for it. I will always recommend her.
But anywho. At this point Baby Sam has a routine. He wakes up with me by kicking the side of my stomach. We eat cereal and he does several flips and he calms down when I get in the shower. He’s pretty quiet through the day and then when I get home at night and eat an apple he puts on a show for Daddy by trying to kick through my stomach. It’s pretty routine. I mean there are minor variations, but I can usually count on it being pretty normal.
Wednesday night, Sam didn’t feel like kicking through my stomach. Not unusual, sometimes he just tires himself out during the day and he’d had a busy day. But then around 3 when I went to use the bathroom he didn’t kick, which he usually does. “Still tired, I guess.” and I went back to bed. Then he didn’t wake up with me. Then I ate cereal and only got about 1 lazy kick. Then I took a shower hoping the change in temp would wake him up. Nothing. I laid on my back to get him to kick through my stomach. Nothing. Rolled on my side. 1 more lazy kick. At this point, I was panicked. They say by 28 weeks you should get 10 kicks in an hour especially after eating and I was getting nothing. So I freaked out and called my doctor and got my sweet nurse who reassured me but said, why don’t you just come in for an ultrasound at 4. That was about 6 hours later, but I took it anyway.
My child is already a pleaser because about and hour after the call he started to pick up kicking a little more. By the time I was driving into the parking garage at the hospital he was smacking the back of my belly button. I guess he knew he was in trouble. I felt a ton better, but figured why not get the ultrasound anyway.
I had a biophysical profile/non-stress test. He had 30 minutes to do a series of motions and did them in 10. Perfect score on the test! So my little boy is healthy and I got lots of ultrasound pictures. I also found out that this kid is in the 60th-80th percentile for size. 4.5lbs at 32 weeks, people. He’s a monster! But he has lots of hair and apparently, my nose. So, for your viewing pleasure…
looking at his face straight on
I, like many Americans I’m sure, spent the earliest hours of 2011 puking. Unlike those Americans, I just don’t have a “last night when I was drunk” story. I just drank too much Crystal Light. So at this moment 2010 has been kinder to me.
Somehow, despite all the happenings in life lately, I just don’t have much to say, as I’m sure you’ve noticed from the lack of posting. In fact, I keep stopping this post to go over to my friend Rebekah’s blog because 1) she’s uber entertaining and 2) has the best blog roll of all time.
Maybe I have too much to say about this year. I mean it’s really hard for me to put this year into words. I finally got into shape and got healthy (which I will have to do alllll over again in a few months. This invovled 2 5ks and a 6.5 mile race through the mud, changes in eating and mindset.
I fell in love with my husband. Not that we weren’t in love before, but love is so different now. So much better. We love each other differently. He cleaned the whole house for me. I bought him video games that I hate, but he loves. We’ve discussed parenting styles and selflessness. The fights are fewer and the sex is better (and they said marriage would ruin it…). I wish I could have loved him like this when we got married. It’s weird. The day of my wedding, I remember thinking, “how can I possibly love him more than I do right now?” That was truly naive. He still gives me butterflies, I still check out his ass, we still have romance. But now, we have nerf gun fights, and fewer tears, we have franker conversations, and I thank God every night for making someone who completes every part of me. I didn’t realize how grateful I would be for man that I want to raise a little boy with. Someone who I hope my child emulates (and looks like). It’s something I don’t know that I can explain very well.
I also got pregnant this year. But you know that. I put 2 years of infertility behind me (at least for a time) and discovered what true worry is No for real. I’m so happy. I started out the new year at 30 weeks exactly. 10 weeks to go, and we’re parents. You’d think I’d be done with the worrying and the “what if he doesn’t make it.” I’m not. I’m still over worried and probably over vigilant, but as “Samuel” reminds me, he’s not my child, but God’s and completely within his care. However, here’s hoping for a slightly early baby so I can relax
For a post that sums up a huge year, I know this is kind of a dud, so I’ll leave you with pictures that will maybe say it better for me. Maybe not. Either way, I hope you enjoy. Happy new year!
Wyatt turned 2.
Fred turned 3
I ran my first 5
I became better friends with my sister.
I finished a 6 mile mud race
My nephew let me touch him!
July 4th we found out we were pregnant
We confirmed it many times over
We thought we lost him and he survived
We took our first trip to Tweetsie Railroad
Belly! 27 weeks
We set up a nursery
Samuel got lots of loot both for Christmas and for simply existing
We cooked out annual NYE meal of lobster and mashed potatoes
It was delicious!
I think you know that morning (afternoon, evening, night) sickness has been my nemesis this entire pregnancy. To be honest, that totally pisses me off. Alll the books and allll the websites and alll God’s chillens say that I should have been done with morning sickness about 12 weeks ago. Some of the more liberal websites say it may still plague me till 15 weeks. Try 24 weeks and counting, bitches.
Thankfully, I’ve had onda.nsetron to pull me through it so that I can eat and gain weight at a regular pace. Ok, and gain a few extra (like 2 maybe!) I have a morning routine. I wake up, I get a wave of super queasy, run down stairs, take my readi-tab eat a bowl of Cheerios and hope that I got my timing right. If I don’t, I spend the whole morning with my best porcelain friend (BPF). Generally I get this right. But there are some foods that still get me. Onions usually, sometimes apples, and always, ALWAYS Chinese food.
The Boy loves Chinese food. Right before I got pregnant we found a Chinese restaurant right around the corner that is cheap and delicious. Ironically, it’s one of about 2 foods that doesn’t upset his stomach. Go figure.
He’s a sweet boy though and has simply pined away and whimpered driving past the Chinese food place for the last 5 or so months. This weekend though, I could tell he was at his breaking point. He needed sesame chicken. There was longing in his eyes.
“…Do you think we could get Chinese food?”
For some unknown reason, I felt pity for the Boy and said, “Sure! If that’s what you want, I’m sure it will be fine!” I don’t know why I said this. I knew I had Book club that night. I had been hurriedly reading the book all day. It was a good book. Ok, kind of good. Mostly disgusting and weird, but discussion worthy. But either way, somehow I decided that by eating Chinese food, not only would my husband be happy as a clam, but I would not spend the afternoon in bed, the evening with my BPF, or the next day also with my BPF.
I’m never eating Chinese food again. Like, I seriously at multiple times though this must be what labor feels like. Or death. Or my insides eating each other. Or being a fire-breathing dragon without the fire-breathing apparatus. Or cursing your ancestors, and your husband’s ancestors. Or drawing up a battle plan on China.
I did get an immaculately clean kitchen out of all of this. When The Boy is happy, particularly food happy, he does something he knows will make me equally happy. This time it was clean the kitchen.
But I’m never eating Chinese food again.
If you’re still reading this…wow, you just read my vomit story. You must really love me.
In other news, remember the insurance change? Oh did it change. Samuel is going to cost me a lot more money than he would have before. We went from not just a Cadillac plan, but I’d say a Rolls Royce plan to a Honda Civic plan. Basically we had free healthcare. No deductible, no coinsurance, LOW premium. It was grand. Then, all the fat and old people at work (ok, and the pregnant ones) went and used this health insurance to the max and our provider wasn’t pulling in enough money. So now, we have an 80/20 coinsurance plan still with a LOW premium. That’s why I say Civic, it lacks the luxury of the old plan, but it’s still reliable and still about 1000x better than a lot of plans out there. Sucked a little though.
Had my 24 week check up. All is well. Heart rate is steady around 150 bpm. Hearing it at the appointments never gets old. He kicks and flops and punches all the time now. I love it. I complain because it hurts sometimes, but I love it so much. When he gets really excited, my stomach bounces all over the place.
Also, we made our first major baby purchase! THE CRIB! I am uberexcited. We found this crib:
We had looked at it for a while but held off because there was no compelling reason to buy it just yet. BUT THEN, Target had a pre-black friday sale. FREE CHANGING TABLE.
YAY! Uberexcited. It’s all coming together, and all a little more real now. I don’t think until this week or maybe last week, I actually believed we might have a baby. I still think I’m only 80% there, but hey, baby steps
