My troublesome penchant for the somnolent state...

Ten days left until Scarlett is due...it seems so close, yet so far away! The closer it gets to her "due date" the harder it is for me to wrap my mind around her being here, because I've accepted that the whole timeline is useless. The big event could happen any day, or not for weeks still. Probably the latter. For the first time, I'm actually dreading rather than looking forward to my doctor's appointment this week, as I'm afraid when I hear "no signs of labor" again, I might burst into tears right in front of her!

Strangely, though, it gets easier and easier for me to sleep disgustingly long amounts of hours. I'm beginning to wonder what's going on here. Everything I read tells me that I should be miserably uncomfortable and tormented by insomnia. But my discomfort seems to have hit a kind of plateau lately...not much has cropped up in the way of new pain and most of my old pains have now plagued me for so long that I've just metabolized them as a part of life. And while I've had the occasional sleepless night in the past, lately I've been sleeping for ten, eleven, twelve hours straight (well, interrupted only by the occasional half-conscious stumble to the potty)! Is this unnatural?

On one hand, I know it's good to be well-rested before the ordeal of labor and then the sleep deprivation of a new infant. On the other, people say insomnia in the last trimester helps get you used to a new way of life. Does this mean I will be utterly unprepared for my new way of life? Maybe I should start setting an alarm to wake myself up every two hours?

Hmmmm...no, that sounds like torture. I guess I'll just let my body do what it thinks it needs, and maybe when my alarm clock is a little baby I love more than life, I'll have an easier time waking up!

In the meantime, I'm taking all the wise mommies' advice...going to movies, going out to eat, generally being unproductive and enjoying myself. Tonight is New Year's Eve. Other than having this child, I guess I'd better start thinking about some good resolutions...

Happy New Years to all!

This is one Emotional Rollercoaster...

So, you know how about a week or so ago I pronounced that no longer had any agenda about Scarlett's arrival and that I would be happy for her to come on her own schedule?

Well, I lied. How quickly we forget! Now that the misery of being sick is forgotten and less than two weeks remain until my due date, my stress levels are climbing again, mostly due to my weekly doctor visit at which I was informed, AGAIN, that I had no sign of dilation or effacement. Well, the doctor allowed, maybe a TEENSY bit effaced. But she may have said that to make me feel better.

Now, I trusty-old-googled all this effacement and dilation stuff, and besides finding a really neat cartoon of a baby being born which I had great fun fast-forwarding through, making the baby shoot like a rocket out of the cartoon vagina, and informing my husband THAT's how it's going to happen for us!, I found some information that should make me feel better. Apparently early dilation and effacement is not a particularly sure sign of labor to come...some people can be dilated for weeks with labor still not starting, and for others it can happen instantaneously. Okay, that's good...

But I'm just worried that my daughter is going to do what I apparently did to my poor mother...according to her, I was SEVENTEEN days late. Now, let's be scientific about this. My mom, like me, had extremely irregular cycles; she wasn't aware for quite some time she was pregnant (although she found out earlier with me than with my sister, who informed the clue-ignoring woman of her presence with a big KICK right around 20 weeks!) and this was 28 years ago when technology could not have been quite as exact. So I'm guessing that my due date may have been off. One of my baby books says that probably 70% of late pregnancies are due to due-date miscalculations and variations in people's cycles.

But I, on the other hand, was taking Clomid, so I was on a SCHEDULE. I felt the pain of ovulation on that 14th day, and as instructed we did our duty on the 13th and 15th days, after abstaining for about a week before and a week after. So my due date, the 10th of January, has got to be pretty near spot-on, right? I'm just trying to justify reasons in my head for WHY THIS CHILD NEEDS TO BE ON TIME.

If she decides to be substantially late, the earliest and only date my doctor has available to induce me is the 18th! The bad things about this would be that my best friend Emily (whom I really want to be here) would be out of town, my in-laws (whom I really DON'T want to be here, just because I don't think I can handle houseguests too soon) would be IN town, and school would be starting only FOUR days later!! AUGH! The good things about her being late are....oh wait, NOTHING. Not a dang thing.

I know this is out of my hands. I know that a healthy happy baby is far and away the most important thing. I also know that for the next two weeks (possibly more! Yikes!) all I'm going to be doing is obsessing about this. Being a control freak is such a curse! So anyone out there, please send all tractor-beam, baby-coaxing emissions my way with wishes that sometime in the next two weeks, this little girl will decide, on her own, to get this show on the road!

Note to Self: Fishnets are Not Friends

So, I'm not one who is normally prone to rants of morality. I have no religious background and am generally a live-and-let-live type. For some reason, today though (maybe it's due to the baby girl on board, and the fact that I realize some day she's going to be able to observe, and LEARN FROM, the world around her) I had a moment of severe irritation at the grocery store as a result of another woman's questionable ensemble.

First of all, I wasn't at a normal grocery store. I was at WinCo, the WinCo in the North Reno location. Now, if you haven't been there you may not be able to conceive of what I'm talking about here, but I feel like this is one of those places you can go to see, well, the worst of humanity. Why do I shop there then, you may be asking? Because we are about to welcome a bank-breaking baby, and also about to lose nearly 2/3 of our income as I leave one of my jobs, I feel compelled to start sincerely trying to save money (something I just as sincerely SUCK at, and I know this). Shopping at Winco probably, honestly, shaves 10-20 bucks per trip off the total. But man, is it overwhelming. I have to wrestle with myself mentally before I can make myself go there, try to convince myself that the savings is worth it. The one at the south end of town is purportedly a different story, but since the time and gas money it would take to get there negates the savings, I either buck up and go to this WinCo or wuss out and head to my favorite lovely, but expensive, Raley's.

How do I describe this Winco without sounding like a snot? It's always super-crowded with the kind of people who don't care, and don't excuse themselves, when their carts block the entire aisle. Most of them look beaten and bedraggled and many are lugging heards of kids or screaming babies, babies screaming the kind of screams that make you wonder Why, on earth, was I so excited to get pregnant. The last trip I made there, I heard a girl cussing like a sailor in the next aisle, and when I turned the corner I saw she was no older than probably ten, and her mother was standing right there acting like it was normal. For her, it probably was.

Anyway, today the older woman standing in front of me in line was wearing a teal fleece jacket that went to her butt, knee-high fringed black boots, fishnet tights, and NOTHING ELSE. I am not kidding. I am positive there was no really short skirt or shorts hiding up there. Fishnet-encased cheeks were plain to the eye. Now, I figure she was probably a casino worker that just got off work, but I don't care. Can't you throw on a kilt, or a pair of shorts, or something? Even if you march around all day in what basically amounts to a sequin-encrusted bathing suit and tights, can't you put on some bottoms before you go to a grocery store that's full of children and people who would really appreciate being spared the site of ass packed in fishnet? Not to mention the fact that its effing winter and cold as hell outside. Come on, that can't be comfortable.

Okay, I'm a bitch. I don't know what gives rise to this moral rant. It's probably really trite of me to be irritated by such a thing. But I couldn't help it. Would you prance around a grocery store in a jacket and tights and nothing else? Maybe it's just me being 8.5 months pregnant and bitter that I am barred from prancing of any sort, but if that woman were my daughter (even though she was probably in her forties) I would swack that fishnet-covered booty and send her back to her room to change!

The Evil of Stomach Bugs

(This is a fairly gross post, so don't read if you've just eaten!)

Last night was supposed to be a happy night. I had just turned in my last final paper and was ready to CELEBRATE! Well, celebrate as much as a pregnant woman can, which means a virgin peach dacquiri and dinner at the Olive Garden with good friends. Unfortunately, as soon as we got there I started feeling a little funky. After losing my salad in the bathroom (and getting plenty of dirty looks from people who probably thought I was binging and purging!) but pretty much feeling fine otherwise, I was still thinking that this was just a random bout of nausea that would pass.

No such luck. After getting home I got progressively sicker. Soon my body was emptying itself of fluids in every imagineable way, simultaneously with all the other ways. Let's just say I don't think I'll be eating Olive Garden again for awhile. I kept trying to get to sleep but would wake up having to run to the bathroom, or by massively painful stomach cramps that maybe, possibly, felt like contractions. They were coming and going in regular waves, had peaks and lulls, and I did find that the breathing exercises I learned in birthing class helped.

Now, I was pretty sure I wasn't in labor. But I was scared and getting more and more hysterical because I, for the first time, got a taste of what real labor could be like--intolerable pain and violent sickness and fear for the baby all at once--and man did it freak me out. All I can do is cross my fingers that I'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't get nauseous because throwing up weakens me...I totally lose my perspective, my ability to tolerate pain. After several hours of progressively violent illness and crying, I began to get dizzy and faint. Finally around 2:00am Mario insisted that we call Labor & Delivery, who in turn insisted that we come in, and there it was: my first hospital admittance in my WHOLE LIFE, other than being born--one emergency room trip when I was little because my dad accidentally ran over my foot doesn't count. It was followed after awhile (we had to wait for me to be able to pee, then for the lab to lose and find my pee, from which even a completely non-medical person would have been able to glance at and diagnose dehydration) by my first IV ever. Even though I was to the point of not caring what the hell they did to me, I handled the IV about as well as I usually handle needles, meaning NOT WELL. Why am I such a wuss? The nurse told Mario to warn hospitals in the future that I something-down when I get needled, some medical terminology I can't remember for loss of blood pressure. My poor nurse.

They began dumping fluids and anti-nausea medication into me, whereupon I slowly started to feel human again. After that the only scary part of the process was when the baby's heartbeat got kind of erratic for awhile. Now I can see why people opt not to have fetal monitoring. Brief Doppler peeps give you the reassurance that all is good, but with fetal monitoring every fluctuation becomes evident and worrisome, and man, she was all over the place for awhile, up and down, and the volume was up so loud that all I could hear were these speed-ups and slow-downs that seemed so dramatic. But the nurse was watching her carefully and after awhile Crazy Scarlett calmed down...thank you Baby, because your mom really didn't need any more stress at that point

In the morning, I called my mom and she came to relieve Mario so he could go to work...not such a great thing for him after having been up the entire night. It was nice to have her there to chat with, although by the time they released me two bags of fluids later, around 10:30 this morning, I was exhausted, so exhausted that I didn't even shower (and you can imagine the state of me) before collapsing and sleeping the entire day.

I had to get up for a regularly scheduled doctor's appointment at 4:00 pm (the hospital nurse tried to cancel it for me but they insisted I come in) and here is the verdict at 37 weeks pregnant: No dilation. No effacement. Even after all that, my body is not showing the slightest sign of getting ready for delivery.

That's good news is that after last night, I'm not so sure that's bad news. A hospital visit is a nice cure for delivery impatience. I need some distance from the pain and fear of that experience before I go through it again, this time for real. So Scarlett, I know I've been pestering you to come early, but let me revise my request: come whenever you want if it means I get nausea-and-diarrhea-free labor, as painful as it might be, and you keep your little heart beat steady.

25 pages of solid gold...or pyrite?

Deep.... Long.... SIGH!

I finally, after hours and hours and hours of messing with it, turned in one of my final papers this morning. It was one of those papers where I busted out the initial draft and then made it through the peer review without actually taking in (probably due to the tact of my classmates and professor, who didn't want to take responsibility for making a pregnant woman bawl) exactly how bad it sucked. Then I put it aside for awhile, picked it back up expecting to have some minor tweaking and polishing, and realized the whole thing needed to be rebuilt.

SIGH.

Because it was about pimps and hos, it was kind of a fun paper to write. And I have to admit...I'm actually kind of happy with it (which, without a doubt, means my professor is probably going to hate it, because I notice it's always the things I like most that other people dislike and vice versa!) But still, an immense feeling of relief settled on me when I dumped it in my his box this morning. That's ONE thing down...

If a fairy godmother appeared in my office right now (I know, I know, too much Enchanted with Emily Pie) I would wish I still didn't have two papers more to finish. I hate this point of the semester, any semester, but especially winter semester. Being almost done means I still have a ton of shit to do, but at the same time I'm rapidly losing my ability to discipline myself away from fun, as the need to indulge myself in social events, good eating, and shopping increases by the day. Christmas is creeping closer and closer and the days go by with nothing done...a bare tree in the dining room, ornaments still packed away, the only shopping done what I did online on Black Friday. No letters are written, no cards addressed, and no packages are sent. And now there are only TWELVE days left!

Then add the Imminent Baby to the mix. Every day I am stretched thin between work and school is another day I put off packing my bags for the hospital, finishing the last touches on Miss Scarlett's room, and getting the house clean (er than it is)--or, okay, let's be honest, making my husband do it. And the desire to holiday-socialize is compounded by the realization that, in all likelihood, I'm probably be spending a lot of time ALONE, cooped up in my HOUSE, over the next few months. I had a huge realization yesterday how hard it's going to be to stay at home, most of the time with no one to talk to, while everyone I know including my husband labors at jobs that don't allow them to linger on the telephone with lonely post-partum mommies! So now I feel like I should be spending all of the time I can with friends before a crying baby renders me a socially undesirable companion. After all, very few of our friends have kids.

And then there are the thank-you cards, oh the THANK-YOU CARDS, for all the lovely things my generous friends and family gave me at baby shower! I tuck the blank notes in my purse each day hoping to get to them, and then feel like a total shithead when I don't. Days pass into weeks, the guilt compounding with each of them, and the suspicion burgeons in my heart that everyone I know thinks I am an ungrateful wretch who is only using them for baby gifts, and still the notes sit in my purse! Ahhh! Okay, I might be overreacting about this a bit. I think I know too many of those lovely people who have a thank-you card in your mailbox exactly ten minutes after you give them something.

Do you know, the only thing taking care of itself right now, interestingly enough, is the actual baby. Thank god I don't have to be in charge of making sure she gains weight (other than stuffing my face, which comes all too easy!), and making sure my body is getting ready for delivery, otherwise I'd probably be causing delays in her arrival. It's nice, although quite freaky, that my body actually knows what to do without any input from me. That's what our childbirth class teacher told us, and I have to admit that this thought rose up in my mind: "What if mine doesn't?" But signs this week (some of THOSE THINGS they tell you might happen, probably too gross to reveal to the innocent blog reader) tell me that even my body, my pudgy, swollen, achy, body, probably has a pretty good idea. I'm pretty pleased with my body for that, and I know I don't appreciate it nearly as much as I should. So here's one thank-you note I can take care of right now:

Dear Body,

Thanks for not asking a lot of me right now. It's nice to know that with you, I don't have to be my normal control freak self, because I can actually trust you to handle your shit. I know the acid reflux you torment me with at four in the morning is really not your fault, nor is it your fault that for some odd reason I can't kneel due to strange pain in my knees. I know you are doing the best you can to prepare me for the amazing life-changing event of having an anklebiter, and that you're only making my pelvis ache because you don't want an episiotomy or a C-section any more than I do. Thank you also for finally fulfilling my lifelong wish for bigger boobies (although, if it's not too much to ask, can you please ask Miss Lefty to get with the program, as I'd prefer not to be lopsided for life?) I promise when the baby arrives to start taking better care of you via running and the elliptical and fewer fried chicken sandwiches (insert guilty glance at the balled-up wrapper in the garbage here) because I know you miss your former not-quite-as-blimp-like structure. And let's make a deal...if you can keep my pain during labor to a minimum, I will use every fiber of my mental strength to keep the anesthesiologist and his foot-long needle away from you. Sound good?

Thanks again, body. I know I don't say this enough, but you're kind of a superstar.

There, one thank-you note down, thirty to go. And don't forget those Christmas cards...and those last two papers...AUGH!

Now am I certified?

Mario and I took an 8-hour parenting class at our hospital today, which, thanks to the fast-talking teacher (she rivaled me for blithering speed, and I loved every second of it!) only ended up going 6.5 hours. It was 6.5 hours well spent, I would say. The instructor was absolutely hilarious and we got to spend part of the time sacked out in bean bag chairs practicing relaxing breathing techniques. While I can't say I learned a ton I already didn't know, I did find out something valuable about myself: I am actually not grossed out by watching a baby be born! This is a great surprise to someone who has been known (on more than one occasion) to hit the floor, hard, while having an eensey bit of blood drawn. But three videos into the class, my fainting reflex was firmly in check and I was actually quite intrigued with the process. Wonders never cease. Hopefully I can maintain my newfound strong stomach when it's MY girly parts under siege. The only part I'm still pretty sure I'll avert my eyes for is the appearance of the placenta, thank you, but YUCK.

Scarlett kicked, hiccuped, and squiggled through the ENTIRE class. It was an unusually long period of continuous activity even for her. Wonder what THAT means....

Back at home, and trying to avoid the TWO 25-page papers I have due on Monday (I'll get them done, right? Never mind that all I have right now is about 10 pages of notes) I just googled my OLD name (I converted to my married name this week, finally, after clinging to it long past my wedding date) and look at one of the entries that comes up on the first page:

These Oscar de la Renta pumps are very showy. I think the crystal broch on the toes is a bit to flashy. I'm not the biggest fan of this style shoe.

Yes, I must agree that me on the toes would be a bit much...

My sister and her boyfriend got a new dog tonight! I am waiting impatiently for them to come home and introduce him to me and my two crazy pups. I am also waiting impatiently for my husband to come home from an emergency grocery store run with fresh pizza dough. I guess I learned my lesson on how long NOT to let WinCo pizza dough sit in the fridge...I opened a week-old package open tonight, all ready to bust out some fabulous spinach calzone, only to find that the yeast had taken their fermenting duties a leetle far, and the dough now reeked like booze. I did have to spend a fair amount of time convincing my husband that alcoholic pizza dough is a BAD thing...

Okay, back to work.

Just this once, baby-dropping is a GOOD thing...

I am not sure (all those crazy doctor people who write what-to-expect books and go on and on about how first-time mothers instinctually know things need to shut up, because they are giving me complexes!), but I think Scarlett may be dropping a little...maybe. The night before last, on one of my frequent half-asleep nightly stumblings to the poor overworked potty, I noticed that I felt a lot more pressure in my lower abdomen then normal. All day yesterday she felt like a heavy weight down there instead of being more distributed as she normally is, and several people commented that my belly looked different (even my non-observant hubby, although he may have just said it because I planted the idea in his noggin). And for once last night, my ribs didn't feel like they were going to crack.

Is it possible...is she actually doing what she's supposed to be doing? I could be imagining things, but I hope I'm not. I haven't experienced Braxton-Hicks contractions (not a single one so far unless, again, I am an unnatural, instinct-lacking failure who just can't tell what I'm feeling) so I was beginning to fear this little girl is in no rush to emerge. Since she's due on the 10th of January, and school starts back up on the 22nd, I need her to be on time or (please, please, please, Goddess of Pregnancy and Delivery, I implore you) a teensy weensy, but still healthy, bit early. They say any time after 38 weeks is perfectly fine, and gee I would just love a tax write-off in the package (here I am, getting unreasonable again!), so I've been sending my little bun none-too-subliminal messages by rubbing my belly and intoning "December 30th, December 30th, you want to come out on December 30th!"

However--I'd better just be honest with myself right now--if she takes after me at all, I'm sure she has no intention of listening. "It's my way or the highway, Mom," she's sniggering; "and you'd better just get used to it."

In weather news, it's snowing, and so far showing no sign of stopping. And until it does, and until my street either melts a bit or gets plowed, I am not moving my happy, Toyota-Corolla-driving ass from this house. Work does not need me enough for me to risk getting in an accident at this stage of my pregnancy. So I am going to sit here with my two sleeping pups and my eggnog tea (yes, eggnog tea) and my Aristotle, and work on my final paper for History of Composition Pedagogies. Oh, and maybe internet a little...

(Yep, I'm milking it! In fact, I only have 34 days left until Scarlett's due date to milk it, so I'm thinking I'd better step it up even more. After all, pretty soon I'll just become the forgotten, dried-up cocoon while all of the attention focuses on the newly emerged butterfly! Hmmm, I'm thinking I'll make my husband fork over a back massage tonight, then maybe after our 8-hour birthing class tomorrow, he can take me to Thai Food and to see The Golden Compass. I only have just over a month before the "But I'm incubating your spawn!" ploy loses all power!)

Succumbing to the call of the blog

I've given in, little by little, to the siren song of online posting, tempted by the seductive allure of fresh daily reading as presented by my friend's blog. Gradually I've found it less of an obligation to visit her page (the Queen Blogger in question knows how to give some pre-tty good guilt trips when one is remiss in one's commenting duties!) and more something to look forward to, to the point that I've been disappointed, lately, when her posts haven't been as regular. The inclination to blog myself seemed to follow on the heels of being a regular blog reader. But that wasn't enough...I needed one more push...and it came in the form of an email from the Queen, now my fairy Queen, who waved her magic wand and Poof! made me this page.

Now I have simply have NO more excuses!

This may not be a successful venture. I may find I have nothing to say ("Ha ha," most people I know would shout hysterically, rolling on the floor, if they ever heard that come out of my mouth!) even though I should have a lot to say. I am finishing up the first semester of a doctoral program in rhetoric and composition and, before the next one starts (hopefully, unless she decides to stay in there past her due date), I'll have a brand new baby girl, destined by my love of Gone With the Wind and her father's love of classic Bianchi bikes to be named Scarlett Celeste. I have big dreams at this point: to be a superwoman mom who comes (maybe, possibly, okay fine--just humor me here) epidural-free through a gloriously uncomplicated labor; to be blessed with an angelically colic-immune child who takes naturally to breastfeeding (as do my nipples), allowing me to go back to school two or three weeks after she is born; to continue to manage the heavy load I've always carried with my program, without having to sacrifice any of my involvements or commitments; and somehow, since I won't be able to keep working a full-time job on the side, to find a way to keep up with the mortgage and maybe, once in a while, even have some grown-up fun with my husband and our friends, without sacrificing diapers, wipies, or cute little outfits for Scarlett.

Feel free to laugh uproariously at my ridiculous overconfidence, right about...NOW.

On this site, if I can find the time to keep posting between final papers, kicks to the ribcage, and equally frequent trips to the bathroom and fridge, I'll post about my dances with academia, impending mommy-hood, and daily life.