girlfiend

I gave it a try but I’m just not that into Twitter. Occasionally I log in and read updates, but for the most part I don’t bother because Facebook is more my speed. So it really annoys me when my feed reader is cluttered with Twitter posts in lieu of blog updates. Can’t you just put them in the sidebar so I don’t have to unsubscribe?

Still on for tomorrow. I’m not feeling 100% about it, but the idea of waiting another week is even more painful than the idea of a chemical induction. I’d be getting an epidural anyway, so it’s not like I’m giving up the natural birth I’ve always wanted. I don’t know. I’m nervous. The two other women who were scheduled for inductions tomorrow delivered over the weekend. They both had due dates after mine. I am anxious.

I have an induction scheduled for Tuesday but I may chicken out. We’ll see what happens. I have an appointment tomorrow morning to discuss the induction. As of Friday I was 2cm dilated and 60% effaced. Which means nothing, but it’s better than the previous week when I was high and closed.

Initially my due date was yesterday. An early ultrasound dated me close to a week ahead, but not a full week ahead so they didn’t change my due date. A later ultrasound dated me way ahead of my due date, so far ahead that the doctors at the perinatal testing center told me that I needed to have this baby by the end of April. But by the end of April the baby was measuring so small that I needed an ultrasound to confirm everything was okay with growth, my placenta, etc. Everything was fine. But now it’s not a problem that I’m overdue. The baby is small, I have plenty of fluid and if I decide not to go with an induction Tuesday I can schedule one for the following Tuesday if I still haven’t had the baby. They’ll just see me more than once a week.

But T was a full 8 days early. So we’ve all been expecting this baby since April. Even my OB said, my god, I can’t believe you haven’t had this baby yet. I have been on edge for weeks, trying desperately to keep the house in some semblance of order so it’s not a disaster after two days of my mother in charge. I’m winning the laundry battle, the floors are swept and/or vacuumed daily, the refrigerator is stocked and clean. Even my bedroom is orderly. It’s exhausting. And I’m so uncomfortable.

I do not like being pregnant. I do not like the foot protruding from my right side. I don’t like the contractions and the cramps and the sharp, stabbing pains. I do not like being aware of my cervix. I don’t like peeing every fifteen minutes then peeing again a minute after I’ve peed the first time. I have weird rashes, dry skin, my hips keep going out on me. I want this to end.

I fear that if they induce me something will go wrong. I’m afraid that I won’t progress and I’ll have to have a c-section. I know that the odds of that are pretty slim: I’m already dilated, I’ve done this twice before, my body knows what to do, I trust my OB and she said that she’d send me home if the induction failed. But if they break my water I’ll be stuck and that is what makes me nervous. I just don’t know if I can deal with this for another week.

Guess what?

Yup, you got it. I’m still pregnant.

And I’m so miserable and cranky and short tempered that I considered calling my mother and asking her to come in to the city now to watch the boys for a few hours during the day so I don’t emotionally scar them with my fits of irrational rage. Then I remembered that I would probably be even more cranky, miserable and irrational with my mother around. The few hours of child-free time would not be worth the psychological pain and suffering.

Even better, after a lovely nine month stretch of wearing them every day, my feet have swollen out of my shoes. Good thing I got a pedicure last week. It helps draw attention away from the shapeless blobs that used to be my ankles.

I have another acupuncture treatment tonight. Wish me luck.

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
Evening Primrose Oil
Pineapple
Eggplant Parmigiana
Spicy foods
Sex
Acupuncture
Acupressure
Massage
Walking
Lunges
Steps

Nothing. Not even a little bit dilated. I left my appointment this morning in tears. If the baby doesn’t make an appearance sooner I can be induced on May 11th. But I don’t want an induction, I just want labor to start now.

The Fiendling continues to be awesome. He still has his moments, but since his birthday he’s been quite reasonable.

Yesterday he was helping me unload groceries and he came to the bag that contained my pregnant woman impulse buys- two kinds of ice cream and a box of ice cream sandwiches. His eyes grew wide an he said, delighted, “Mommy you remembered that I really like ice cream sandwiches. And you bought them, even though we still have push pops in the basement! I love you, mommy.”

He really likes to kiss the baby in my belly.

He’s unable to pronounce Rs and Ls in most situations. Though he can pronounce the R at the beginning of the name Rusty, he is unable to pronounce it when it follows another consonant. Today he was singing, “The gween gwass gwows all awound all awound, the gween gwass gwows all awound.” It was adorable.

His vocabulary is surprising. The other day he and the baby were both wearing camouflage pants. I believe that F picked them out for the both of them. He was telling me about some dinosaur who is camouflage. I asked him if he knew what it means to be camouflage. He told me that the dinosaur blends in with his surroundings to protect himself from predators like other dinosaurs who want to eat him. Later that day we were playing outside and we heard some birds chattering. He said, “Mom, the birds are having an observation.” I asked if he meant conversation. He said, “No, observation,” in that teenager-like ‘you are an idiot’ tone of voice. He continued, “They are watching me ride my bike and play baseball.”

The baby is going to be 2 next month. He still seems like such a baby compared to F at the same age. I know that as soon as the new baby is born T will seem so big. But for now, even though he’s losing some of his pudge and getting so much taller, he is still such a baby. Maybe it’s because he’s still not talking much. His vocabulary hovers around 20-25 words and still mainly consists of animal sounds. He’s recently added “bubble” to his repertoire, and though I thought for sure B was making it up when he said he heard it the first time, T did say “love” last night when we were hugging and kissing before I put him in his crib.

T does say any numbers but he practices counting by pointing to his fingers one by one and saying, “More, more, more, more, more.” It’s super cute.

He brings me books to read and DVDs he wants to watch. He loves to play outside with the bikes and the balls and the assorted ugly plastic play equipment that lives in our yard. He adores our neighbor’s daughter and lights up when she comes outside to play. He goes running to see B when he gets home and says woof every time he sees a dog.

The boys are at a great stage right now where they play nicely together, sleep in the same room together, and generally entertain each other. They are difficult, as small children tend to be, but manageable, and if I wasn’t so goddamned pregnant and cranky all of the time I’d enjoy this stage so much more. Soon there is going to be a baby and it’s going to completely screw up the equilibrium. I’m hoping that it will all be fine. That F will keep it together and T won’t lose his shit completely the way F did when T was born. But who knows what’s going to happen. I just know that I want this baby out.

My weight gain is pretty much on par with my last pregnancy, but for some reason my skin is stretched so tight that my veins are clearly visible from my armpits down my sides and across my belly. It looks like a road map or a freakish tribal tattoo. All things considered, I look pretty good considering my due date is less than a month away. But the veins are kind of freaking me out.

I’m trying to maintain order and keep the dirty at bay just in case I am lucky enough to have this baby early. Somehow I’m keeping on top of the laundry- the washing, not the folding and putting away, and the rest of the house is fairly clean right now. My spring cleaning last week paid off. I went a little bit nutty, washing walls and moulding in addition to the regular cleaning, and the house looks better than usual. The children are constantly thwarting my efforts at keeping the toys picked up, but I don’t blame them. Much.

I haven’t prepared as many meals as I did when I was pregnant with the baby. I’ve lost interest in cooking completely. I managed to make and freeze beef stew, ziti, and enough dough for 4 pizzas. I’m sure there is something else down there that I am forgetting, but if not, I spent an obscene amount of money on convenience foods at Trader Joe’s to get us through the first few weeks. I also spent a lot of Amazon gift card money on pyrex storage containers so if I’m extra motivated I can make and freeze some more.

The Fiendling is quite adamant that he wants a gwirl. He would love a gwirl so much that he might even want ANOTHER sister. He’s not so keen on the idea of a boy. He already has a brother and doesn’t need another.

I need this baby to be a boy, because I am already sick to death of my mother referring to it as her little “girlsenberry” and if I have to fucking hear her refer to a real, live baby as a girlsenberry I may kill her. And the purchasing of girl’s clothes must stop. That is my inheritance she’s pissing away. She has already purchased at least $150 worth of girl’s clothing and I keep getting phone calls about when the baby will fit into specific sizes. Because I can guess how big it will be.

Is it wrong that I want a boy just to spite my mother?

I want to write a shmoopy post about my sweet little Fiendling turning four and how the book was right, practically overnight he went from total fucking maniac to reasonable, thoughtful child. But I’ve hit this stage in my pregnancy where everything sucks. Everything.

I don’t know if the Braxton Hicks contractions make me have to pee or if a full bladder makes me contract, but it’s a vicious cycle. I wake up several times a night, doubled over in pain. And even if I’ve had nothing to drink in hours I have to pee over and over again. Cleaning gives me contractions, cooking gives me contractions, lifting gives me contractions, walking up stairs gives me contractions. And the assholes who write all the pregnancy books and tell you BH contractions are painless were obviously never pregnant with a third child. I am miserable.

I’m even more exhausted than usual because of the uninterrupted sleep and the worst part is that I still wake up even if the kids (who almost never do on the same nights) sleep through. I’m not positive, but it feels like this baby is no longer breech. Instead, the baby is sideways. It is not comfortable to have 3-4 pounds of baby sideways in your abdomen. And the foot cramps, dear god, the foot cramps. I hate them in the morning, I hate them in the afternoon, I hate them in the evening, but most of all I hate them when they strike in the middle of the night. Then I have to get up to pee, only I can’t walk because on top of the painful contraction I’ve got a crippling foot cramp going on at the same time.

The beauty of this blog is that I can read back to see if everything sucked this much the first two times. I haven’t looked yet because I’m curious to see just how much I’ve blocked out. There is a hormone that makes you forget how painful labor is. Maybe it works for pregnancy too? I remember with F I was constantly getting punched in the cervix. And I know I had BH contractions with T, but I don’t remember them being so regular. And by regular I mean regular enough to make me miserable but not regular enough to mean I’m anywhere near labor. It is going to be a long couple of months.

My friend sent me a list of 17 ways to turn a breech baby. Most I was familiar with. Some were new to me.

5. CD/iPod headphones - place them inside mom’s pants toward her pubic bone and play classical music for 10 minutes 6-8 times a day.

Never occurred to me to put my ipod in my pants.

I’m still not used to being pregnant. You’d think that by now since I’m in my third trimester and either 29 or 30 weeks in (depending on if you’re looking at the initial due date or the dates from the ultrasounds which all date me a week ahead) I’d be a little more accustomed to the idea, but it still (the waddling, the occasional shooting pains, the leg cramps, the random bouts of heartburn) catches me by surprise. I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I still hate being pregnant. But it’s not all consuming. Things haven’t been going that badly for me this time around. I’m not sleep deprived and horribly depressed. I don’t have constant heartburn like I did with T and I don’t have the constant paranoia I had with F. Or the insane weight gain I had with F.

Speaking of weight gain, I’ve started to gain weight for real; I’m up between 22-25 pounds depending on the scale but I still find myself asleep on my stomach some mornings. Clothes are an exercise in humiliation. Even though I’m carrying small, most of my maternity shirts are too short and my pants are too big. I’m always showing off either a butt crack or belly gap, even with a stupid belly band over my pants. It’s not good for my self-esteem. I’ve taken to wearing makeup, just so I don’t feel so shitty about how I look.

This baby is breech. I know that it’s not a big deal yet, but both of the boys were head down by this point and the last thing I want is a c-section recovery. My OB told me not to do any interventions yet (chiropractor, acupuncture) since the baby still has plenty of time to flip. But I am a pessimist by nature and the six weeks until my 36 week ultrasound is a long time to worry and wait.