Growing, Growing, Growing... But Baby is Still Smooshed

I can't believe how large I'm getting. Tonight I was using a restaurant bathroom with a very large mirror, and a Janet Jackson song was playing over the loudspeakers, and so I wiggled a little bit to the music while I washed my hands. And I realized that I looked absolutely, 100% ridiculous dancing.

Then I fell off the couch when I reached for my drink on the coffee table. The belly weight pulled me right off!

Yesterday we had another sonogram, and this time the photos came in 3-D. The technology isn't perfect, and some of the pictures looked a bit weird, but there is one certainty: the baby is squished. Every photograph of the face shows 1. the baby has Dave's lips, 2. the baby has my nose, and 3. the baby's face is completely smooshed, like it's looking through a window and making faces. I can't help but feel bad for the littlest Reckess. But baby will be out soon (5 weeks til our due date) and will be able to stretch its face as much as it wants.

Dave Has Enough: "Stop Bludgeoning Me with the Baby"

I'm carrying a wide load, and I'm carrying all of it straight out front. I still have a waist, an hour-glass figure even. I also have the largest belly imaginable, and it's only getting bigger with every passing day.

So I'm making some adjustments, like sitting farther back from the computer desk at the clinic and angling myself at the dinner table because the belly doesn't fit underneath. Don't get me started on washing dishes - I can do the plates and silverware ok, but as soon as I try to wash the pots, with my short arms at odd angles because I have to stand so far from the sink... I beg off and leave them for Dave.

A baby gut is not a beer gut - it doesn't move out of the way, it can't be sucked in, and it's hard as a rock. Think of it as an extra appendage.

And I love my husband. A lot. (Has that come across in these entries? We have been accused of being sickeningly cute with each other, which is why it's a good thing no one else lives with us). I get excited when he arrives home, or when we cross paths as I beeline toward the bathroom, or when I decide that it's time to go disturb him as he does his homework.

So with all my enthusiasm in mind, picture me rushing toward my husband and almost knocking him over with the belly. Bam! Dave grabbed the counter and remained upright, but he almost hit the floor. And then he had to say the following words: stop bludgeoning me with the baby!

Never did I consider that I would be responsible for abusing my husband with our child in utero. This is my public mea culpa - sorry, Dave!

I Fall in Love with My Tummy

Generally I've been sort of gawking at my pregnant tummy so far. I didn't feel very attached to it - instead I've felt attached to the baby. But the belly? Ugh. The tummy was in the way, it made me feel overweight, it hurt my back... And when I sat down, it deflated like a balloon. Bleh.

I've felt attached to the baby for some time now, but the belly was its own thing - it was the outward manifestation of the pregnancy, whereas the baby was a little person growing inside. And in my mind, those were two different issues.

This morning as I toweled off after my shower, I took a good hard look in the mirror, and I didn't feel revulsion or embarrassment at all. Instead I felt a little part of my heart turn to complete mush. I fell in love with my tummy this morning.

Welcome to the Third Trimester!

Here we are! The third trimester! Hooray!

This information means the following:
1. We attend ob appointments every two weeks until the end of March, and then our appointments occur every week until delivery
2. We only have 12 weeks to go (give or take)
3. I'll probably gain about 1 lb a week from now on
4. The baby has a very good chance of surviving if born at this point
5. We have a lot to do from now until then

Today we had an ob appointment, and I've gained twenty pounds since August. That explains why my back is so sore -- all that weight is right out front. I feel bad for men with big beer bellies. But not as bad as I feel for pregnant women!

We also learned that my stomach is measuring at 30 weeks rather than 28 weeks. No one has really explained what that means, nor is this the first time we've been told as much. At our 20 week sonogram the baby was measuring at 21.5 weeks, but they decided not to change our due date. Today I again asked if they would change our due date, to which we were told no. So what's the point of being told we're measuring two weeks farther along??? I don't really know. The problem with today's medical technology is definitely TMI -- too much information. I'm glad they tell us so much, but then I wonder what I'm supposed to get out of the information, besides concern and curiosity. I'm not worried about this new info, but I am a little tired of being told medical info to which there is no point. If the info could help me plan my school schedule a little better and be better prepared in the event I went into labor two weeks early, then I would welcome the news. But to receive this info and then be told, "It's just something to be aware of," strikes me as false. Why should I be aware of it if I'm not supposed to DO anything with the info? Besides write grumpy rumblings on our baby blog???

Quack, quack.

I'm standing in line at the post office, waiting to buy stamps because the self-service stamp machine never has anything in it. I think everyone is staring at me. I try to seem sunny and upbeat and famous, but really I feel self-conscious. Everyone can see that I am pregnant. And everyone is just dying for me to do something "pregnant-y" - like on a sitcom, where suddenly I cannot stop from eating a giant ice cream cone with a pickle on top, or my water breaking while I stand in line. But I am just buying stamps. I am not doing anything "pregnant-y." Unless you count the way I siddle up to the counter, hips swinging, legs apart, like a Western High Nooner getting ready for a shoot-out.

I know that I am beginning to waddle, and remembering how I used to quack at my step-mother when she was pregnant with my brother, it seems like just desserts if someone quacks when I waddle by.

I'm glad that I don't have a white feather coat, or orange sneakers. Because then I really would be mistaken for a duck.

In 4th grade I wrote a short-story about waking up and discovering I had turned into a duck (very Kafka-esque), and in that story I had to waddle all the way to school with webbed feet. I don't have webbed feet, but I have waddling down pat. Dave says I look cute waddling around, but Dave thinks I look cute when I brush my teeth, too, so perhaps he isn't the best judge.

Then I come into the law school clinic on Monday, and the administrative assistant who is also pregnant and due around the same time tells me that she is suddenly so famished that she would eat a whole lasagna for breakfast.

I am hungry, but I wouldn't eat a pan of lasagna for breakfast. Not even for lunch. But I do like bready things, and I will eat any bread item if so presented, including cookie crumbles or stale crackers... and ducks like bready things, especially crumbled, stale items... ergo, I am a duck. Quack, quack.

Happy New Year!

We hope you're excited for 2008 - to say we're excited might be an understatement!

Baby is growing, I am growing... in the past eleven days I have changed shape substantially (pictures are forthcoming after we return to Syracuse)- there's no doubt anymore that when a stranger sees me, they know I'm a pregnant person. Baby's foot (head? hand? who knows!) sometimes gets shoved under my rib (very uncomfortable), but I have discovered that if I jump around or lay on my left side, baby will move into a better position and leave my ribs alone.

I am trying to get Dave to put on a little baby belly, but so far, no luck.

Hungry. Really Hungry.

I woke up to a growling stomach Friday early morning at 4am. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore my hunger, but no-can-do. I was awake and starving.

Only 6 hours earlier I had eaten some soft-serve ice cream with M&Ms on top, and 3 hours before that I had eaten pizza for dinner. Pizza + ice cream = hunger so bad that I had to get out of bed at 4am and find something to eat? Unbelievable.

Dave and I were in a hotel room in Fredonia, NY, and there was a package of granola bars in my bag, so I quietly got out of bed and proceeded to eat the noisiest granola bar ever created. Dave woke up, thinking I was nauseous, but instead found me standing at the foot of the bed, shoving a granola bar into my mouth.

3 hours later I was awake again, and starving. I felt like a machine. I am a machine - a baby-growing machine. I couldn't understand all this hunger. And then Sunday morning I woke up, looked in the mirror, and... oh my. Look who finally looks pregnant! Ah-hah!! Hunger every hour = Quickly Growing Baby. Now it makes sense.

I Popped! (but just a little bit)

Today I am wearing the pants that are supposed to fit for awhile, but there is a button digging into my tummy.

This morning I woke up, showered, and then woke Dave up by saying, "Look at my tummy. It popped." I wasn't dressed yet, so I didn't know how much I had grown, but I could tell. The belly was sticking out. Dave barely opened his eyes, but he did agree, maybe so I would let him sleep.

It's hard to gage if tummies really change that quickly, or if it's gradual, or if it's wishful thinking. I keep complaining, "But I don't LOOK any different." Although Dave's mom did comment that I am glowing like a tanned beach bum, of which there are generally none in Syracuse, NY. Somedays, especially last week when I had a court appearance and client meetings and was freaking out that my case was going to trial, I didn't think about being pregnant very often at all. But when I'm home, and cooking dinner or washing dishes or playing with the cats, I think about it a lot, and part of what I think about is: what if this isn't true? What if it's all a game? Even though I have photographic proof of a fetus, having a baby can seem really remote at times.

And then I popped, and all day I've been looking down at my tummy, which is not going back into my body any time soon, and I'm silently shouting, "Look at me! It's real! I'm pregnant! Woo-hoo!" Although I'm sure my law colleagues are simply thinking, "Someone needs to lay off the Cheetos."