Musings of a Loquacious Mind

It's the final countdown!

You know what? That ticker above ----^ is not entirely accurate. You'll notice the "featured" baby is the last one (that's right, we're approaching delivery!), but the "days left" is a little off. At least by the way I count.

Like let's say I was counting down days to my birthday, and it was August 23. I would probably say "only three more days until my birthday!" I might even say "only two more days until my birthday!," if I was thinking of days between my birthday and the current date (especially after about noon). Certainly on August 25 I would be saying "Tomorrow is my birthday!" and certainly not "Two more days until my birthday!"

But the counter seems to count the day it is, every day up to the baby's due date, and then the baby's due date when calculating the "days to go." When it was 100-some days left, no big deal, but now that I am within spitting distance of D-day it seems to make it further away.

Of course all of this is assuming I am going to go into labor on my due date. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but since I had to be induced last time I just kind of assume I'll have to be induced again this time (so the date is right) or, depending on the 37 week U/S, have a planned C-section about a week before. But I could go into labor, and both of my younger brothers were about 3 weeks early (and quite chunky monkeys, so good thing for my mom they came early!)(not that I was a petite baby, at 9 lbs 9 oz, but I was full-term and not the biggest).

So we have been getting ready for Broccoli, obviously, and yesterday the big two things on my list got done - we bought her Bible and I got her blanket back (it had been at the State Fair). I do want to pre-layout the announcements, but that's not as big a deal to me as having those two things, because I'll want those at the hospital.

Well, I guess one more thing... Keith and I have to agree once and for all on the spelling of Broccoli's real name.

Labels: pregnancy

"OB" Appointments are more fun than the "/GYN" part

I've decided the 24 week Ante-Natal obstetrician appointment is the best one. I guess it would be better if it included an ultrasound (it's always fun to see what the kid is up to), but other than that it has several distinct advantages:

1. I don't have to talk about throwing up - because I'm finally not (much)! I'm down to maybe a whole tab of Zofran a week (I was up to three a day and still mildly miserable for quite a while), and while I am not completely nausea-free, I am not by any means nausea-ful.
2. I'm not in heartburn city yet. About the time the nausea subsided last time I was spending about half of my nights sitting up and sleeping against the wall, crunching a half-dozen or more Tums a night. I'm not there yet! I have to take a few Tums right before bed, but other than that it is good going. And pizza for dinner might not have helped matters.
3. I'm not big and broiling yet. I gained just 2.5 lbs since my last appointment (total weight gain: something like 10 lbs), and can still fit in non-maternity clothes (some with more success than others). And while my poor husband has to bite the air-conditioning price bullet and my sister-in-law keeps socks at our house so her feet won't be cold when she comes over while I still wake up with my hair soaked with sweat, I'm not the furnace that I'll be at 9 months. Why my mother decided to be nine months pregnant in the middle of hot, sticky, humid Southern summers all three times I don't know!
4. The entire appointment went like this: get there, change insurance forms (grr, City of Richmond! but now we have vision (but that's another post)), get called back, do the 'pee in a cup' routine, get weighed, listen to the baby's heartbeat, talk to the doctor for a little, hug her and go. When else do you want to hug your doctor? Especially the "big girl doctor"?

So all in all Broccoli is doing fine and Mommy is doing fine.

Oh, I'm still a little dehydrated, so you can buy me a (completely non-alcoholic, possibly non-caffeinated) drink the next time you see me!

Labels: pregnancy

A Different Kind of Tummy Suck

You know you've done it. There are a million different reasons why, but you know you've sucked in your tummy before. To zip up your pants. To see your scale. To see what you'd look like 5 pounds lighter. To make someone think you always look 5 pounds lighter. To get behind a chair at a dinner. Whatever.

And pretty much the way you suck it up is by contracting your abs to bring in the pooch.

But I've noticed that - while pregnant - I do a different type of tummy suck. Especially right now, at about 23 weeks, when I don't always look pregnant (especially when wearing a totally non-maternity outfit, of which I have many that fit just fine due to the 15 or so pounds I lost right before I got pregnant). I don't tense the lower abs to pull in my gut; I contract the top of my stomach (upper abs? I don't know) to pull in the area between my chest and my gut. In effect, making my baby bump look bigger.

I want people to think I'm pregnant, not that I'm just oddly proportioned and fat.

I wonder if I'll still do this when I am obviously pregnant? Did I with Kaitlyn? I think yes. I think that, for the same reasons I've identified that I do it now, I'll still do it later. I'll want it to look like I've got a basketball in my dress, not just like I've puffed up like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. But it's interesting. At least to me.

Labels: pregnancy, ruminitions

The Rumors Are True

I haven't blogged at all in, oh, at least 3 months. Well, I've updated my 50 Book Challenge list a few times, but that's about it.

So what's new in the life of Katherine? Well, is it really new to say "I'm pregnant!" when I just had the halfway-point ultrasound? It might be new to you.

This is a little bit of the explanation for why there have been no posts for so long.

(1) I've been sick. Not like the flu, but the "morning sickness" that makes people think "oh, yeah, eat a saltine before you get out of bed so you don't feel kinda nauseas"? Well, it knocked me off my feet with round the clock vomitting to the extent I couldn't keep down so much as a popsicle or Gatorade. I got drugs. There was drama. I got more drugs. The helped. I'm still on them. There may be more drama when City of Richmond switches to a new insurance carrier (right in the middle of my freaking pregnancy!) next week.

(2) I didn't want to tell. Well, that's not really true. Anyone knows I wanted to tell so bad, but I wanted to wait until the "danger zone" of 1st Tri was more passed. But when you are getting sick all of the time and can barely stand sometimes from weakness, well, you tell people more so they don't think it's something else (like something contagious and turn you into the CDC and you end up on Fox News and then get sued for using government resources for being... pregnant)(my body was fatigued; my imagination was working full force). And the only place I had control was not posting it to the world.

(3) The longer I waited, the more there was to tell, and the harder it was to do it. This is true in a lot of situations, and this is no exception.

But, it's out now, and I'm hoping to get back into the swing of blogging across the board pretty soon (I've even gotten back to crocheting a little; you know I was down-and-out sick when I couldn't even summon the strength to crochet!)

Labels: pregnancy