Aaaahhhh Pregnancy

Here I’ve gathered a list of some of my thoughts about pregnancy.

1. Watch Your Mouth

A colleague actually used the word ‘huge’ to describe me the other day. And he yelled it down the hall.  A couple other passers-by offered to punch him, but I just laughed. Sort of.

2. So Far Away

At 6 months pregnant the baby was already so low that I struggled to bend over. The floor is just SO FAR AWAY. This causes things like cursing or crying when I’d drop something (again). It also meant that I had to enlist help with my shoes. Months ago I taught H how to buckle my sandals, which was most helpful. Aaaaand kinda humbling.  Just the other morning Mike was dressing our toddler and putting her shoes on her. 9 month prego me sat patiently on the couch next to him and waited my turn for him to put my shoes on for me. The number of similarities between a 2 year old and a 9 month pregnant woman are striking. But let’s not think too much about that one…

3. The Burning Heart

There’s nothing quite like waking up in the morning and having your dinner bubble up into your mouth like you’d only just finished the meal minutes ago. I get it that the baby takes a lot of my body’s resources to grow. And also that at this point he’s hogging the space that my stomach and all my other organs used to call their own. But 12 hours later and my body still can’t have digested a meal? Doesn’t seem quite right. Please pass the Tums.

4. Don’t Cut it So Close

People who park their car just a little too close to my van in parking lots and parking garages really have no idea what they’ve done. One time I stood in the narrow space between our two vehicles for a couple minutes really and truly thinking I wasn’t going to be able to get into my own van. I did in the end, but maybe I should paste a big sign on my door (“9 month pregnant woman… DO NOT PARK CLOSE) so that people know to give a little extra space?

5. Hippie Medicine Cabinet

I’m suddenly ingesting more ‘medicine’ than ever before in my life?! Except most of it is hippie stuff (as my husband would say).

Zypan for heartburn, Magnesium Lactate (calcium) to help with extreme ligament pain, TUMS (the non-hippie black sheep of the bunch… don’t tell my midwife, ha!), Gentle Baby tincture (to give me a ‘gentle’ birth… as if…), real food prenatal vitamins, and Chlorophyll (for building up my blood).

Timing all of these concoctions throughout the day is interesting, but I actually do feel pretty good and quite healthy for being 9 months pregnant and I think I can contribute it partially to how these items are contributing to my health…

6. Litter of Pillows

And there’s the pillows. I just finished Tales of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent. The author was joking about all the pillows she had in her bed by the end of pregnancy… “I gave up thoughts of sleep and gathered together the pillows I’d collected as pregnancy advanced, the pillows that forced [her husband] to huddle ever closer to the edge of our bed. One night, fighting for an extra inch of territory, he muttered ‘I don’t see how your belly can still be so big. I swear you’ve already given birth to a whole litter of pillows.’”

Ha! I’m certain Mike can relate. Except I don’t believe he even fights for an extra inch. He takes his 12-18 inches of the bed and deals with it. I think he did use the word ‘sliver’ to describe the amount of bed he’s been relegated to these days. Lucky for me he is such a good sleeper that he honestly doesn’t care (right honey?). Maybe I’ll take a few more inches for myself, he probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

7. Catch Some Zzzzzzzs

I have never taken so many naps in my life. Ever since I found out I was pregnant I have napped nearly EVERY day. It’s a pretty big priority. Incidentally, the inability to stay awake during the day was the thing that initially tipped me off to this pregnancy!

Sometimes this daily-napping feat requires careful planning since most days I’ve had three other kiddos around during my naptime, not to mention lots of other life stuff going on. But when a Mama wants to nap, A MAMA WANTS TO NAP.  Thankfully, Lil’ A still takes a long nap and my big kids are accustomed to having a rest time in the afternoon. They do independent, quiet activities and generally have good enough behavior that I can disappear for an hour and nothing tragic happens.

These daily naps have really helped me make it though my days.

8. She Gets It

And then there’s this little lady. I think she truly understands that her baby brother is in my belly and is going to arrive soon. She pushes around on the belly for him because that’s what she sees the midwife do every time we go in for an appointment. She kisses him and tells me “He mooooving Mommy! He galking Mommy!” I keep telling her that she’s wrong about the talking part but she doesn’t quite get that.

She tells me that she’s going to hold ‘baby brudder’ on her lap. And then she tells me that he’s going to sleep on her shoulder. It’s the cutest thing ever. I can’t wait to put him in her arms…

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This whole pregnancy thing will be in the past soon. Baby boy is due two weeks from today! That is no guarantee that he’ll be here by then. But it won’t be long, in any case, oh my!!