7 Words

7 words I'll never forget my OB saying to me: Wow, you're just all baby, aren't you?

As I laid down to recline fully on the examination table, my belly formed a ridiculous torpedo. So ridiculous, in fact, that it caused my OB to comment on my being "all baby". Whether it's something he says to the hundreds of pregnant ladies he sees, or he actually meant it I can't say, but it doesn't matter. It made my whole day. Especially considering he told me I was "ahead of schedule on my weight gain" with my last pregnancy. We've come a long way he and I.

Don't know what you've got til it's gone.

As I lay here, not unlike a beached whale, mere weeks before giving birth to a {fingers crossed} beautiful baby boy, it occurred to me to jot down a few thoughts about pregnancy. It hasn't come to me easily and so I'm generally speaking very happy to be pregnant. Generally speaking. There are some things I will not miss about being great with child (and by "great", I mean HUGE) but there are many that I will miss indeed. If my memory serves me correctly, which it probably won't at this juncture, I forgot very quickly what it felt like to be pregnant very soon after I had Teagan so I wanted to make a short, not at all comprehensive list of some of those things in case pregnancy eludes me down the road.

I WILL MISS...

• feeling the baby kick
• special attention - comments, doors held, seats offered
• maternity clothes - ie. elastic waistbands
• Teagan kissing my belly
• never being alone
• Brandon picking up my slack and everything else
• mid-day naps

I WILL NOT MISS...

• feeling the baby kick at 3:00 AM
• comments like "Yowza!"
• outgrowing maternity clothes
• not being able to play with Teagan
• heartburn
• not being able to bend
• having to pee every time I stand up and twice nightly
• drying off with a beach towel post-shower

When women get together, we tend to complain and conversation usually turns to pregnancy. I really don't have much to complain about but don't want to be the odd one out, so I'll sigh a little sigh and say that I'm hot. I feel very fortunate to have such "easy" pregnancies. Aside from my girth and the excruciating heartburn, I've really enjoyed being pregnant with this little man.

From a Sam's Club greeter forcing me into a motorized shopping cart, claiming that I was "making him nervous" to attending a Trunk or Treat and handing out candy the night before I popped, this belly has been fun. But I'm looking forward to baby.

I hope I get to do this again relatively soon. But not too soon.

My beautiful, bouncing, BIG, breech baby boy.

We had our 36 (and a half) week ultrasound yesterday, and I scheduled it for Brandon's day off so that he could come (for the first time this pregnancy) and bring Teagan along to see baby brother. The best view she gets these days is my big ol' stomach and I thought this would be more satisfying for her. Though it wasn't the family-friendly-let's-point-out-all-his-body-parts-and-wave-hello appointment I went to by myself at 20 weeks. It was all business, making sure all was well. And all was well - since I was already planning on a C-section. 

My doctor isn't in the VBAC business, so I was scheduled for a C-section before we found out that he's still breech (has been since my 20 week ultrasound) and BIG. They give you their best estimate, and while I know it's just an approximation and could be way off, being told that he could be 8 lbs. 7 oz. right now with more than 2 weeks to go, all eyes in the room widened a little bit. My doctor said that while I won't be breaking any records, he will be a big boy - potentially double digits and that regardless of him being breech and Teagan being an emergency C-section, he'd be trying to talk me into a C-section at this point.

We walked in and the oh-so-friendly receptionist who always remembers my name (yes, before I write it down on the sign-in sheet) asked if Teagan was my other one. She hadn't seen her since my 6 week check-up with T in 2010 and couldn't believe how tall she was. Then when my doctor saw her, his first comment was about her height. I have a hard time convincing people she's still two...for another week or so. She was relatively well-behaved during the appointment and sat on Brandon's lap the majority of the time. I forgot that he would "check me" first and so I was taken aback when the nurse instructed me to undress from the waist down. Brandon tried to distract Teagan, but of course, her yells of "I see Mummy's BUM!" cut through the paper-thin walls like a hot knife through butter. The echoes may have been my imagination, but I was no less embarrassed. In order to try to shift the conversation away from my exposed bottom (why don't they make those sheets bigger?!) we practiced saying "Hi, Doctor Pollock" and shaking his hand, neither of which actually happened by the time he came in.

We talked to Dr. Pollock about her medical kit and she told him that he would make me feel better and he thanked her for the vote of confidence. He has a daughter just a few weeks younger than Teagan and said that she has a kit too and your typical kid-being-scared-of-the-doctor situation is reversed at his house. The doctor is scared of the kid - she's constantly giving him check-ups and shoving the thermometer down his throat to the point of making him gag.

Can't believe we have just over 2 weeks left before the long awaited little man is here. Although, we'll have to see just how "little" he is!

Due Date Discrepancy

My doctor's leading words at my appointment on Wednesday. If there's one thing a big, fat, sweaty pregnant woman doesn't want to hear, it's that she has some extra time on the clock. But in my case, the big, fat, sweaty pregnant woman got good news. Apparently, the two systems at the office were spitting out two different due dates. They were only a day off, which usually doesn't make a difference in the slightest, but when you're having a scheduled C-section and your due date was thought to be a Saturday, it makes a fair bit of difference. Because the hospital doesn't schedule C-sections for Saturdays, I was going to go in the following Monday, between 39 and 40 weeks. But if we go based on the other due date that the ultrasound machine dictated, I'd be 39 weeks on Friday the 1st, meaning I can go in then instead of waiting until Monday the 4th. Meaning, Brandon can spend the weekend with us without taking too much time off work, and my Mum can arrive just before the procedure and spend more time with us post-baby. Hooray! And 11/1 sounds like a date I can easily remember...don't quote me.

Less than 10 to go!

Poor little guy is already suffering in the record-keeping department and he isn't even here yet. I'll have to remedy that. I'm also going to do my best to avoid saying things like "with Teagan, it was like this, but this one's different." I don't want to get in the habit of comparison so early - I know it will happen at some point, but I'm going to try to fight it for a little while at least. Suffice it to say, my pregnancies have felt different and who is to say whether it's because I'm having a boy this time, or it's just a different pregnancy. It's only my second, so I can't really speak to whether it's boy vs. girl or baby vs. baby.

I hit 30 weeks yesterday, which means I have less than 10 weeks to go before I go under the knife and come up with a bouncing baby boy. My doctor takes planned C-section babies at 39 weeks, in an attempt to make sure the mother doesn't go into labour on her own and complicate the process. Since my due date is Saturday, November 9th, I was labouring (no pun intended) under the assumption that I would deliver on Saturday, November 2nd. My oh-so-wise OBGYN father-in-law suggested I check with my doctor, since elective C-sections aren't usually performed on Saturdays. Sure enough, Dr. Pollock was planning on Monday, November 4th so now we're on the same page. That could have been awkward.

To answer the most common questions I've been getting...

• I do feel good, thanks!
• Yes, it IS hot.
• No, I'm not having the baby very soon.
• Yes, I'm big.

People can be so insensitive when it comes to pregnant women. I can't tell you how many times someone I barely know, or don't know at all has asked me when I'm due and before I can answer, laughs and says "with your twins" or "it has to be really soon, right?" or when I was in Canada at 19 weeks pregnant was asked if I was having the baby there during my 3 week stay. To tell them I had 5 months left came as an absolute shock. Yes, I'm big. I'm 5'3" and apparently don't have much of a torso, so there aren't too many places for these babies to go. At barely 6 months, my belly knocked over a whole section of DVDs at Sam's Club. What's funnier than a pregnant woman knocking a bunch of DVDs to the floor in the middle of a warehouse? A pregnant woman attempting to pick up said DVDs from the floor in the middle of a warehouse. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I could barely catch my breath from all the huffing and puffing. I can't tell you how many times Teagan has almost been knocked over by the belly. It has a mind of its own at times.

This little man is SO active. Dr. Pollock's latest instructions after our appointment were to stay pregnant. It seems to be going well. He asked me to count the number of times he moves during the day and make sure it gets up to 10. I was sure to clarify whether he meant time clusters of movement throughout the day, or 10 instances. Because I'm usually at 10 by 9:00 in the morning. He is constantly kicking and punching and rolling and I never (knock on wood) have to worry that he's been still for too long. At this point, you can see my stomach rippling and rolling and doing the wave. I've been annoying Brandon for weeks, grabbing his hand and placing it on my stomach and he humoured me, but never really felt anything. But in the last few weeks, there has been no question.  Even Teagan's been able to feel him "jumping". Which feels like a more accurate description of what's really going on in there. Especially when it comes to going to bed at night - he must be on England time, because he's just waking up to party when I'm trying to get a few hours of sleep before needing to pee.

I can't seem to move these days without having to use the bathroom, so poor Brandon has had to get up and fetch me things a lot these days because I just can't be bothered. Note to self: when you are a stay-at-home, pregnant Mum of a toddler not yet potty trained, not replacing the toilet paper out of laziness only hurts yourself. Remember that.

I'm feeling the weight of this "little" one more and more. Mostly, I'm sure, because I'm chasing a toddler around and running up and down the stairs every few minutes...wait, shouldn't I be thinner? I've gained about 33 pounds to this point. I used to think it was all in that ginormous belly 'o' mine, then I saw photos of myself and laughed. Okay, cried. Hoping that he is a good nurser, because I think I will need some help getting this weight off. Odd, because in the beginning of my pregnancy, I couldn't eat enough salad and fruit. I would look down at my lunch and think to myself, 'Really?' Wouldn't you rather have a cheeseburger? And I wouldn't. My theory is that you can do your best (and I wasn't really trying, I was just satisfying an unusual - for me - craving) but the baby will do what it needs to do to grow and thrive and if I gain an obscene amount of weight, so be it. I just hope he isn't a 6 pounder...I'll have some 'splaining to do!

This little boy is already so loved (despite what the frequency of my writing about him suggests) and cherished and we feel incredibly blessed to be welcoming him to our family very soon. But not as soon as everyone seems to think.

On Becoming a Big Sister

I posted recently about Teagan reverting and playing with all of the baby stuff that's starting to emerge around the house. Lately, however, it seems she's embraced the fact that she will soon become a big sister and (for the most part) has come to accept the fact that the baby will be a boy. Grandma sent us a box of darling baby boy clothes (thanks again, Grandma!) and Teagan was more than excited as she perused our spoils.

 

She certainly is excited about my belly and comments on it every day. (None of it is very complimentary, but she's a kid and tells it like it is.) She's very aware of the fact that I have a baby in my tummy...it doesn't seem to stop her from elbowing me multiple times a day or jumping on me, but she likes to feel him kick is always patting and rubbing my belly. After she says "Whoa, Mummy's belly big!" of course.

She's been playing more with her baby doll and taking very good care of her. She loves to strap her into the booster seat, fetches a bib and a spoon and tenderly feeds her lunch. It's all very sweet.

 

She's agreed to help me change baby's diapers, but she is concerned that "they be stinky in my nose." A legitimate concern, to be sure. We'll have to brave it together. She's been practicing on her baby doll with one of her old size 1's. I have one in the drawer with her 6's and it's almost obscene to see them next to each other. It seems nearly impossible that she fit into them at one point. Tiff told me that nothing prepares you for the first time you change your older child's diaper after your newborn's. You might as well be changing an adult.

We'll be sure to handle our actual baby with more care and minimize headstands during diaper changes.

I had a really sweet experience a few weeks ago, watching her with Baby Belle. All day, she told me that Baby Belle was crying and we would work together to try to figure out why. First, we'd try feeding her. I was in awe of how gently and tenderly she handled her.

When she was finished eating, Teagan told me she was still crying, so I showed her how to burp the baby and she did it perfectly, all the while whispering "I know, I know."

The baby was still crying after a good burp, so we decided that she must be tired and needed a nap. So Teagan found her a blanket and wrapped her up, then cuddled her and told her over and over that "it's okay, it's okay."

I wish I could have frozen this moment in time. Instead, I've done my best to record what it seemed like. My best isn't near good enough, but I hope I can remember how sweet and tender she was, doing her best to figure out what was wrong with her baby and trying to fix it. I hope she remembers when it's game time and we're dealing with our baby boy.

Reverting

I've been digging out baby things lately, as part of my nesting phase. Most of my nesting has involved tearing every room in the house apart and laying down on the couch because I don't have the energy to put things back together. On more occasions than I care to count, I've had to rescue Teagan from the exersaucer. I keep telling her that she is too big and that it's for brother, but she keeps proving me wrong. I stumbled upon her in it the other day, muttering "goo goo, ga ga!" When she saw me, she looked up and said "See, Mummy? I not too big." She's reverting.

All this talk of becoming a big sister must be putting too much pressure on her because she seems to be reliving her infancy. She gets out the playmat and paws at the hanging toys and hums along with the tinkling music. Heaven knows what will happen when her brother is actually using these things.

"You're going to be a big sister."

The range of emotions that followed:

Okay, so I didn't take these immediately after breaking the news to her, but she certainly has gone through these and more since we dropped the bomb. From Grumpy to Happy to just plain Dopey, most days I feel like I'm living with all 7 dwarves instead of just the one.

She seems very aware of the fact that I'm carrying a baby in my tummy and it's darling. Since we told her, she insists that we be "cayful Mummy's tummy!" If you ask her where the baby is, she'll tell you it's in Mummy's belly. Ask her what's in Mummy's belly, she'll tell you it's a baby. Ask her if she wants a brother or sister and she'll want whichever you say last. She's flexible like that.
She's also on the alert for stinky diapers. Mr. Potato Head was the culprit the other day and she took great care of the situation.

She's shaping up to be a wonderful big sister and we're so excited to see it happen.