9 Months Pregnant

First off, does everyone know that women get to live in pregnancy land for 10 months? TEN. 40 weeks. I am 36 weeks or 9 months pregnant now, you’d think I’d be done! But no, everything I knew about pregnancy before this was false advertising. I’ve come to the point where I don’t want to be pregnant anymore; I really want this munchkin out of me. Earlier in pregnancy I wondered what causes women to hit this point, pregnancy wasn’t so bad really. I got to trade up for bigger boobs, people let me use “employee only” restrooms and held doors open for me and Michael brings home special presents like root beer! But something has happened in the last week and a half. Suddenly it’s really hard to lift myself out of bed, I more have to roll off kinda like an elephant seal rolling back into the ocean. My energy is suddenly lower, I’m not first trimester kinda tired where I could fall asleep at the drop of a hat; but my body definitely tells me when I need to take a rest. I can usually only last about twenty minutes standing before my feet start aching really bad; I like to fight through it for as long as possible which probably isn’t the best thing to do but I don’t like the feeling of having to stop because I physically cannot do something. Stubborn much? Thanks Mom.

I regret eating so much protein these past 36 weeks because apparently there is a tiny meat head living in my womb, I imagine her doing crossfit in there and kickboxing because that’s seriously what it feels like. She is probably putting on her tiny sweatband right now so she can ninja kick me in the ribs. Her movement seems like it is constant (which is absolutely a good thing), when she is awake she is usually moving around for about 90 minutes at a time before taking a rest. Sometimes her tiny foot gets lodged behind my ribcage so that I can’t bend over. Because of this for the first time the other day I actually had to ask Michael to put on my shoes for me. I get pretty bad back and shoulder aches from time to time and they got so bad two weeks ago that I got myself a pregnancy massage. To accommodate a pregnant belly you have to lay down on this big pad that has a cutout for belly and boobs. Each boob cutout was about as big as a freaking cantaloupe with the center cleavage divider like 5 inches wide making for a generally uncomfortable experience. The face cutout was oddly small, too, usually my face fits nicely on a massage table! I left with lines on my face, smushed tarantula looking eyelashes and a still sore shoulder. Sad day!

Michael and I took advantage of this holiday weekend by doing major home organization and hitting up Black Friday sales (online of course) for some baby gear. We seem to have the essentials in place enough so that if she arrived today we could definitely manage but I still feel like there is so much to do; I’ve had a ton of anxiety lately and Michael keeps reassuring me that we have the staples we need and everything will be fine. I know that even if we had 100% of the items we registered for, I would still feel like something is missing, maybe it’s the actual baby? The room is about 95% done and should be complete by the weekend so I can take pictures to post.

In 6 days I will be 37 weeks, full-term and able to safely deliver a baby whenever the heck I want, or she wants I guess. I asked my doctor if the fact that our girl has been consistently two weeks ahead of schedule size-wise will make an earlier delivery likely and he laughed at me and said no. Awesome. I usually don’t even ask questions and the one time I do the asshole laughs at all of them, if he delivers my baby he’s in for a real treat. People have asked if I like my doctor, there are actually four doctors at the practice I go to and any of them can deliver the baby. I have been seeing each of them throughout the pregnancy and I’d be happiest with 2 out of the 4. One of those is the first doctor I saw and had brought a female friend with me to the appointment. He asked if she was my lesbian lover and I had left my husband after getting pregnant. I appreciate that kind of humor and I think he would be the perfect fit. I once had a little tumor removed from my collarbone and the doctor who removed it exclaimed “It’s a boy!” when he finally got it out. Again, much appreciated! I’d rather have it lighthearted than super serious, assuming everything is going fairly smoothly of course.

I’ve been thinking of chopping off my hair for faster blow-drying after the baby is born. Thoughts?!

How far along? 36 weeks
How big is baby?  Honeydew melon, 6 pounds and 18.5 inches
Miss Anything? A normal size body, not peeing all throughout the night
Sleep: Good night’s rest maybe once a week. Usually I sleep for a few hours and then am wide awake for about two hours before falling back to sleep.
Movement: Crazy movement that you can see from a distance as my stomach morphs into shapes that it shouldn’t be.
Food cravings: Dairy! Mainly in the form of hot chocolate and whipped cream
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope
Gender: Girl!
Labor Signs: Last week I had braxton hicks for one entire day, like 8-10 an hour. That’s about it.
Symptoms: Backache, sore feet, “hangry” spells.
Belly Button in or out? I don’t even know what the hell my belly button is supposed to look like anymore.
Wedding rings on or off? On
Mood: Sometimes I have the urge to punch people in the face
Looking forward to:  LABOR AND DELIVERY
Upcoming appointments/events: Tomorrow, 36 week checkup