8 Month Belly

My sister came over and snapped some artsy photographs of me, scantily clad, with a big belly.  I love them.  I want to make out with them.  Hubby says I can't put them on the FB because they are too sexy.  I don't think that but respect his wishes to not have my nearly nudes on the Internet.  Well, all except for my blog, obviously.
So here is the most anonymous photo of them all, and coincidentally, one of my faves.

Hypno Conclusions

I finished my Hypno Birthing class last night.  After a lot of study and soul searching, here is the conclusion I've come to:  Hypno Birhting might not be for me after all. 

I have enjoyed it immensely, and learned so, so much.  I believe the relaxation aspects will really help me in my daily life, not just when I'm pregnant.  But when coming up with my birthing preferences, I made a list of all the things that were THE MOST important to me, and do you want to know what was NOT on that list?  Come on, you know you do.  NOT on the list was actually having a birth free of medication.

I want to have a quiet, calm room.  I want my husband to receive the baby.  I want immediate skin-to-skin contact and breast feeding.  I want to wait until the cord stops pulsating before we cut it, and I want them to allow my placenta to deliver naturally.  I want the baby to stay with us at all times, and for him to only be breastfed. 

But the pain management part?  Not quite as important to me.  And everything I actually DO want can still take place if I were to decide to get an epidural. 

Of course, I am going to continue to practice my Hypno techniques for the remainder of my pregnancy, and I am going to use them for an all natural child birth.  But if plans should change, I will not be disappointed.  In my opinion, the teacher and the book make it sound like if you have any meds that your baby will not be able to bond with you.  I disagree.  I had an epidural with my son and the bond was instant and magnificent.  I am still totally opposed to inducing labor, however, as I do believe that messes with your body's natural hormone flow.  I know from experience that even with the epidural, my uterus kept working it's ass off to get my baby out.

So there it is.  Yes, I am going to use Hypno Birthing to deliver my baby.  Yes, I have 8-10 bullet points of what I request from my doctor and the nurses on staff.  And yes, I will change my mind if I feel like I want to.

I Did Some Work

That's right, I put the crib together AND washed some baby clothes.  Take that procrastination!

Funnily enough, I have felt, up until this weekend, that I have nothing for this baby.  Ummmm... I was wrong.  I pretty much saved every article of clothing that wasn't poop stained from when Bugs was a baby.  (And even some that were.  I know right?)  So it turns out, I am quite set with the 0-3 month stuff, and have quite a few 3-6 month things, although a majority are the itsy bitsy clothes.  After that will get a little tricky because Bugs has a December birthday so the seasons will be all sorts of fucked up.  But at least I don't have to buy a ton of little bitty stuff right?  I did, of course, buy an adorable outfit or two brand new so the baby won't be all "Wahhhh I'm the youngest, and all I get are hand-me-downs! Boo hoo!"  I just don't want to hear that shit ya know?

Also, had a baby shower this weekend, and my friends were, as always, very generous.  So I got the car seat I wanted, which is great because apparently I need that in order to take my baby home from the hospital.  I guess they don't want him riding in my lap or whatever.  So ok hospital, you got your way.  I will buckle my baby up.

The assortment of clean baby clothes does not have a dresser to live in yet, and I am surprisingly not in a hurry to get one.  It seems like most baby clothes end up staying in the hamper anyway, whether clean or dirty.  So we'll see how that one goes.  My little guy might be stuck with a crib and some random junk throughout his room.  I'm too tired (and cynical) right now to be all romantical about giving him a perfect room.  Perhaps eventually the nesting will kick in and I'll finish it in a panic.  That sounds like a pretty good plan.

Do My Posts Ever Have a Theme Other Than Randomness?

Somehow I lost 2 pounds for this doctor's visit.  I'm guessing it's because of all the work I did moving, which by the way, is still ongoing.  It might take months to unpack myself.  (Side note, that sounds kinda dirty but I can't really explain why.)  You wouldn't think I'd EVER be concerned about losing 2 pounds, but this little loss means I've only gained 3 pounds in the last 7 weeks and me thinks that is bad.  But WTF do I know anyway?  Doctor Awesome did some double checking to make sure measurements were all good, which they were, so she wasn't too concerned.

Hypnobirthing is still going well.  I kind of love it actually.  It's really cool to learn a different perspective on birthing and makes you want to do some things differently.  We talked to my doctor about "the birth plan" today because I had some questions about anti-biotics in my baby's eyes and such.  She was still awesome about it but also made sure to let me know to keep it brief and not be disappointed if it doesn't go exactly as planned.  I was sort of torn about this because she is Doctor Awesome and I pretty much thought she would just tell me how stupendous all my ideas are and how she will bend over backwards to do whatever I want.  But then I got over myself because there are only a handful of things I am dead set on, and if the other things go a little awry, I'm not overly concerned about it.  So then I continued loving and worshipping her.  I can also kind of see how some people can get really crazy anal and upset if it's not perfect and I just don't want to put that kind of pressure on it.  My son's birth was amazing and while I'll do it a little differently this time, I am not upset or regretful in the least about the way his birth went.

I've struggled over the etiquette of having a baby shower this time around or not.  My friends and family have convinced me that it is ok for me to have a shower because it has been 7 years since I had a baby.  I still feel kind of weird about it, but now I actually have 2 showers planned, so I guess I don't feel that weird about it right?  One is this Saturday and one is in March.  I am mostly excited to see all my friends and fam, so it should be pretty great.

So that's what's going on here.  Sleeping, eating, and heaving myself about...

Hypno, Glucose and Moving

I started my hypno birthing class last week, and I gotta tell you, these ladies can SELL it.  Originally I thought I would take it just so I'd have a coping mechanism while I was laboring at home for as long as possible.  You see, I hate hospitals and I hate that they make you lie there strapped to machines in a hospital gown and just when you fall asleep, some phlebotomy bitch wakes you up to stick needles in your arms.  And I have horrible veins so it inevitably takes the needle digging around in my arm for an hour before they can find it.  Anyway, so I go to the first class and they are telling me all these wondrous things about how natural labor can be, and I find myself wanting that.  So now I am toying with the idea of, gasp!, not getting an epidural after all, but giving this hypno mojo a chance.  Still undecided.  Stay tuned.

Last Friday was my 3 hour glucose test because I failed the 1 hour.  Presumably it's because I eat a purple laffy taffy every other day followed by a bowl of cereal.  As I mentioned before, my veins are difficult to tap in to, so for my four! blood draws, they had to use the same arm so now I look as though I'm a pregnant junkie.  It's pretty sweet, but I passed and do not have diabetes so yay me.

We moved this weekend and it was as horrible as you might imagine it would be.  It was very difficult for me to not pick stuff up and move it around and while I made sure to limit it, I still moved some stuff while everyone yelled at me to put it back down.  Even without the moving of the stuff, I still had to clean house, pack and unpack my things, which included about 12 hours a day for 3 days in a row of bending over.  Every muscle in my body is still sore and my new house still looks like a tornado of boxes hit it.

So there's the latest update on me.  Nothing super exciting, but nonetheless, I am progressing right along.  My belly is getting bigger by the minute but I sort of love it.  I'm in the home stretch now at 30 weeks and getting really excited to meet my sweet boy.

What Did You Say? I Nodded Off a Little

I am not exciting.  My days consist of moaning and groaning as I roll myself out of bed in the morning, getting Bugs ready for school, going to work and then coming home and napping.

Like 2-3 hour naps every night. 

And then still going to bed by midnight and doing it all over again the next day.  My poor son is (still) surviving on mac and cheese and cereal.  I should get a mom of the year award.

If I could only win the lottery then maybe I could stay home and sleep and take hot baths all day.  But my state doesn't have a lottery and also I'd have to actually go buy a ticket if it did.  Which would of course involve my not sleeping all day and night.

My hypno-birthing class starts tonight and I am trying to be excited, but mostly all I can think about is napping.  And donuts.

Mmm, donuts.

Speaking of donuts.  Mmm, donuts.  I did NOT pass my gestational diabetes test.  I was only over by 2 measly freaking points but now I have to go for the big 3 hour one where I don't get to eat all morning and sit in the doctor's office for 3 hours.  They will draw my blood a total of 4 times.

I think they might have a death wish.  I mean, if you could see me when I'm hungry, I'd somewhat resemble a terrible swamp creature/monster and I'd probably call you a dick for even looking at me.  Then I'd try not to pass out on you and then I'd cry because I wanted some cereal so badly.  It's not pretty.

Once again, totally worth it.