The thing about women’s health ultrasound techs, especially those working with a pregnant woman, is that they only like to focus on the good. The tech showed me the scans of my baby doing the breathing reflex, yawning, kicking, moving, and generally causing a ruckus in my uterus. She said, almost more to herself than me, “he’s big” and showed me his chubby cheeks and printed out some pictures of him. But as she checked on what she was supposed to be checking on, she said not a word about whether things looked good, bad, or indifferent. My guess is she’s leaving that up to the radiology doc and my doc to interpret amongst themselves and let me know.
So, naturally, I did what any good (albeit mildly crazy) pregnant lady would do: I Googled radiographic images of placenta previa to determine if any of them looked like what I saw on the screen. I drove myself a bit nuts for a while, and then decided it was all in vain and I’ll just wait to hear from my doc’s office or see him at my next visit.
In the meantime, I’m exhausted. My stupid legs keep me up at night. Every night. For reals. It’s hard to get to sleep, harder to stay asleep – especially if I have to get up to pee. The first time I got up last night, I went back to sleep without too many problems, but the second time – at 4 a.m. – I was still up when M’s alarm went off at 5 a.m. and finally drifted back to sleep sometime around 5:30 or so. If I wasn’t going on vacation next week, I’d probably have stayed home from work and rested today. But as it is, I’m trying to push through. I figure I can sleep on vacation – but you didn’t hear it from me. I would never say anything like that! (Unless I’m pregnant and exhausted, apparently.)
Being in the “home stretch” (29 weeks tomorrow!) I finally feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief. Mostly. There are still the worries about pre-term delivery, etc. but for the most part, I’m feeling like I can relax and start to be excited. I use the term “relax” loosely, since the list of things to do this last trimester keeps growing: take childbirth classes, interview childcare providers, interview pediatricians, interview doulas, talk to my doc about labor and delivery. . . not to mention everything else that’s non-baby related.
I think my nesting phase is finally over, though. I think my house is clean enough. We’ll see if I’m right once the dust starts piling up again. . .
The baby’s starting to feel heavy. I feel where he moves to and where he lays (mostly toward the bottom of my belly, on one side or the other, and sometimes across). I’m starting to wonder just how icky I’ll start to feel these next few months. L, who I’ve rarely heard complain (at least in public), said last Sunday that she’s ready any time now. Which is pregnant lady code for “get this baby out of me”.
I’m content to let this kid keep cooking for at least another 8 weeks. . . . then I’ll be ready. Even as I say that, though, I’ve been thinking the last few days how strange it will be when he’s no longer physically connected to me – when we’re separated and he’s no longer with me 24/7. 8 weeks from now will be 37 weeks for those keeping track, and although I know I said “better late than early – to give me more time,” turns out I lied. Although the thought of having a newborn in roughly 8 weeks makes me severely freaked out, I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be ready to have him out and here. Weird to think that if this baby is born at 37 weeks, he’ll be a Libra; if he’s born at 38 weeks, he’ll be a Scorpio on the very cusp of Libra; if he’s born after that he’ll be a Scorpio baby all the way!
Hopefully, we can use some of our road trip time (6 hours each way) to devise a good name for this kid. I think he’d like that.
~Nichole
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