Week 29: The Real Deal

In the interest of "keeping it real," here are a few of the surprisingly intense parts about the third trimester of pregnancy:

1. The Return of the Nausea.

The other day while making dinner, I had abandon my sautee-ing duties and sit down for a bit. Suddenly every smell of our dinner was appaling, and my apetite, which had been outrageous just moments prior, had essentially evaporated. But the websites say not eating only makes nausea worse, so I bucked up and ate some of our homemade pizza with lackluster enthusiasm, feeling like a bummer of a dinner companion for my patient partner in crime.

2. Hyperactive Hormones!

Everything makes me cry. Walking out of our front door on Friday, I found our sidewalk covered in chalk art, wishing me happy birthday. There were drawings of pregnant flowers, nutria, even a pregnant pause. Cue: tears.

Call from the doctor: "Gluclose levels good, but you need more iron." ---> Tears.

Stefin's home an hour later than he said he'd be ----> Tears.

I find out he was late because he was getting supplies and making me a card as part of the surprise party he was throwing for me ----> Tears.

Students flash mob the cafeteria doors after somebody throws milk. They refuse to turn around and clean up their mess; cafeteria lady lectures me about getting in front of running middle-schoolers while pregnant ---> Tears.

Emotional moment on LOST? ---> Duh, tears.

I promise I'm okay. It's just: Every. Little. Thing. I'm starting to understand what my mom said about when she was pregnant: about feeling like she'd been invaded by an alien.

Fortunately, Baby keeps kicking and wiggling in ways that always make me smile. And I've figured out how to stretch up and to the left to get its foot out from the place it likes to get lodged between my ribs.

AND I have an amazing fiance who does everything he possibly can to make me feel better.

There are many more good things that deserve thanking (family, The Universe, Huck the cat, Josh, Colleen et.al,) but I'm feeling a bit naseous again, so you'll have to excuse my brevity.

Look What Followed Us Home!

Last Thursday on a walk back from the store on Esplanade (which we frequent most often for overripe bananas and ice cream), this little creature followed us home.

After 3 consecutive nights of him meowing at our porch, we finally let him (or her, we can't really tell), inside.

It did this on its own.

We're calling him "Huck" for Huckleberry Finn.

I'm trying to not get too attached in case we start seeing posters in search of a missing cat, but this is difficult. He climbs into your lap as soon as you sit down, and when he does that kneady thing with his paws its like he's holding your hand. And of course he's still young, so that means all that fun kitty stuff like diving head first into my computer bag on the couch because it looks like a good vantage point for espionage.

He is cracking us up and filling our house with even more love and squishy sentiments.

Oh, and Baby is going to be here in two and a half months.

!!!

Inventing

Tonight I was thinking how great it would be if my sink had a little half-moon carved out of it so I didn't have to lean my neck and upper back over it like a dinosaur as I do the dishes.

Other pregnancy friendly ideas:

-Make siestas the norm all over the world.

-While pregnant, you get an abbreviated work day to account for time needed for doctors' appointments, doing yoga to fight an achey back, trying to wiggle around to find the position where Baby's foot is not heartily lodged between your two lowest ribs, and meditating on the idea of being a parent.

-Special goggles to reduce sightings of sexy skinny women doing things you used to be able to do before gaining a small mountain in your midsection. Goggles would also make the swelling of your legs and feet go down.

-A delivery service that will act as a middle man and go all over town, including places that do not deliver (e.g. Whole Foods, on the other side of the traffic-y, pot-holed city), to indulge your cravings.

-An on-call person just down the hall that will cover for you at a moment's notice for frequent trips to the piddly diddly.

-Cute, comfortable work shoes that expand as much as your feet- then shrink back as your extremities do.

Maybe I'm on the wrong career path.

26 weeks

Awwww.... see how cute?

Life inside of that dark and oversized lima bean must certainly be exciting. The now-two-pound avocado is kicking and twirling up a storm. Sometimes I swear it thinks it's a cat and all of a sudden does a stretch that leads one side of my stomach to bulge out hard and tight and the other one to depress and sit empty as a coconut. (There's this great scene in the movie l'iceberg where somebody is doing all these sort of Cirque-du-Soleil poses under a sheet- I often feel like the baby is reenacting that scene.)

Everything is going well belly-wise. Doc wants me to gain weight a smidge faster, so this morning I switched out my usual juice and opted for some whole milk (it's supposed to be great for helping you produce good milk when the time comes). I was a bit grossed out though- Stefin's a big fan of this non-homogenized kind, which is great in theory but it's occasional chunks of cream are the same brand of surprise as thinking you're biting into a chocolate chip and then recognizing the dry chewiness of a raisin.

Some important folks came to visit over the weekend, and it was wonderful to spend time with all of them. It was especially cool hanging out with also-pregnant Auntie Erica and her husband and two-year old Asa. (Small world moment: Andrew (Asa's pop) works with my mother's cousin Patrick in Normal, Illinois. Whoa.) Copious amounts of delicious food and innumerable hugs were the obvious themes of the weekend.

Oh! I learned today that during this week the little one starts opening its eyes! I bet it's murky and juicy in there. But apparently it will respond to bright lights now. It definitely responds to noises. Stefin and my dad were putting together this armoire on Sunday and baby was kicking up a storm with all the hammering.

There's backaches and headaches and heartburn and of course the relentless needing to pee, but my life is lovely and I'm loving it. Getting to feel a little life inside me, dining with friends and family, solidifying more plans for winter visits, coming home every night to the house I share with the man I love... I am a very lucky girl.