38 weeks pregnant. I feel enormous.

I had a woman who was in her mid-sixties say to me “don’t you just love being pregnant?!” I almost slapped her. Because NO ONE is head over heels in love with being pregnant and this is coming from a woman who has had relatively easy pregnancies i.e.: no vomiting.  It is pretty cool to be able to house a human life and be its “person” for nine months. But by the end you just so over it. My body aches after sitting too long, after standing too long and after lying down too long. Basically my body just can’t get comfortable. 

How far along: 38 weeks as of Thursday, Nov 20. I’m getting a little tired of people taking one look at me and going “woah … you must be due any day now.” Yes, I know that my belly is completely torpedo shaped. Let’s talk about the shape of YOUR body. 

Total weight gain: I’m not really certain. It always seems like I gain weight in the first month and then lose a whole bunch and then slowly put some of it back on. I’d put myself somewhere around 10-13 pounds of belly. 

Maternity clothes:  All day, every day. Except for a few pairs of fleece pants and yoga pants. Life is becoming tricky with the incoming cold weather and 75% of my wardrobe being maternity dresses and jeans. I need to have this baby soonish because I’m out of pants that fit me.  And I can only wear my black maternity leggings so many days in a row. It would be nice to have a legit winter coat to wear too… 

Gender:  baby girl named Paco. Paco is really sticking with Lucan. Although we gave him a few name choices the other day and he did like a couple of them. But how can we really trust a three year-old who wants to name his sister Paco? 

Movement: things are getting tight in there. She regularly gets hiccups in the evening and likes to rotate and stretch periodically. It’s always really amazing to feel a butt or an elbow or something pointy sticking out. It’s amazing and it hurts all at the same time. Sometimes it feels like baby girl is standing on my left hip bone. My hips, overall, are always achy. But my lower back hasn’t given me as much trouble this time, so for that we say AMEN. 

Sleep:  Pretty good. I usually have to get up once a night to pee and that’s it. But the last two nights have not been restful. The battery in the smoke alarm in our bedroom started beeping around 2:30 AM and then Lance had a dream he was slam dunking a basketball and woke both of us when he started thrashing wildly and hit our headboard really hard. Last night Lucan was convinced it was thundering out and came in our room at 5 AM (it was just really windy and blowing noisily). At 5 AM he just wanted to chat so Lance finally put him back in his bed so we could get a bit more sleep.

Rolling over and getting out of bed continues to be challenging. I don’t remember feeling like this last time. 

Insomnia has been fairly infrequent. Sometimes I struggle to fall back asleep after I pee which is annoying, but it hasn’t been bad. 

What I miss: being able to walk without my hips feeling achy. Stupid stretching ligaments. Going to the chiropractor has definitely been helping, but I suppose having the baby will be the most helpful thing.  

Cravings: Salad with peas. It’s weird, I know. I ate 2 tuna salad sandwiches last night without batting an eye. But generally, there’s less room for food because there’s less room in the inn overall. I’ve also been craving this drink from Outback Steakhouse called Wallaby Darned. It’s probably been 8 years since I’ve last had one but by golly, they sound amazing right now!

Nursery update: we are like 90% of the way done. Room is painted. Crib is up and sheets are on. Dresser has been relocated from downstairs to the nursery. Curtains are hung. Paint chip garland is hung (but I’m still contemplating some unnecessary revisions). Doo-dads are slowly being added. I’m still in the process of putting away and washing pink clothes and the closet could really use some work as there is NO ROOM presently for any of pink stuff to be put in there. She’ll have to share her brother’s closet.  But we’re really close. Which is good since le bebe could come at any time.

Mommy thoughts: I’m slowly losing my mind. Most of the time I can’t find anything and then I make bets with Lance and he finds things in about twenty seconds. It’s infuriating. Lost things that I haven’t been able to find and Lance finds later on: black yoga pants, gray fleece pants, my phone, paint samples. I truly thought I was losing my mind when I texted a friend and discovered she had a couple of the things I had searched all over for. It was nice to know I wasn’t crazy. Between trying to finish the nursery and organizing three rooms of stuff into two rooms, the house is a disaster. I think the reason I keep losing stuff is because it’s 50% baby brain and 50% utter mess. #notmyfault

We took Lucan to a Big Brother Preparedness class in which he missed the beginning because he threw a fit and had a timeout in the car. I really don’t feel prepared to give birth, at least not like I did last time. I haven’t read any books and I have been really lax about most everything. I keep banking on the fact that because I’ve done this once before, I should be able to navigate my way through it a second time. At least in theory. I finally decided that I’m going to have this baby at the same hospital that we had Lucan mostly because labor and delivery is such a crap shoot that it might be nice to have ONE thing that is familiar. I should really mail in my pre-registration info. But everyone’s bags are finally packed and the car seat has been cleaned and is installed.

There’s no room in our deep freeze for me to do any freezer cooking. For real. We have a gigantic stand-alone freezer and there’s no space to put anything in it. Could be the box of bacon, the side of beef, the massive amount of chicken I bought on sale, the strawberry freezer jam, freezer corn and tomatoes. I’m not sure what we’re going to eat when baby sister makes her appearance – corn and jelly?

Message to baby: Hi little sister! What do you want to be named??

This has been the only picture I've had taken of me at 38 weeks. Because it's taken full-on, you can't really see my total torpedo belly. It's probably better that way. Our wonderful small group threw us a little pink baby shower before small group discussion, complete with pink decor and my FAVORITE Scratch cupcakes!