Category: Postcards from my uterus

Wow! I can’t believe there are more than 60 comments on the “guess that birthdate” post!! What fun! But, for the record, anyone who guessed later than February 7 (when I’ll be a week overdue) or any hour that involves an overnight labour, you’re getting a lump of coal instead of a book if you win the contest!!

I had an appointment with the midwife last week that sent me home driving with my legs crossed, convinced that the baby was about to come shooting out at a stop light if I was not careful. I’ve since settled back down into a holding pattern of waiting (there are, after all, still many days until my due date) but it was exciting to be talking about BIRTH instead of just pregnancy.

They’re keeping a close eye on the size of the baby, and I’ll likely have another ultrasound this week to see just how big this big baby will be. (Hmmm, sounds JUST like Simon. Again!) Apparently the midwives have special protocols with the hospital when a baby gets to be this size. I’m trying not to think about it.

And, while it’s still three weeks to my official due date, the midwife suggested several natural induction techniques (clinically unproven, she stressed) that I might want to consider, so on the weekend I picked myself up some evening primrose oil and some red raspberry leaf tea. I took a couple of the EPO capsules last night (one orally and the other one – well, not orally) and there’s still no baby this morning. So much for instant gratification!

Another thing that got me all excited about an early debut for this little guy was that although my last day of work would have been this coming Thursday, they suggested that I might consider being done a little earlier than that. So tomorrow is my last official day of work until 2009. Can I get a hallellujah for one-year maternity leave? So many reasons to love my country’s social net. (And yes, I know it’s not perfect and not everybody benefits, but it benefits me and at 100 months pregnant you go ahead and TRY to tell me that it’s NOT all about me at this point.)

So we spent the weekend doing little things like assembling the cradle (I love our wooden cradle!) and cleaning the car seat and installing it in the van. We drove out to the Montfort so Beloved would know where it is, which seems rather prudent, and debated the most efficient way to get there from Barrhaven. (There isn’t one.)

I’m ready! Well, I’m readier, and that’s a start. And I’ve decided when I’m going to have this baby. Simon was due on January 22 and born on February 1. This baby is due on February 1, so I figure there is a lovely symmetry in him arriving on January 22, right? At say, 2 pm, after a five hour labour. Yep, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Are you listening, baby boy??

The nice thing about a third pregnancy is that a lot of the fear has been beaten out of you by experience.

In the final stages of my pregnancy with Tristan, I worried about everything. I was already in a state of heightened anxiety because of everything related to his conception (he’s my IVF baby) and the loss of his twin, and the echogenic cardiac focus. Add to that the regular first-time-mom anxieties (“Will I be a good mom?” “How will I know when he’s hungry / cold / bored / in need of emergency medical attention?” “Does labour REALLY hurt that much?” etc) and the sundry anxieties thrust upon you by reading too much on the Internet (“Should I have bought the Eddie Bauer car seat instead of the Graco one?” “Do I really need a wipes-warmer?” “Can you ever really have enough receiving blankets?” etc.) and I was pretty much a nervous wreck.

With Simon, I was over a lot of that, but worried myself nearly to death about how I would handle two, and whether we had ‘wrecked’ our perfect little family triad by adding another person (truly, that seems like the dumbest thing in the world in retrospect, but I honestly worried myself to tears over it more than once back then.) And of course, it was a hell of a handful to have a newborn and a not-quite-two-year-old in the house, and I think I was justified in worrying how I’d handle all that.

With this baby, I’m confident in both my body’s ability to birth this baby and my parenting skills, leaving me free to focus the entirety of my anxious obsessing (and that, for the record, is a LOT) on the big question of WHEN???

The midwife has been gently reminding me throughout our appointments that third labours are generally quite fast. I was blissfully resistant to this idea at first, telling myself (and anyone who would listen) that my labour with Tristan was more than a day and with Simon nearly a day, so anything shorter than twelve or fourteen hours would seem like a walk in the park. Then I started to really think about my labour with Simon, and while the induction took most of a day and a night, the hardest part was convincing him to leave the uterus in the first place. Once he started moving, he really came flying down the birth canal like a house on fire. While it took more than 20 hours to go from nothing to 5 cm of dilation, I went from 5 cm to 10 cm in about 20 minutes, and Simon came out with just a few pushes.

I keep turning this over in my mind. Twenty minutes, eh? That’s not a long time. I was thinking about it yesterday after work, standing at the bus stop at the Rideau Centre, when I began to wonder with a sickened kind of fascination what I would do if my water broke on the bus. The bus home takes me 40 minutes in the absolute opposite direction of the hospital. Would I ride home and have Beloved take me back to the hospital – in rush hour traffic? Would I get off and take a bus back in the other direction? Would I ask for an ambulance? Playing out these various scenarios not only occupied me for most of the ride home but convinced me that taking the new van back and forth to work for the next week was well worth the $40 in parking fees it would cost me!

(The fact that we’ve been watching the entire catalogue of back episodes of House on DVD for the last month has, by the way, honed my ability to envision a medical disaster to perfection. Perhaps we should have been rewatching Lost instead.)

So I’ve been speculating on the what-ifs of an early labour, but I’m still mostly convinced this guy will be a late arrival. I keep telling myself that at the very outside, there’s only about five weeks left before he gets his eviction notice. No doubt, the Player to be Named Later is much easier to care for on the inside. He doesn’t need to be fed, or changed. While I would love to be able to put him down for just a little while, at least my arms are both still free. He’s low maintenance when he’s on the inside. For those reasons, I’m happy to keep him there. Of course, there are about a hundred reasons why I want to evict him, primarily simply because I can’t wait to meet him and get on with the next phase of the adventure. An end to my elephantine size, restless legs, aching pelvis, itchy nipples, inability to eat or draw a deep breath, lumbering gait, throbbing knees, reflux, and need to pee every eleven seconds would be nice, too.

I know I can handle just about anything, but the uncertainty is my real nemesis. The waiting and the not knowing. Uncertainty is to control freaks like me what snakes are to Indiana Jones. My kingdom for a crystal ball!

Now that the holiday season is officially packed away for another year and the boys are back in school, I am running out of distractions. Still another three-and-a-half weeks to go until my due date, which I fully expect to stretch out to an agonizing five weeks or more left in this pregnancy.

And so begins the obsessing. Since I can’t seem to get my head out of my uterus (and lord knows there’s little enough room in there right now as it is!) consider yourself officially warned that blog is about to go all-pregnancy, all the time.

Baby boy will be full term (37 weeks) on Friday, and given the latest ultrasound projections, he’s well over 7 lbs by now. Any time now is fine with me, even though we are not exactly ready in that the baby clothes have not been washed nor put in drawers, I do not have a birth plan or a packed bag, we have no idea what to call him, we haven’t really made any plans as to what to do with Tristan and Simon should I ever in fact go into labour, and I’m still loosely in denial that there will in fact be a baby who arrives at the end of all this.

I’ve developed a new fascination with the signs of early labour. With Tristan and Simon, I didn’t have (or, at least, didn’t recognize) any pre-term contractions. Only when I was hooked up to a monitor when I was at a past-due checkup for Simon and the nurse said, “That’s a nice healthy contraction” did I realize that what I had been assuming was the baby stretching was actually a Braxtion Hicks type contraction. So now that I know what they are, I’ve noticed them coming and going in waves — but of course, that’s all that happens. (Ha, look, there’s one now!)

The boys were both late. Labour started two days after my EDD with Tristan (and he was born 27 hours later) and I was induced 10 days after my EDD with Simon (and he was born 23 hours later.) I see this as foreshadowing — they’re reluctant to leave the womb at birth, and I’ll probably never be able to kick them out of the house as adults!! I also see this as confirmation that I have a mighty comfy uterus, and no expectation of seeing this baby any time before his official due date of February 1.

But, you also know I’m an irrepressible optimist. (I’m just not sure if hoping for an early delivery is optimism or insanity!) So, bearing (snicker) that in mind, tell me your stories. I need straws at which to grasp, bloggy peeps! Did you deliver early? Late? On your due date? And what was your first sign that labour was really under way?

(No, not that Christmas Story, although it is among my favourites of the season.)

After my ultrasound Friday morning – all things are good, placenta is out of the way, baby is up to six pound and looking fine – I went to Toys R Us for a few last-minute things. It was first thing in the morning, barely 9 am, and the place was blissfully unbusy. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for, and I found one last inspiring gift. I waddled up to the cash register, and nearly choked when the total she announced was about $30 more than I was expecting.

“Um,” I said, looking at her display,”this thing is supposed to be $24.99.”

“Oh!” said the cashier, “It rang through as $59.99. Can you show me the sign that said it was $24.99?”

Sure enough, we got to the shelf, and there was actually two shelves of them with the $24.99 label – but when I peered down to the lowest shelf for a better look, the small print on the label clearly named a different product. Aware that the $24.99 had been maybe a little too good to be true, I shrugged my shoulders and told her, “Oh well, never mind, I don’t want it at that price.”

She said, “No, no – I would have assumed the same thing. I’ll give it to you for $24.99.” Score! But, when she rang it through and tried to override the price, she had to ask for supervisor authorization because of the amount of the discrepancy. The supervisor took a harder line and pointed out that the label clearly indicated a different product. The cashier, a perky and bright-eyed teenager, gestured toward my jutting belly and said, “Take a look at her – does she look like she’s in any condition to be bending over that far to read the fine print?” I don’t know who laughed louder, the supervisor or me, but she didn’t argue the point and I walked out with the toy for $24.99.

I had to laugh. Remember when I talked about my obsession with Survivor and how it’s been deeply intertwined with my reproductive years? I wrote about how Simon was born on the morning of the first episode of the first Survivor All-Stars season in 2004, and what a valiant effort I made to stay up late enough to watch it – from my hospital room – after being up since 6 am the morning before.

So this week on the latest Survivor grand finale, Jeff Probst announced that the next Survivor series will be yet another all-star season, this one “fans versus favourites“, and it’s scheduled to start February 7 – a week past my official due date of Febuary 1st. Anyone want to lay a bet that I’ll be welcoming the new baby into the world by watching the first episode from my hospital bed – again?

The other thing about my due date of February 1 is that it’s Simon’s birthday. How inconvenient!

I’m thinking about boosting his birthday party up by a week or even two. You think the average about-to-be four-year-old would notice? Or care?

We’ve got a little more than six and a half weeks to figure out exactly what this baby boy is called, and quite frankly, I’m stumped.

It pains me, because I have a list of girls’ names as long as my arm, but I’m simply running out of good choices for boys. Not to say that we don’t have at least a few contenders: I like Lucas, and Henry, and Myles, and Jack. I think my first choice might have been Jasper, but both Beloved and my mother laughed out loud when I suggested it. I love the name Justin, but it sounds way too much like Tristan. Papa Lou is lobbying hard for Max. I’m fond of Benjamin, but that happens to be the name of the mean-as-a-snake cat we had who died last summer. I’ve taken a recent liking to Charlie as well, and Quinn has a quiet strength that fits in nicely with Tristan and Simon.

There’s no lack of tools out there on the Interwebs to help you narrow down the choices. The US Social Security Administration releases a list of the top American baby names each year. For those who like a straight database, there’s Baby Names World. Want something with its finger on the pulse of the moment? Baby Names Buzz rolls up the most popular names by blog and Internet news references every week. For interactivity, I’ve not yet seen something as cool as Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager, although I spent the best part of a Sunday morning playing around with the Baby Name Map. (I found myself scanning through the database of UK names and finding a lot of good choices.)

Since we’ve been contemplating the name game, there have been plenty of articles in the media on the subject. The Globe and Mail had a good one about baby naming trends in general, and the NYC department of Health and Mental Hygeine (!) issued a press release on the top NYC names of 2006.

As if that’s not enough to overwhelm you with choices, think of the damage you can do to your child with the wrong name. According to Science Daily, you could be dooming your child academically with the wrong initial:

Students whose names began with ‘C’ or ‘D’ earned lower GPAs than students whose names began with ‘A’ or ‘B.’ Students with the initial ‘C’ or ‘D,’ presumably because of an unconscious fondness for these letters, were slightly less successful at achieving their conscious academic goals.

(Hmmmm, I’ve always been fond of Danielle, but I doubt if I’ve ever gotten a D in my life…) And once you narrow down your choices, you can always disaster-check your favourites against a bit of snark on baby-names gone wrong there’s Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing.

And after all that, the final verdict? I still have no idea. What do you think, bloggy peeps? What are your favourite boy names?

What, you thought I was going to go all this time and not whine at some point about the myriad woes of late pregnancy did you? This has been an easy pregnancy, and the second half has been generally much more pleasant than the first (nothing like getting rid of all-day nausea and abject terror to improve your demeanor) so I don’t have a lot to complain about — but I’m not going to let that stop me.

Really, it was my fault. Even though I didn’t say it out loud, just last week I was thinking about how much less stressful this 8-months-pregnant-in-December-while-working-and-mothering-full-time has been as compared to my experience when pregnant with Simon… and then my body started getting just a wee bit fed up with the 5 lbs interloper.

So, as promised, the only seven things I really have to complain about with just over seven weeks to go:

7. Restless legs. Only when I’m tired, but it’s like 1000 ants crawling through my knee joints. Ugh.

6. Winter coats. I can only get my coat done up if I take all the stuff out of my pockets, and even then I feel like I’ve been corsetted. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach the zipper on my boots by next month.

5. Peeing. I look forward to the day when I can just sit down and empty my bladder instead of peeing a bit, shifting the baby off my bladder, peeing a bit more, shifting the baby again, peeing a bit more – and then getting 10 steps away from the bathroom and realizing I still have to go.

4. Patello-femoral syndrome. I went to five weeks of physio in the fall to address this, and thought it was completely resolved, but my knee has started to ache again in the last couple of weeks. Trying to decide if it’s bad enough to resume the physio.

3. Reflux. It’s more annoying that troublesome, but if I happen to lie down within 30 minutes of drinking anything, it tends to spill back up my esophagus – which is about one inch long right now, because my stomach is pushed up somewhere just south of my voice box. Especially annoying when getting a midnight drink of water.

2. The baby’s head on my pelvic bone. I don’t know if he’s “engaged” but there are times when I’m walking that his head grinds so abruptly against my pelvic bone that it makes me gasp and stop dead in my tracks. I can’t imagine it feels good on his head, either.

1. Hemorrhoids. ‘Nuff said.

And one thing that makes up for all of it and then some: lying in bed this morning sandwiched between Tristan and Simon as they jockey to position their hands on my belly just so, listening to them giggling madly as they feel the Player to be Named Later hiccupping through my abdominal wall.

Bonus conversation!

Tristan: “I know what keeps the baby safe in Mummy’s belly. He’s frozen in carbonite.”

I had an ultrasound on Friday morning, and the baby is looking chubby, healthy and altogether lovely.

It was the first chance this pregnancy that Beloved has had to come to an ultrasound with me. (You think we’re getting a little bit jaded about this whole pregnancy thing? I would have been scandalized had he missed one of Tristan’s ultrasounds!)

The Player to be Named Later – we really do have to get on with that naming thing – is looking, according to the locquacious ultraound technician, “lovely” and “gorgeous” and “perfect” and even “helpful” in turning just the right way so she could get her measurements.

Since she was in there poking around anyway, I asked her if she could confirm the gender for me. It’s not like I didn’t see it myself the last time, but I just couldn’t quite shake off those “girly” type thoughts. Sure enough, magnified on the screen that couldn’t be more obvious, she showed us his penis and scrotum and said, “Well, unless these bits fall off sometime between now and when he makes his way out, it’s definitely a boy!”

He’s a big boy, too. On Friday I was exactly 32 weeks along, and he should be about 4 lbs, but he’s measuring 5 lbs. I’m hardly surprised, of course. She said he has (and this made me laugh) a “perfectly reasonable” sized head, but a big torso and very long legs. Another string bean like Tristan, from the sounds of it, who was long and lanky at 9 lbs but nearly 24 inches at birth and has been over the 90th percentile for height ever since.

Beloved had a much clearer view of the screen than I did, and he said he thought the baby had a distinct resemblance to Simon in that his head was round and cheeky, rather than Tristan’s more elongated face. The tech commented “Somebody is hungry” and I wasn’t sure if she was talking about my growling stomach or what, but at that point Beloved said he could see the baby clearly smacking his lips, just before he popped his thumb in his mouth. This, of course, gave me my first bad-mommy guilt moment. “The baby is hungry? And I barely had anything for breakfast. Oh my god, he’s not even born yet and I’m already starving my child!” And we promptly made our way to the nearest drive-thru Tim’s to feed that poor starving child some doughnuts.

I was giddy with relief by the time we were done, knowing that he seems to be doing so well. I love that he’s now big enough to be healthy even if he were to be born today. He’s crossed the threshold from abstract concept to a real little person – that’s my baby boy in there, and he’s almost ready to come out!

And with that thought in mind, Beloved and I spent the rest of the day together shopping for minivans… which I will tell you about tomorrow.