Our Last Weekend

Watering the trees while still in our jammies

Two weeks ago Sam and I left Jamie's Play Palace at 4:30pm on Friday and we entered into perhaps the longest, most challenging weekend of my life. Combine the physical exhaustion and heartburn and insomnia of late stage pregnancy with a defiant 2 and 1/2 year old who is used to a Mommy that runs and wrestles and climbs with him, and you're asking for trouble.

Thank God this past weekend, our last weekend alone, was completely different. It's not that the exhaustion is gone or that I am suddenly finding a way to quiet my bladder (or my mind) to get more sleep at night. But I entered this past weekend knowing that this was it, our last full weekend alone with just the two of us. I took lots of deep breaths and let the dishes pile up and didn't spend any time on the To-Do-Before-Baby List.

We created blanket forts in the living room. We built a Sammy Sam Clubhouse that rivals Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse. (Secret password to enter is "popsicle.") We made cookies. We made cake. We ran around the yard looking for holes left by the family of ground squirrels that pop their heads up when we're watching from the dining room table. We played with diggers in the sandbox. We picked flowers. We chased ladybugs. We killed bees and then studied their yellow legs and yellow eyes. ("Where his eyes, Mommy? Where his eyes?") We filled buckets with water and made pools and sand sculptures in the sandbox. We watched movies and ate popcorn ("Can we make MORE popcorn, Mommy?"). We wrestled and tickled in my bed in the morning, playing our little game where our hands are spiders that can talk to each other. Sam's little hands crawl up my leg or along my arm and he lifts a few of the fingers and says "Hi. What you doing?" or "Can your spider come play with my spider?" We blew big bubbles on the back porch, and every fifteen minutes we raced out to move the hose soaking the rootballs of the new trees we had planted last week. ("I beat you again, Mommy.") We inhaled fresh buttery acorn squash that Sammy says "tastes like candy." We talked about Baby Sister coming and how TT is going to take him to the hospital. I asked him what we should name Baby Sister and he said "Baby Sister. Her name Baby Sister." I asked him if we should name her Eva or Theresa. "No!!!!!! Her name Baby Sister!" We sat in the rocking chair at the end of the night and talked about our days and counted the days until TT will be here and the days until Auntie Ann will be here ("When Sarah's mommy here, Mommy?") and the days until Baby Sister will be here. And we both said I love you spontaneously a hundred million times. It's hard to imagine loving another child as much as I love this little man who has completely transformed my life (and my heart), and I know that these moments alone together are going to be so rare starting next week. But I feel so incredibly grateful for this life and this past weekend and the moments we've had together that I will treasure forever.

Autumn Moments

Living room camping

During the last few weeks the world around us has changed suddenly. Hot sticky days with harsh bright sunlight have been replaced by cool, crisp dry days that smell of fresh mown grass and distant fires. Many of the 6-foot-high corn fields have been mowed down, and the guy selling 12 ears for $4 out of the back of his truck has sold out for the season. The soybean fields are starting to turn golden, and maples and ash here and there are flaming red and yellow. It isn’t fall yet, but fall is definitely in the air. We leave the windows open at night, and some nights the brisk prairie winds from the west cool the house so much that I have to get up and close the windows. We leave for town every morning just as the sun is coming up, and as we turn east to head for Jamie’s Play Palace, the blinding sunlight makes Sammy demand that the sun go away. “Go away, icky sun. Go away,” he says.

But the weather is not all that is changing. I am slowing down, trying to memorize and appreciate every single moment I have with Sam. Our last few weeks alone. Our last few weeks before we have to share each other. Every night before bed we rock in the double-sized rocker in his room and talk about what we did during the day. He no longer lays on my lap… partially because my lap shrank as my belly grew bigger but mostly because he always wants to remind me that he’s a big boy, that he wants to sit next to me rather than on me. We squeeze into the chair side by side and I wrap my left arm around him and he leans into me resting his head on my belly. Sometimes he jumps up and makes a joke that Baby Sister just kicked him, but mostly he leans and tries to find a comfortable position for his head. He sometimes takes a while to settle with all the excitement he has when we talk about our day. The walks we took, the vegetables we picked, the friends we visited, the pies we baked, the bubbles we blew. Sunday he was so excited about the 3-man tent set up in the living room and the flashlight we used to read our bedtime stories (until he accidentally slammed it into my nose) that he could hardly sleep. Tonight he told me how excited he is to stay at Jamie’s house tomorrow night.

I’ve decided to give myself one night off every week. A night to recharge and stay horizontal and not have to cook or clean or sit on the bathroom floor next to Sam’s potty chair while he pushes and reads his Elmo potty book for fifteen minutes. I have been looking forward to giving myself these nights off for weeks, looking forward to a relief from the battle of do-this-why-because-i-said-so. But on the eve of my first weekly night off I find myself a little sad, a little unsure of whether I want to give up a night with him when we have so few left of just us, so few quiet nights when I’ll be able to sit and talk and cuddle and share and remember how truly lucky we are to have each other.

Sam discovered a John Deere that he could drive at a neighbor's birthday party.

Tonight on the way home we saw a digger for sale just down the road from where the guy used to sell corn out of his pickup. Sam was telling me for the 25th time that he didn’t want pizza for dinner and he didn’t want noodles for dinner and we needed to stop and buy mangoes. Yummy mangoes. I had tired of the broken record conversation we were having and I pointed out the digger, told him it was for sale.

“Can we buy it?” he asked.

I told him it was big and expensive and we didn’t have enough money.

“TT can buy it. TT has money.”

“No,” I said. “TT doesn’t have enough money either.”

Last week as we were pulling away from the daycare, the father of some of the other children was just pulling up. Outside the window Sammy heard Jamie say “Look whose daddy is here.” After we had turned the corner and gone a few blocks down the road, Sam said “I don’t have a daddy.”

“No,” I said. “Our family doesn’t have a daddy. Just a mommy.”

“I have a mommy,” he said, and I shifted the rearview mirror to see him smile. “Just a mommy and just a TT!”

“Yep,” I said. “You have a TT!” I didn’t remind him that in a few short weeks he will also have a Baby Sister.

Tonight as we rocked in the chair in the 7pm bedtime routine darkness, the flashlight put away on the “big boy dresser” across from his bed, he told me he loved me very much and stretched up to kiss me on the nose. “Sorry I hit your nose, Mommy. I hope your nose is all better,” he said. He patted me on the head with the same soft touch he uses whenever he apologizes to get off the naughty mat and I reassured him that I knew it was an accident, that I was okay. He kissed me on the nose again and repeated, “I love you very, very much.”

[sigh]

How do I take a night off from that?

Ready!

My friend Missy said “The end is in sight,” and then she immediately corrected herself and said “I guess I should say the beginning is in sight.” My cousin Tamie said “Yay. Very soon you will be un-pregnant.” My friend Kae said she’ll be thinking of me as I enter this next phase of my life.

Despite all the recent complaining about my inability to bend over or the fact that my arm is just barely long enough to wipe when I pee for the hundredth time each day, I have really enjoyed being pregnant, and I am actually going to miss the way my belly dances in the middle of the night or the baby’s hiccups can twitch me so much that I become distracted from whatever else is going on around me. I will miss being able to push on my right rib cage and then feel an immediate reaction on my left side as his fist or his knee readjusts to the new limitations of his space. I will miss having people come up to me in the hall at work and say “How much longer?” and “You look great.”

Ann says that the second that baby is born I’ll become invisible, and that is fine with me. I am ready and so excited for my son to arrive.

It’s been almost six and a half years since Zack looked up at me with his big brown unfocused eyes and captured my heart. And it’s hard to believe it’s been 4 years since an adorable red-blonde little girl who looks more and more like her mommy every day entered my world. (“I’m not a baby any more,” she tells me. “I’m a kid.”)

In less than 24 hours my own son will enter this world and though everyone tries to describe the love I’ll feel for this little being, I know I can’t begin to imagine it. But in less than 24 hours I won’t have to imagine it because he’ll be here. I can’t wait.

I’m ready!

40 More Hours

TT, Sarah T, Barb, and Ann---all ready for Baby's first Christmas

The girls have all arrived in anticipation of the arrival of the boy. (Zack had to stay behind for another week of school.) We're counting down in hours now, and in less than 40 hours a boy will be joining this crew. Then you can all stop asking me what his name is because I'll know when I meet him.

Two Christmases

Two Christmases, 41 years apart

December 1966

December 2007 (38 weeks)

37 Weeks

Kelly and Barb and Belly on the back deck

With only 14 days left until Baby's arrival, I'm finding myself more and more exhausted and uncomfortable (hence less writing), so rather than complaining about all that, I'll just post some pictures from my awesome weekend with Kelly. She drove over and back during a winter storm that carpeted our area with beautiful white snow, and we had a relaxing weekend. She brought me the most beautiful baby blanket (perfect size for swaddling) that she crocheted herself. Self-taught. A gift I will always treasure.

A precious personal gift

A HUGE Fan

This year I really am a HUGE fan!

TT and I spent the holiday watching football, eating pumpkin pie and breathing in the odors of onion, sage, and cinnamon wafting out from the kitchen. We started the day with a brisk walk in the 20 degree temps with the wind in our faces so that we could, as Jim would say, "earn our pumpkin pie." I don't think we earned as much pie as we ate since we ended up making a second pie during halftime of the Packers-Lions matchup.

I really miss Annie and the kids this Thanksgiving, but I'll see them in just 3 and a half short weeks when Baby arrives. Despite the backaches and the heartburn and the insomnia, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Baby hiccups are definitely one of my favorite things (since they remind me he's in there and alive but they don't hurt my bladder or my kidneys or my stomach), and I can only enjoy them for a few more weeks. It seems pumpkin pie brings them on even more than Fresca, so I think I'll go cut my first slice of the second pie.

Definitely a Matousek

35 Weeks HUGE!

Dr. Peck said the baby's hiccups are a great thing and they tell him three different things: 1) Baby's "an aggressive eater" (definitely a Matousek... for proof of that read the early postings from the first trimester or consider the fact that for lunch today I ate two pieces of Rocky Rococo's sausage and mushroom pizza followed by an entire box of Julie's organic ice cream sandwiches), 2) the tube from Baby's mouth to his stomach is free and clear and he has no birth defects related to these areas, and 3) there is lots of amniotic fluid for him to practice swallowing.

I got to see more of this swallowing today during my third BPP (I have these weekly now), and I also saw Baby suck on his thumb and sleep with his arm over his eyes. He's got lots of hair (which they say will fall out shortly after birth), and he's as active as ever... kicking the ultrasound device and squirming and turning and bouncing on my bladder.

Tomorrow is 35 weeks. The countdown continues. 27 more days.

34 Weeks - Just 34 More Days

A definite increase in Hugeness!
I think my pajama bottoms have reached their limit

Okay, my belly is officially HUGE. And the reason I know this is because I cannot seem to walk through a door without bumping my belly. I kid you not. The stalls in the bathroom at work present a particular challenge (I have to back up next to the toilet bowl just to swing the door wide enough for me to get out), but walking through the door that leads to my garage to grab a cold can of pop from the garage floor, and boom, the door doinks the belly. Out the front door to grab the mail and ouch, another belly bump. Car doors. Store doors. Oven doors. The employee entrance door at work. How is it possible that even though I’ve had this giant thing sticking out in front of me for weeks I suddenly manage to hit it with everything in site?

And there are more changes…

The very distinct kick and punch feelings have been replaced by rolls and pushes as the baby is now big enough that he can’t really wind up and pitch or kick with great force. There is now more baby than amniotic fluid. And when I feel a foot or a knee pushing one part of my belly out, it’s a great deal of fun to push back and watch it pop up elsewhere. It’s a little game we play. A lot. But in the last few weeks I’ve also started experiencing a new sensation. Baby hiccups. Once or twice a day my belly will start these tiny, rhythmic pulses that are 2-3 seconds apart. It’s like having a heartbeat where my stomach used to be. My doctor says this is very common, especially with more mature fetuses that have a well developed central nervous system. Many experts say that hiccups in the womb are a response to the baby practicing breathing movements with their lungs and diaphragm. Who knew the hiccups could be so fun? Way more fun than the occasional elbow into my kidney or foot into my rib cage.

Tomorrow is 34 weeks. Another ultrasound. The first of my weekly ultrasounds. And as exciting as that is, the thing I am most excited about tomorrow is the arrival of my new Queen-sized boxspring and mattress. I’m operating under the, perhaps, mistaken delusion that a new, high-quality bed will make it easier to sleep. But when I think about it, I realize that my bladder won’t care whether I’m on a good mattress or not. I’ll probably still be getting up every hour or two to pee.

I had lunch with Sarah today, and she brought along Nathan. We took turns holding him and bouncing him so that we could each eat, and my body just melted when the little 14-pound heater relaxed against my shoulder and started drooling on my blouse. It took me right back to when I used to hold little Zachary James for hours. Hard to believe that was six years ago. (As an aside, Zachary has said he thinks James would be a good name for the baby "because that's part of my name too!")

34 more days until I bring one of those home. As the booper and I played our little push-pull game with the wall of my belly tonight and he made me laugh (as he often does), I spoke out loud to him again.

“I can’t wait to meet you,” I said. “I can’t wait.”

Really Neat Thing

I was walking through the hallway that winds past the office of the man who owns the company I work for today, and as I turned the corner and passed his secretary’s office I heard “How are you doing, Barb?” I backed up and peeked my head into her office and said I was hanging in there. She pushed her chair away from her computer and ran her hand through her thinning red-gray hair. I told her this 3^rd trimester was more challenging than I expected.

“It’s worth it,” she said.

I told her I am sore most of the time and I really can’t ever get comfortable enough to sleep.

“Now when are you due? Soon right?”

I told her 6 weeks. 6 weeks from yesterday. 5 weeks and 6 days from today. 41 days.

She told me it would go fast, and I told her I wish it would go faster, that I haven’t slept for a week.

“You’ll never sleep again,” she said. “But it’s worth it. It’s so worth it.”

“That’s what I hear,” I said. “Which is why I did this.”

She knows my story. Somehow through the grapevine at work she’s one of the people who has gotten the right story, the story about how I made a conscious choice to make a baby as a single mother because I was turning 40 and running out of very precious time to start my family. (As opposed to the guy who sits three cubicles down from me who has heard a different grapevine story and had the nerve to ask one of our sales people if HE was the father of my baby.)

“I admire you so much,” she said. “I think you’re doing a really neat thing.”

I walk past Julie’s office all the time on my way from my office to the offices up front, and I see her candy jar filled with chocolates and I always think about taking a Reese’s or a Snickers. But I don’t really know her and I don’t want to disturb her, don’t want her to think I’m just a candy hog. But I think from now on I will peek my head in and say hi, whether I take a piece of candy or not.

“Thank you,” I said. “That really means a lot.” And I meant it.

It’s amazing what a little kindness from a stranger can do when you’re exhausted and sore and lonely and wondering how you are possibly going to manage to get through another 5 weeks and 6 days without anyone to rub your feet or massage your back or make you a cup of chamomile tea before bed. It’s amazing how the kindness of a stranger can make you realize that you can do just about anything.

Great River Trail

Nathan and Sarah and Barb (with her 5-pounder)

Just six more weeks, and though my belly is aching and my hips are sore and I have a myriad of things to complain about every day (most of them exascerbated by a complete lack of sleep... nobody ever tells you that 75% of pregnant women have insomnia and difficulty sleeping in the final few months before delivery), I invited my friend Sarah out for a sunshiney hike on the Great River Trail this past weekend. And just like my earlier hike with Rhonda, this one flew by as we talked and talked and talked. We didn't really realize how far we had walked until about the last 200 hundreds yards on the way back to the car when my hips started burning. Sarah brought along her own little bruiser who is now six weeks old and almost 14 pounds, and the four of us posed for a picture along the trail. We had so much fun, and I hope we can still sneak a few more of these walks in before I'm too sore to walk.

After our walk Sarah and Nathaniel came back to my house. Sarah and I talked while Nathan had some lunch and fell into a milk stupor. Then Sarah generously donated her Snoogle pregnancy pillow and her maternity support band to the remainder of my pregnancy. As the list of pains and aches continues to grow during the final trimester, I'm grateful for every little bit of comfort I can find.

6 more weeks.

Halloween Treat

After a few days of unnecessary anxiety (caused by a few friends who told me that the pain I was feeling in my right side was an early symptom of pre-eclampsia), I went in to get my BPP (biophysical profile) which is a test they do to check the overall health of the baby. I will be having these every week starting two weeks from now, since my "advanced maternal age" puts the baby in the high risk category... especially early and late in the pregnancy.

"Bruiser" at 32 weeks

TT came with me to see her grandson on the ultrasound, and because the BPP is a timed test, the sonographer couldn't really spend much time looking at Baby in too much detail. But TT got to see him open and close his hand, move his spine, breath (which, apparently, is really rare to see so easily on an ultrasound) and suck on his thumb. The first thing he showed us when he got on the screen was a special present for TT that she's been talking about ever since: his boy parts. I was guessing Baby was about 4 pounds at this point (based on all I've been reading from various pregnancy sources) but the measurements taken of his abdomen and femur and head indicated a weight of 5.1 pounds. His new nickname is Bruiser, though TT still keeps calling him Sam.

After the BPP we met with Dr. Peck and he told me that I shouldn't listen to any women I know because they will just cause me undue anxiety and I do not need to worry about pre-eclampsia. He said the pain I'm feeling is likely the little guy's butt pushing up against my ribs.

"Get used to feeling a lot of new pains," he said. "It's pretty cramped in there, and he's going to be pushing things that have never been pushed before."

My weight gain is now up to 24 pounds. My blood pressure was 123/70 which is high for me (I've been consistently 102/68 for a while) but Dr. Peck said unless that lower number reaches 90 there is no reason to worry. And thanks to my anxiety earlier this week I now know where the free blood pressure check is at Target.

I go back for my next BPP in two weeks, and then weekly after that. Not because the doctor or the sonographer see anything wrong (everything looks great, as a matter of fact), but because stillbirths are one of the risks of "advanced maternal age" and if we check Baby every week we can see if he seems to be struggling at all. Doctor Peck stressed that I should not worry about this because I am very healthy and Baby's BPP results were fantastic. We got an A+ this week.

It was a great Halloween treat to be able to share all that with TT, and we've started the countdown. Less than 7 weeks until we finally meet him!

Belly Dance

If I had a video camera and knew how to upload a movie to this site I'd film my belly for you all so you could see the fun I have every afternoon about 3:30pm. It's a rather fun show. Pregnancy has given a whole new meaning to the phrase "belly dance."

Warning---Pregnant Belly in Jeans

I woke up this morning excited about the gorgeous drive up the Mississippi River Valley, the entire area decorated with flame-colored stands of birch and poplars and maples. But I wasn't sure how to dress. This is fall. Jeans weather. But a pregnant woman in jeans? I'm not comfortable with the way my butt looks in jeans when I'm not pregnant (though, like every woman I know, I fake a level of security with my own body that really only exists for brief moments of time). But the cool, crisp air and the thought of crunchy piles of leaves under my feet made me dig out the three pair of maternity jeans that my friend Sarah gave me four months ago. And when I found a pair I didn't hate, I decided to leave the house in them and wear them for my meeting with Rhonda.

The Belly in Jeans

Rhonda is a friend from the Twin Cities who is just 6 weeks behind me, carrying an active little girl that is probably well over a 1 pound at this point. And now that we live two and a half hours apart, it's been tough to find time to get together and catch up. We decided to meet halfway in Red Wing for a walk on the Cannon Valley Trail and lunch at Lilly's Coffeehouse on Main Street.

Despite the cloudy skies, the drive up the Mississippi River Valley did not disappoint. Around each new curve I encountered slashes of bright yellow and orange that always surprise me when they occur naturally. The bright yellows along the highway and hanging over the little towns along the river look like they would glow in the dark if someone turned the lights out, and I kept pulling over to take pictures. The drive is a commute I made every single day for the last several years, but for a few weeks in October every year, it becomes even more magical, and i feel truly blessed to live in such a beautiful place.

Rhonda and Barb, Two Bellys on the Cannon Valley Trail, Red Wing

Rhonda and I met and started walking fast and hard, not even paying attention to our heavy breathing and the stretching ligaments below our growing bellys. It had been so long since we'd seen each other and we had so much to catch up on... boys and houses and jobs and money and so very many stories. But most of all it was so great to be able to talk to somebody else who knows exactly what you're talking about when you say you are in love with the movements going on in your own belly, somebody else who understands that sometimes you stand in front of the mirror after your morning shower and study the line down the center of your belly and the way your belly button has flattened out and the way your profile looks like you have a basketball stretching your skin from the inside. It is so nice to confess these things to someone, to say "I can't believe it's me that's pregnant, it's me that's going to be the mom" and have them say "I know. Exactly." It really is the most unbelievable experience, and I am so glad to be able to share it with so many people, but days like today when I get together with my friend who has chosen this same path of single motherhood and understands so many of the ups and downs and fears and joys of this whole process, I feel especially grateful. When we got back to our cars in the parking lot and looked at the clock and realized we had been walking and talking for two solid hours, we let ourselves admit to sore backs and aching feet and stretching ligaments. We probably walked well over 5 miles which ain't too bad for a couple of pregnant women of "advanced maternal age." In Jeans!

Something About Me That's Normal

Just a quick update since so many people have been calling or emailing to ask about the glucose tests. After 100 g of orange-soda-flavored sugar and 4 blood draws and 3 hours sitting in a doctor’s waiting room observing old men in farmer hats with canes and old women with walkers and young paralyzed people in motorized carts and young mothers toting infants while holding the hands of unruly toddlers, my results came back as completely normal. All four blood draws (fasting, 1-hour, 2-hour and 3-hour) all came in at normal levels. So there’s something about me that’s normal.

The time in the waiting room wasn’t as bad as I expected. I spent much of it watching all the people and reading a Howard Norman memoir on the time he spent translating the Noah folktales of the Inuit people (more interesting than you’d think) and watching The Belly bounce around. As I tell Ann every day, I don’t think this child ever sleeps. When I’m sitting in the car he’s kicking at the seat beat. When I’m at my desk the skin above my belly button pulses and taps against the edge of my desk. When I sit with my arms crossed at a work training session he pushes my arms up, reminds me that he wants all the space he can get. When I sleep he wakes me at 3 am with an elbow or a foot or knee to my bladder. He never seems to stop moving… except when I move…. which isn’t often these days. I spend a lot of time NOT moving. And when I’m not moving I am constantly entertained by an active little one who I am hoping will sleep much more after he’s born.

30 Weeks and Growing

Aunt Judy sent me an email the other day and told me it was great to finally see my belly sticking out further than my boobs. (Thanks, Aunt Judy.) To date I’ve gained 23 pounds, and since I’m supposed to gain about a pound a week during the last trimester, I’m right on track for a 30 pound weight gain. And according to the experts, this is where all that weight will go:

Uterus 2 pounds
Breasts 1 pound
Increased blood 3 pounds
Water 4 pounds
Fat 8 pounds
Baby 7-8 pounds
Placenta 1-2 pounds
Amniotic fluid 2 pounds

And most of that is riding out in front of me at the moment straining my lower back and making it painful to sit and uncomfortable to try to sleep at night. (Notice I said “TRY” to sleep.) On top of all that Baby recently shifted into the head down position, so his head is sitting right on top of my pelvic floor muscles and my bladder. Not fun. It’s a good thing he continues to entertain me all day long with kicks and jabs, so I can remember why I’m going through all this. My mornings continue to be joyful as I sit at my desk and watch my belly jump around. Sometimes I am so enthralled with watching him poke and pulse the skin of my belly that I get almost nothing done.

Tonight I fast for my 3-hour glucose tolerance test tomorrow. And in two weeks I go in for the next ultrasound. TT is going to make the drive over to go with me, and I can’t wait to see how big my little boy has gotten. He’s probably well over 15 inches and 3 pounds by now, but he should start gaining weight rapidly now. Just 9 more weeks before he arrives.

29 Weeks

Another doctor’s appointment. Another step closer to bringing Baby home. I drank the orange syrup that so many women have warned me about (it really wasn’t bad at all… just tasted like orange soda), and then the nurse and I went over treatments for all the little “challenges” the third trimester brings. I’m supposed to lay down to avoid hemorrhoids, but I have to stay upright to avoid heartburn. No wonder hormonal pregnant women have trouble remembering little things.

I was fighting a nasty cold at the time of my appointment.

“If you could take anything for your cold right now, what would you take?” Dr. Peck asked.

“Alka Seltzer Cold Plus,” I said.

“Go right ahead.” He said I’m at the stage in my pregnancy where just about anything is safe because the baby is well developed.

He reviewed all my surgical records and drew little pictures to help explain to me that my previous surgery did not enter the endometrial cavity, so I can keep the baby in there a lot longer than Dr. Brown (in Minneapolis) wanted to. So it looks like I’ll be bringing baby home just in time for Christmas.

“Smart baby,” Dr. Peck said as he measured my uterus and felt my abdomen. “He’s already head down”… which explains why so much of the kicking and movement seems to be right around my belly button.

Last night I drank a big glass of Alka Seltzer Cold Plus and finally got a good night’s sleep, and this morning I got a call from Dr. Peck’s nurse. I have to go back in for the follow-up 3-hour glucose test. They require the more extensive testing for anyone who tests over 140 on the glucose test, and mine came back at 141.

“Damn,” I told her. “I should have done a few jumping jacks on my way to the lab.”

So next week I go in for 3 hours of bloodwork. Halloween morning is the next big ultrasound, and then after that I’ll have weekly appointments to monitor the baby. This is standard protocol for a 40-year-old high risk pregnancy.

I’m getting very excited!!!

A Visit from Grandma

TT Relaxes on the Deck

A great weekend with Mom. She seemed to be very tolerant of my new lifestyle which includes a lot of eating (followed by heartburn and indigestion and whining about how full I am even after small meals) and a lot of sleeping. We went for walks and watched the sunsets and drove through Perrot State Park and ate delicious sandwiches at The Trempealeau Hotel and bought a pie at Galesville Apple Affair. She told me stories of when she was pregnant, and I kept making her put her hand on my belly just in time for the baby (who she calls Sam or Max) to apparently decide he didn’t kick on demand. He continues to be very, very active… except, as it turns out, when you want him to be. Last night Mom kept trying to feel the baby kick while I was, as she said, “channeling your father” during the Packer game. (How could anyone NOT be upset by the turnovers and Brett’s dangerous interception followed by two quarters of ridiculous play calling and unnecessary penalties? We should have won that game!)

The Belly At 28 and a Half Weeks

I Fell Off the Wagon

When I gave up caffeine 8 months ago, I didn't know everything my body would have in store for me during my pregnancy.

"They are parasites for 9 months," my mother says.

There are lots of things a baby inside you and the hormones he brings along with him do to your body that nobody warns you about until it's too late. Today I decided that a little caffeine was a fair trade for hemorrhoids and constipation and constant heartburn and lower back aches and insomnia and tugging abdominal cramps and sore boobs and night-time congestion and other more unmentionable symptoms that any pregnant woman knows about but doesn't talk about.

I fell off the wagon. Hard. I pulled up to the Mugby Junction drive-through and ordered a double hazelnut frappe. No whipped cream. Half-caf. (I did show some control.)

Oh my God. I have missed you, my sweet friend. Oh, how I have missed you.

Very Special Gifts

This weekend Brooklynn spent the weekend at my house. We made cookies and homemade pizzas and hiked through the Wildlife Refuge and played games and sorted baby clothes and cheered for Brett Favre and the Packers to defeat her father's team and just had fun being together being Sisters. Brooklynn is such a joy to me, and we talked a lot about how important it will be for us to continue to make time for each other after the baby is born. She is very excited, and she helped me sort the baby clothes so we had the newborn and 0-3 months stuff ready. We oohed and ahhed at the little brown dogs on light blue stripes and fuzzy lions on safari-colored overalls and the little Winnie the Pooh sleepers and the tiny little newborn mittens to keep him from scratching himself. She told me that she thinks "this boy will be spoiled. He's already got more clothes than me, and he's not even born yet." As soon as we finished sorting and I put the clothes for 9-12 months away, she asked me if we could pull them out and sort them all over again because they were so cute and so fun to look at. Brooklynn's presence in my life is such a gift, and every time I see her I am grateful that we found each other when we did.

Oh, how I wish she were here tonight to see what greeted me when I got home from work... a package from my beautiful friend Kae who lives in Denver. She sent me adorable little Denver Bronco socks and a onesie that my son will get to wear while Bush is still president. I love it!!!! Thank you Kae.

"I already know more than the President."

For more pictures from my action packed weekend with Brooklynn, see my website.