Dear feline overlords

I know that the strange little human who makes all the funny noises pretty much freaks you out, but he’s a member of the family, just like you are.  That funny squeaking noise he makes is him laughing.  The ear-piercing squawking noise is him being upset because we aren’t attending to his every whim fast enough — kind of like the way you two like to stand on our heads at night if you don’t have enough food or something.

That funny white and green plastic thing you’re laying under?  That’s one of his toys, his walker to be precise.  That means that at some point, I’m going to want to put him in it, and if you’re still lying under it, he’s going to end up standing on you.  So you should probably consider moving.

Also, I know that you know that Southern Honey and I won’t torment you too much when we pet you.  However, the Munchkin is still trying to sort out the whole manual dexterity thing, which means that he’s far more likely to grab you than to pet you.  I’m working to keep him away from you, but you need to be an active participant in this, too.  That means don’t just stand around waiting for me to pet you while you dodge his grubby little fingers.  Unless, of course, you would actually like me to let him grab your ear.  😀

Sincerely,

Your devoted food-provider

Anticipation

Nervousness, really.  I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, really.  I mean, going into it, I know what’s going to happen, but there’s a difference between knowing intellectually and experiencing it, you know?

I was able to distract myself for mot of the day since my mom came out to the house for breakfast.  We ended up going into town to eat since neither of us really felt like cooking (she’s worried that she’s getting another hernia, which is no bueno, given that she just had to take time off work to get two others repaired).  I also filled the car up with gas at the only place in town that hadn’t gone up to almost four dollars a gallon, and we spent wayyyyy too much time at the animal shelter.  Which worked out for the best, since she adopted an adorable little bobcat-lookalike to be friends with the cat she adopted around the same time we brought home Prometheus and Tesla.

Maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight?  Okay, probably not, but a girl can dream, right?

I guess the next time I post, I’ll be updating with pictures of the Munchkin.  Holy cow, I don’t know that I ever thought I’d be saying that, even after all this time!

Finished the nursery

At long last, we got everything together in the nursery, and it’s done.  I feel like this has been a work-in-progress for forever, even though we really didn’t get started on it until fairly recently.  But at long last, the crib is up, the sheets are on it, my Boppy is good to go, and we got the pictures up on the wall.  I don’t have any good photos of the window area, though, with the new shades and the curtains, because it’s so sunny today

The trunk of my car was a bit full of stuff for the hospital on Tuesday to load up the stroller, too.

That's the diaper cake my sister-in-law made for us just poking into the frame over there.

And the crib blanket I (mostly) made. I never did hem the bottom edge, but the material technically didn't need to be hemmed at all. Last thing that was keeping me was sewing on the dragon applique I got on Etsy.

I really wish that the pictures did justice to the awesome colors on the walls.  Unfortunately, the flash really kind of washes them out, which is too bad.  The blue on the crib wall in particular is very rich.

The crib took forever to put together, mostly because I initially tried to do it all myself.  This was not, at something like 37 weeks, the brightest idea I’ve ever had.  There was just no way on earth I could contort my body to get to some of the places I needed to put screws.  Nuh uh, nothin’ doin’.  After something like two hours (although a big reason it took that long was because the instructions were the very last thing to come out of the box, so I couldn’t organize pieces as I went), I gave up; Southern Honey helped me finish it up a couple of days later.

And the flying monkey hanging from the ceiling fan was also from my sister-in-law.  Isn’t he cute?

The end is near

Gah, I should have done more walking throughout this pregnancy!  I was out at the mall tonight one last time before the Munchkin gets here, wandering around, and I felt like my hips were going to dislocate.  Getting my feet up on the couch just now was an exercise in way too much work.  This round ligament pain is ridiculous.

Fortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible.  At the doctor’s appointment today, we decided to go ahead and induce on Tuesday.  I’ve dropped a pound of weight this week somehow, but I’m a full 3 centimeters and a bit dilated and quite effaced.  (He’s eating my brain, apparently, because I can’t remember how effaced she said I am.)  My blood pressure was also down pretty far this morning; it’s normally nicely healthy, but this was considerably lower than normal.

The doctor gave us the option not to induce, to induce on Tuesday, or to induce on Thursday.  Given that I haven’t slept in a couple of days and the back labor at night is getting worse, I honestly don’t think I could make it all the way to the end.  It makes me feel kind of like a tool, taking the easy way out, but I’m just not up for a prolonged period of painful sleeplessness that’s going to be followed by a very prolonged period of sleeplessness.

I am glad that we opted for Tuesday, though.  I wasn’t thinking about the dates, but Thursday is my mom’s birthday.  She’s been pushing hard for him to be born on her birthday, but he deserves to have his own day.  Plus she really kind of annoyed me this afternoon when I was talking about having an epidural — “I could never do that to you guys” was her exact quote, I believe.  Hooray, pain-relief guilt trip!  *rolls eyes*

Maybe I should be grateful that this is the worst guilt trip I’ve gotten about anything thus far during the pregnancy.

Almost to the finish line

And that is a seriously good thing.  Tomorrow is my last day at work, and by Saturday I’ll be at 39 weeks.  I think that means things are coming up on the end (theoretically).

I think Monday’s decision to go on leave early was the best decision I’ve made all week.  I”m not getting much sleep at the moment, courtesy of back pain that strikes after I’ve been lying in one position for more than about five minutes.  *rolls eyes*  And lack of sleep does not make for a friendly pregnant coworker, believe me.

I have trouble dealing with idiocy on a good day when I’m not sleep-deprived, much less sleep-deprived, needing to pee every five minutes, and reading to explode a small person from my nether regions at any moment.  That tiny little fact made today all sorts of interesting, as I got about five last-minute requests, mostly for stupid things that, had someone else done their job at any point within the last … oh, month, would have been completely unnecessary.  The sorts of things that “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part” was made for.  It was really kind of ridiculous.

But I survived, and I will survive tomorrow, and maybe at some point the Munchkin will be born.  In the meantime, he’ll rattle around in there, pounding my inner organs like uncomfortable pillows, until he’s ready to emerge, and I’ll try to get through tomorrow without strangling anyone.

Decision time

After a discussion with my boss this morning, followed by a talk with Southern Honey and some chat with another coworker who just got back from maternity leave, I came to the conclusion that the smart thing to do is to make Friday my last day at work.

My brain is really starting to go, and I’m afraid that if I tried to pull off another week after this one, I’d be running the risk of screwing something up.  So, I get to spend this week tying up all the loose ends I can and bringing a coworker up to speed on everything that’s been going on.  Fortunately, she’s been itching to get involved with what I’ve got going on for a while now, so it’s not going to be an inconvenience for her.  Plus she’s got a ton of experience with this particular issue, so it’ll be a boon all around.

We’ve got a meeting with the potential pediatrician first thing in the morning.  I really hope we like him because I’m not sure I have the energy to look for/meet with another one.

Now I’m off to throw a load of baby clothes from the shower this weekend into the dryer and get myself into bed.  I have no energy left right now.

Is this going to be a recurring issue?

Forget Friday Night Lights.  I’ve apparently got Friday Night Back Labor.  I rolled out of bed fairly early for a weekend because I just couldn’t take laying there waiting for another contraction to wake me up again.

This is thoroughly uncool.

On the bright side, we ordered everything left on our BabiesRUs registry last night — crib sheets, changing table pad and covers, and all that good stuff.  We also got the rest of the crib put together, got the curtains and shades up, put the storage unit for the closet together, and hung the prints on the walls.  So the nursery is pretty much done.

On the not-so-bright side, we went to put the pack n play together last night only to find out that the one we got is broken.  So that has to be taken back to the store as soon as they have more in.  My mom bought the last one they had on Wednesday for her house.  *facepalm*

My coworkers also threw us an amazing shower yesterday.  Seriously, absolutely amazing.  They’re the best!  I’m really interested to see how the Diaper Genie works out; we had just planned on using a fairly nice metal trash can that we could reuse later, but one of my coworkers just came back from her maternity leave and absolutely loves hers.  So she got us one.

Moving right along

After much debating (okay, so mostly after much procrastinating and then rapid scanning of my insurance’s website), I think we’ve found a pediatrician.  I think he might be the youngest one in town, but all that means is that he graduated med school after 1990, pretty much.  😛  I had been looking at practices closer to my office but ended up branching out to a practice down by the hospital; it’ll ultimately be closer to the shop for Southern Honey, and basically all the doctors are covered under our insurance, unlike the practices out by my office.  Whoever there we end up going with, we have an appointment with our first choice next week, if I make it that long.

We also went to my 37-week appointment today.  Blood pressure is still healthy, although it’s up a bit (not surprising, as today was stupidly stressful at work), and the Munchkin’s heartbeat is good.  Then came the internal exam.

Now, I love my OB, but she does not have the gentlest hands ever.  That and I tend toward tenderness in that particular area.  Not the best combination ever, but I put up with it because I like everything else about her, especially her straightforwardness and bedside manner.

So internal exams are rapidly becoming Not My Favorite Thing Ever.  Just like last time, I about came up off the table while she was rooting around in there — I just held tight to both sides of the exam table.  Mostly it’s uncomfortable, which I can deal with, but checking to see how dilated I am, she gave a couple of really good pokes and prods that just plain hurt.

Okay, whining over.  I’m close to three centimeters dilated and between 70% and 80% effaced as of today.  As she said, apparently that back labor paid off last week in progressing things along.  All the poking and prodding definitely brought on more Braxton-Hicks contractions and attempts by the Munchkin to escape, via the approved route this time.  It’s also left me decidedly un-hungry, even though I ate lunch something like seven or eight hours ago and know I need to have something.

I think it’s cereal time.

Almost finished

Night and day, split down the middle

We finished painting the nursery last weekend, at long last.  We still need to figure out where in the world those Roman shades that I bought for the window disappeared to, since they’re most definitely not in the closet.   😛  Those, the curtains, the storage unit for the closet, and the crib/changing table are all that still need to be taken care of in terms of furniture.

Aside from that, it’s get the prints up on the wall, finish up the crib blanket, and we’ll be ready to roll.

The closet wall

The morning wall

Sleeping wall

 

Farewell, sleep

I’m pretty much giving up on the idea of ever sleeping again after last night.

Just when I thought I had the whole “get up five times to pee and then go back to sleep” under control, my body threw a new wrinkle into things: back labor.  I don’t know who’s brilliant idea this was, but I thoroughly object.  I mean, there has to be some position I can get in to sleep that doesn’t induce shrieking pain in either my stomach, my side, or my back, right?

I’m not sure that I can operate at work on as little sleep as I got last night for that long.  Barf.