Because babies are just like inanimate home decor objects

One of my recent sewing projects was to make a few flannel swaddling blankets:

When I was done, I was really excited to practice using them, but of course we don't yet have a baby to swaddle, nor do we have any life-sized baby dolls lying around the house.   So after prowling around the house looking for something roughly newborn-sized, all I could come up with was a decorative vase:

Hopefully this will help the vase sleep through the night without crying. 

This is your brain on baby

Someone needs to do a Public Service Announcement about "Pregnancy Brain" syndrome.  It is real, people.  Or at least, I hope it is, because if it's not, my I.Q. is just dropping like Charlie Sheen's credibility. (And yes, that is the best simile I could come up with.  Deal.)  I've already written about how I'll get distracted in the middle of doing something.  Well, it seems to be getting worse.  I forget to respond to e-mails and text messages, obsessively check my calendar because I can't remember what is happening when, and find myself going upstairs to get something and getting occupied with something else for a good half hour.  Jeromy has started to mutter about me need a personal assistant just to get through my day.  He does, however, love to reminisce about the incident a few weeks ago when I put my fingers straight into the dish of guacamole without getting a chip first.  He started laughing so hard, he was pretty much crying in the middle of Chipotle. 


Anyway, I also forgot to write about a few more updates in my last post.  They aren't huge earth-shattering events or anything, but I had intended to write about them, and it's been bothering me that I forgot.  So here they are:


First, we went on our hospital tour a few weeks ago.  My OB-GYN delivers at a small, quiet hospital in South Austin.  I was a little nervous that it doesn't have a NICU, but my doctor reassured me that if they are worried at all, they have you deliver at one of the bigger hospitals.  We weren't really sure what to expect on the tour; I'm sure Jeromy was envisioning a walk through a hallway of screaming women and crying babies, but the place was pretty much silent.  We got to go into a few of their delivery/recovery rooms, which made it all VERY real, even though most of the machines are kind of hidden away behind paneling.  Some of the rooms have bathtubs, which I'm excited about, not because I want to do a water birth or anything, but because a warm bath is supposed to help with pain management.  Probably the best part of the tour was when the nurse flipped up the leg braces on the bed/delivery table.  They were at a crazy angle, and Jeromy got very wide-eyed.  He leaned over to me and said, "umm, I think you're going to have to do a LOT more yoga in order to be able to use those things."

Another thing that we have checked off of my intense To-Do-Before-The-Baby-Arrives List is finding and meeting with a pediatrician.  I was worried about locating one that is nearby, since we don't live very close in to town, but luckily there is a practice about 7 minutes from our house.  I also thought it was a good sign that this particular pediatrician has been chosen as the Chief of Pediatrics at the hospital that is being built a few miles down the road.  What I did NOT expect was that the pediatrician would be so young.  And by young, I mean about my age.  Obviously I know that there are doctors my age, but it still felt really strange, and I had a hard time resisting the urge to tell her that she was very cute, but where was her mother, the real doctor?  I mean, who has gone to med school, had three children, and been named the Chief of Pediatrics by her early 30s??  The real-life, female Doogie Howser, that's who.  


That said, she was very friendly, and had good answers to all of my questions, so we're going to use her as Doctor's doctor.  Who knows, maybe she and I will bond and end up getting main/pedis together someday.


Since it's Friday, and since I'm easily amused these days, I'll end with this funny video.  I'm sure a lot of you have already seen it, but if you haven't, you should watch it.  *I* thought it was absolutely hilarious, even if Jeromy declared that it's "not quite as snot-bubblingly funny" and I found it to be.  Enjoy!

Third Trimester Fun

As of Saturday, I am 30 weeks pregnant; only 10 weeks to go!

Doctor and I survived the blood glucose test a few weeks ago, and we passed!  I was most worried about drinking several ounces what everyone describes as "nasty sugary orange stuff."  I don't have an excellent track record with drinking yucky-tasting medical liquids.  When I had to drink barium for some testing several years ago, I couldn't keep it down, and they eventually had to mix it with Kool-aid for me, like they do for little kids.  So I was a little stressed out when the lab tech set a timer and told me that I had to drink the orange stuff in under 5 minutes, but I ended up having no problem.  No, the worst part ended up being the 4 needle pokes.  (*If you're squeamish, you should probably skip this part.*)  Whenever I get blood drawn, I always make sure to tell the lab tech that my veins can be hard to find so that they give me a minute to squeeze my fist, etc.  Well, I don't know if I psyched this lady out or what, but it took her a full minute to find my vein.  She was twisting the needle ALL over the place in my arm.  I finally had to look away when she had turned it a good 90 degrees.  They had to take blood 3 different times over the course of 2 hours, and THEN I had to get the shot for being RH-negative.  I went in and pulled up my sleeve, but the nurse was like, "oh, no, honey, we do this one in your hip."  For future reference, a shot "in your hip" doesn't really go in what *I* would call my hip.  And it DOES involve pulling your pants down and bending over the exam table.  Consider yourself warned. 

Jeromy and I have now attended our first of three Childbirth classes, which we are doing through our doula collective. It's pretty small and casual; there are only 3 other couples besides us.  We watched the obligatory birth video, so Jeromy is now suitably traumatized.  The highlight of the evening, though was listening to 911 call from when the instructor had to have an unplanned home birth with her second child.  It was actually pretty funny; you would hear the 911 person give the husband directions (clearly reading from a manual), and the husband repeating them to the doula, who is isn't really responding other than moaning and swearing in the background.  The whole tape is 12 minutes long, and she ended up having the baby before the paramedics arrived.  It pretty much made me want to go rent an apartment RIGHT next to the hospital.  

I can definitely tell that Doctor is getting big and strong.  In the fight for space in my abdomen, Doctor is without a doubt winning against my internal organs.  He especially likes to remind them who's boss every night when I'm trying to go to sleep, so my second trimester run of long, easy nights of sleep seems to be at an end.  The little cute little kicks and bubble-like pops that I used to get so excited about feeling have been replaced by aggressive squirming and gut-punches that kind of hurt.  It feels, oddly enough, like there is a smallish person kicking and pushing me from the inside.  When I mentioned all of this to my OB-GYN, she said, "yeah, very few women are ever really comfortable after 28 weeks."  Nice.  

Just in time for me to go to JURY DUTY tomorrow.  Oh yes.  In general I disapprove of trying to get out of jury duty, and always swore that I would always do my civic duty when I had to, but right now I'm just grumpy about it.  If I have to sit in an uncomfortable chair for 8 hours, I will probably start loudly declaring every single person in the room "guilty."  So here's hoping I look super-pregnant and pitiful tomorrow so they'll send me home.
 
Now for those of you who made it this far through all of my pregnancy drama, here are some 30 week belly pictures!

***GEMS FROM JEROMY***

After helping me get up out of my armchair last night: "I'm going to have to start helping you up with the other arm, too, so I don't end up with just one really strong pregnant lady lifting arm."

Mr. & Mrs. Martha

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been posting on here as much as I used to.  My only real explanation is that with the beginning of my 3rd trimester came the full force of the nesting urge.  I suddenly want every room in the house to be perfect and finished and clean.  I'm sure part of this has to do with the fact that we've had three rounds of fun house-guests over the last month or so, but I don't think I've ever been THIS determined to get the house ready for people before.  I even went out and vacuumed up the dust and spider web corners in the garage, which I usually leave alone as it is part of Jeromy's Man Domain.  

But I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that most of my nesting urges have centered around the nursery, and I am pleased to say that we have made a lot of progress! 

My mom overseeing the crib assembly

The crib finally arrived and has been set up, and we made a big trip to Ikea to get the rest of the big furniture for the room.  Jeromy successfully used his Tetris skills to fit ALL of the boxes into the back of our small/medium SUV; it was pretty awesome.  I'm pretty sure that the lady in the car next to us was wishing that her husband had played more video games, because he was having a lot more trouble fitting all their boxes in, even though their car was substantially bigger!

Jeromy started painting the nursery this weekend.  It took him a big chunk of the weekend to do just the ceiling and crown molding, partly because he is working by himself, and partly because white paint apparently doesn't cover very well and needs at least three coats. So last night my darling husband declared that the prerequisite for conceiving our next child will be that I have to paint the new nursery ahead of time......by myself.  Which is fair, I guess.

As for me, I put the finishing touches on my first crafty contribution to the nursery last week:

 I did most of the baby quilt in one of my sewing classes, and am now feeling like I MIGHT be ready to start some more sewing projects at home, all by myself, without hand-holding from a sewing instructor.  Up next is the crib skirt, pillows, and maybe even another quilt. May the Martha-Force be with me.

I think Jeromy and I truly hit our crafty Mr. & Mrs. Martha Stewart peak about a month ago, though, when we took a knitting class.  Yes.  I know.  My husband willingly attended a knitting class.  I was shocked, too, but also just tickled, of course.  We were both pretty surprised by how hard knitting was at first, but we both got the hang of it after some practice at home:

PROOF!!

Jeromy successfully completed a very nice, manly washcloth, but it sounds like he's not planning to continue in his pursuit of knitting.  Which is ok. He has other hobbies.  I was just impressed that he was willing to try it.  I'm planning to keep it up; it's a perfect fidgety activity for me to do when we are hanging out in the evenings.  Here's my first completed knitting project:

A cozy wool scarf--a.k.a. belly-hider--just in time for.....Spring.

More of those to come soon, too, I hope.  I only managed to learn the one stitch, but I'm going to learn to purl if it kills me. 

One thing that I did NOT sign up for

Parents and anyone else who is in the know about child-rearing stuff: is this a real thing that people do, or is this just a terrible gimmick that the marketing team at Huggies came up with?  Someone please tell me that this is NOT a thing, and that I'm not going to have to learn "The Potty Dance", because I don't think I can deal.