Random Pregnancy Thoughts, Sunday Edition

• Another weekend is nearly gone and another of my 40 weeks has gone speeding by. 26 down, 14 to go! According to my super-sharp math skills, I am now two-thirds of the way through this pregnancy! It’s hard to believe. The third trimester officially starts next Saturday (cue scary theme music: dum dum DUM!) …

• This week’s episode of baby brain: In the middle of the afternoon yesterday, I realized I’d been wearing my underwear both backward and inside out all day and had no idea until I actually saw it.

• I keep wondering when I can just give up on exercising altogether and not feel guilty about it. I was doing pretty good on my 3-4 times a week up until the last couple weeks. It seems like the pregnancy gods don’t WANT me to exercise anyway. I mean, first the TV downstairs breaks down, completely eliminating my ability to use the elliptical, and then the weather plunges back into freezing temperatures, taking away my motivation to take nice, long walks outside. And I just can’t bring myself to do my Wii yoga and strength training lately.

• You hear about it all the time, you see it on TV, you say it will never happen to you, and then it happens: you find more and more of your conversations with friends who are parents or parents-to-be centering around all things baby. We had some friends over Sunday and they brought their 14-month-old, and we spent at least 75% of the whole afternoon talking registries, cribs, first words, nannies and all that scintillating stuff. But it WAS scintillating! We had a great time. It was fun to watch their little one and think about where we’ll be in another year, and it was certainly helpful to get their advice. The same thing happened today when I was at a wedding shower. Much of the table conversation centered around babies and pregnancy, since another one of the girls at the table was also pregnant and a second one has a 10-month-old. It worked out great because A) I always enjoy talking about baby stuff these days and B) I honestly don’t know what else I would have talked about with those girls for all that time otherwise. Thank heavens for finally finding some common ground!

• Side note on the shower: We were playing one of the typical shower games (mercifully, they were kept short and sweet), and someone at our table won, prompting a relative of the bride-to-be sitting at another table to yell out, “Who won? Was it the prego?” Lovely.

• I’ve been sleeping terribly lately, and I might actually have to start blaming the pregnancy. I’m often a bad sleeper and go through phases where I wake up in the middle of the night and can never seem to get back to sleep, but this is different. For the past two weeks, I’ll fall asleep just fine (thank goodness), wake up at 3 or 4 to go to the bathroom (which has been going on for most of the pregnancy) and then literally wake up every hour or half hour for the rest of the night. I just roll over (a process that involves more struggling and grunting as the weeks tick by) and fall back asleep, but still, it’s really getting old. I think it’s one of the reasons why I’ve been getting so tired later in the day again.

• On a fun note, little baby X has gotten better at kicking, and Andy’s been able to feel it a bunch of times now, which is fun for both of us. We were at the movies seeing “I Love You Man” the other night (yes, I like that kind of silly humor, and what of it?) and she was really going to town with the kung-fu fighting. She must be a Paul Rudd and Jason Segal fan just like Mommy …

Have Belly, Will Travel

In a few weeks, Andy and I are planning a long weekend getaway to somewhere warm and beachy. Call it a babymoon if you want (though I’m trying not to). We just thought it would be a good idea to take one last pre-baby vacation.

My parents have already made it abundantly clear, bless their souls, that it’s not like we won’t be able to take trips after little Baby X is born since they’re more than willing to take on an extended babysitting stint, but we know the deal. As ready as they’ll be to watch her, it will still be hard for us to leave. We’ll miss her, worry about how she’s doing and generally be a bit distracted.

We actually already took our real pre-baby (or rather, pre-pregnancy) trip. Since we knew we were going to start trying to get pregnant last August, in July we took a trip to Costa Rica. We spent a fabulous week there, half the time getting soaked running around the rain forests, zip lining and hitting the hot springs and the other half relaxing on the sunny beach in the most fantastic little B&B in Central America (well, of those I’ve been to, which is exactly one).

Still, that will have been a year ago by the time the baby arrives, and after an especially long, frigid, snowy and most likely, still-not-over Chicago winter, we’re really primed for an escape. Given that I’ll be 30 weeks pregnant by the time we go and am generally prone to nervousness, I told Andy I didn’t want to travel outside of the continental United States, not even somewhere as close as Mexico or the Bahamas. Frankly, I’m a little apprehensive about going anywhere, as this is my first pregnancy and I’ll be really upset if something happens while I’m away from home. I wish we’d gotten our crap together early enough to plan this for a little earlier, but it just didn’t work out, and I don’t want to pass up this opportunity because of my overwrought fears. At any rate, my doctor said traveling at that point should be fine, as long as I stop in a few days before we fly out to get final clearance from them.

Our plan is to head down to a little island off the Gulf Coast of Florida. I know – something about vacationing in Florida sounds so super-duper lame I can hardly stand it, but after reviewing our options, we decided it was the best choice. We really wanted to be right on the beach, but I just couldn’t deal with Southern California, and temperature-wise, even slightly more northern places like South Carolina and the like are still too cool for what we want. I want my days in the 80s, not the boring old 60s and 70s (which, of course, we’d kill to get around here on a day without gale-force winds and/or driving rain).

My activities will be somewhat limited since I can’t imagine that by then I’ll be up for our usual nature and beach hikes and general running around touring. I also won’t be able to do any activities that require me to be on a boat for more than 1 minute, since I can’t wear my miracle-super-awesome-best-thing-ever motion-sickness patches while I’m pregnant and I can barely look at a boat without feeling woozy without them. So I’m planning on long, lazy days at the beach, reading, snacking (of course!) and taking a few dips in the ocean (there will be a pool, I believe, but both Andy and I are firm believers in never bothering with the pool when there’s a swimmable ocean around – we’ve been on several trips where we’ve never dipped so much as a toe into the hotel pool.)

We’re not usually big vacation partiers anyway, so I’m not especially concerned about not being able to drink. I’m more worried about just getting bored. Andy and I always seem to have a wonderful time traveling together no matter where we go, from Rocky Mountain National Park to Tahiti, but I’m not especially good at just sitting around for days on end. I’m betting on (and I’m sure Andy is praying for) a few activities my big pregnant bod will be able to handle to get us out and about a bit.

So there you have it. Andy’s online, booking our hotel and flights as we speak, so we’re almost ready to roll. Once we’re confirmed, I can get down to serious business – the terrifying, morale-crushing fun of maternity bathing-suit shopping (cue horror movie music, fade out) …

The Pregnancy Paradox

Today after work I dragged Andy out for a brisk walk (well, as brisk as I get these days) in the balmy, day-before-the-first-day-of-spring weather (it was 37). As we moseyed along the perimeter of the park that’s a few blocks from our house, Andy admitted to me that some of the stories he’s been hearing lately from his co-workers are starting to make him nervous.

You see, Andy is fortunate enough to work with two guys who are both new dads. One has a three-month-old boy and the other, twin girls who are maybe 6 or 8 months old (yowsah). The thing about guys is that they talk about life with a new baby in a whole different way that women do. Women kind of subtly acknowledge the unimaginable kinds of hell that early babyhood can unleash on a household while in the same breath, extolling the virtues of parenthood to keep you from being scared right out of joining the club. Men, on the other hand, revel in frightening their pals with all the gory details, and if there’s two of them, you can pretty much bet that there’s some level of competition there, something along the lines of, “Oh, you think YOUR exploding diaper story is bad. Wait til you hear THIS!”

Today specifically, the story that rattled Andy was from his co-worker with the twins, who’d had just one of THOSE days at work and by 5 o’clock was ready to just explode in frustration. All he wanted to do was go home, take a load off and relax. But at about ten after five, his wife called and asked in a way that was more a demand than a question, “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE HOME?” When he said he was heading out in a few minutes, she said, “Well, the minute you get here, these kids are all yours. I have had a HORRIBLE day.” He was about to tell her that his day had been pretty bad, too – but she’d already hung up the phone. Andy says his other colleague has received calls like that on a few occasions, too.

I, of course, sympathized with the wives. Why should the man’s (or whoever is at work and not at home with the baby) day get to end at 5 and the woman’s have to go on indefinitely? Andy wasn’t really arguing for either; the whole thing just made him a little uneasy about the challenges we’ll be facing in, well, somewhere around 15 weeks.

15 weeks sounds like a long time until you think about how fast time really goes. I’ve already been pregnant for 24 weeks and 5 days, and I’ve known about it (because that’s the time that really seems to count) for about 19 of those weeks. That’s already a month more than 15 weeks, and let me tell you, that time has FLOWN by.

And that brings me to what I like to call the Pregnancy Paradox. That, as I’ll explain, is the ironic reality that for a lot of us, surprisingly little of the 40 weeks of pregnancy are spent focusing on the actual baby-to-be.

See, for the first trimester, you’re pretty much just obsessed with the idea that you’re actually pregnant. Just about every day, even before you’re showing at all, it’s like, “Wow, I am PREGNANT. There is a child growing inside me, which must mean that I am a real ADULT. I can’t believe such a grown-up thing is happening to me.” (This is true even if you are 32 and should by all accounts have already been thinking of yourself as a real adult for some time.) Along with all that comes the all the worry about whether the pregnancy will stick, how your body will change, and what you need to eat/drink/do differently to take care of yourself.

In the second trimester, all of that stuff keeps going, but you add to that more concrete physical (but remember, not mental) preparation for the arrival of the baby – decorating the nursery; registering; signing up for classes; buying huge, tent-like maternity clothes, etc. And don’t forget all the time spent staring at your ever-expanding, kind-of-freaky-but-definitely-amazing belly in the mirror (or is that just me?).

As for the third trimester, well, ask me in 2 weeks and 1 day (WOW, scary), but I have to imagine that my “preparations” will evolve into even more self-involved hobbies like talking about how huge I feel and how uncomfortable I am and how I can’t sleep – all that fun stuff I’m fully expecting to feel during what one of my pregnant friends ominously refers to as “the whale stage.”

The point (yep, I’m finally here! did you stay for the ride?) is that the Pregnancy Paradox is actually a really, really good thing. See, all that obsessing leaves little time left to ponder that actual reality of the baby herself. While it’s certainly important to understand – as much as one can – the demands of parenthood and how your life will change, there’s nothing you can really do to prepare for what those first few months will be like, and worrying about it will only make things worse. I’ve spent pretty much my whole life being a serious, dedicated worrier, and what I’ve tried to teach myself in the last few years is that worrying – contrary to my long-held belief – doesn’t actually help you prepare for whatever it is you’re worried about. It just makes the anticipation miserable.

So if you’re wondering when all my prattling on about my belly button and Cubs games and the nursery is going to end, well, don’t hold your breath. The Pregnancy Paradox is my life preserver right now, and there’s no way I’m letting go any time soon.

Of Belly Buttons and Butt Paste

So there I was last night in bed, watching my belly button metamorphose before my very eyes.

Seriously! It’s been on the brink of popping out for what seems like weeks – it’s so stretched out that there’s this funky little flap of skin that pops out on top to make a little lip you can see through my clothes (you can see it if you look closely in the photo on the right). But the button itself has mostly still been more in than out.

It pushes out more when I lie down, and it’s been pretty much flush with the rest of my belly for the last week or so when I’m in bed reading and propped up against a few pillows (since I can’t, of course, lie flat on my back). But last night I looked down and there it was, popping out about a quarter-inch or so from my belly! I’ll tell you what, I had an “outie” belly button until I was maybe 6 or 7, but I don’t remember it looking quite like that! And when I contract my stomach muscles to do something like sit up, it pushes out even further and looks like of grotesque. It was freaking Andy out so much he couldn’t even look at it anymore when I moved. Ah, the joys of pregnancy!

Speaking of which, I finally got my registry started for real on Saturday (yes, there’s more on there than a breast pump, folks!). My cousin Laurie innocently offered to help me out if I needed it, and I pounced on the opportunity. I just hope she didn’t regret it after spending two hours she’ll never get back trolling the crammed aisles of Babies ‘R Us with me, dodging hordes of pregnant women and couples with giant strollers as I aimed at 1,001 things with my little scanner gun and took copious notes in my handy notepad (nerd alert!).

Actually, there are only 45 items on the registry at the moment, but we have yet to add the big-ticket items like the swing, carseat, pack ‘n play, etc. For those things, I got the lowdown on what to look for so Andy and I can go back and pick them out together. I’m a wonderful wife so I didn’t make him go with this time around. I don’t think he would have lasted through the nitty gritty of sorting through what bottle cleaner, baby thermometer, bra pads and butt paste to buy (I registered for four tubes! I keep hearing how I won’t be able to live without this stuff!). I also registered for something called a Piddle Pad. Yep, it’s a long way from the All-Clad stainless pots and pans and that beautiful Le Creuset Dutch Oven I drooled over on my wedding registry …

Out of My Element

Who said registering for this baby would be fun?

Actually, I don’t know that anyone really did. And now I see why … Registering for kitchen gadgets when we got married was way easier – and more fun – than this! At least I knew what all the things I was asking for actually WERE …

Yes, our baby registry has begun. Well, kind of. The only thing on it at the moment is a breast pump. Yes, that will look really odd to anyone who feels like an early bird and decides they want to look and see if we’ve asked for anything yet, but that’s as far as I got. And there’s a really good reason.

It all started yesterday when I mentioned to Andy that we should have our registry done by the beginning of April since my shower is at the beginning of May. Sounds like plenty of time, but really, we’re talking about a few weeks here. So he suggested I get things started online. Why not?

I’ll tell you why not! Because there are 50 different kinds of every single item I can think of to register for at 50 different prices that are wildly different and sometimes, from what I can see, based on little else but whether you want the pink-and-brown one or the navy-and-white one.

Seriously, I couldn’t even manange to add a package of cloth diapers to the registry (I’ve heard they’re a sensible way to go for burp cloths). I searched for them on babiesrus.com, expecting to find a couple options like the plain-jane white diapers my mom used, but the search returned 66 results! And then I was faced with the decisions: did I want organic cotton? cutesy designs? prefolds? 6-ply? gauze?

I gave up and tried to move on to the infant carseats, which I figured would be a snap since I know exactly which one I want: the Graco Snugride. It’s one of the handful of seats that are compatible with our Bob stroller, it’s highly ranked by users and Consumer Reports, and it’s affordable. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Online they show three different colors, none of which are standard (they have names like Sterling, Jewel and Brentwood) and none of which I could really see well on my screen. So much for not having to pick that one out in person. (A fun side note: when I checked out Target.com to compare prices, I saw two more options (colors: Melbourne and Broadstreet) at two more different – though lower – prices! Agh! Now I have to go to both places to check them out.)

My head was officially spinning, so I took a break and decided quit. Bravely, I logged back on tonight. I started by looking for a Pack and Play, something that I was frankly proud just to know that I needed and have a general idea about what it was. Well, apparently that’s not enough. It seems like I need a PhD in Pack and Plays to actually make a purchasing decision. Once again the price range is huge, the colors are all funky and each one seems to come with a different collection of attachments that I can’t make heads or tails of (does Baby X really need two speeds of mattress vibration and a soundtrack of five different nature sounds? Doubtful).

That’s it. Screw this online stuff. I’m going to have to suck it up, go to both stores in person and – most importantly – take along an expert (a current mom, preferably with a child still 3 or under and preferably with more than one kid) to decipher the elusive baby-gear codes. Yep, I feel accomplished just thinking about it. I think I’ll reward myself with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and last week’s Tivo’d “Friday Night Lights.”

Two Plus One

Despite how excited we are about the impending arrival of Baby X (my affectionate nickname for our little one for now in lieu of us actually approaching a real name), I have to admit that I’m nervous – about a million things, but right now, what I’m thinking about is Andy and me. We’re so great as a pair, and I’m afraid of how adding another member to our little clan is going to change our dynamic.

We’ve been together for about five years and living together for three, and we’ve become such a solid team. There was never a period of adjustment after we moved in together – it just worked right away. Our lives melded together so seamlessly, even though we had never been one of those couples who spent all their time together when we lived apart. And it still really works.

Of course, like any couple, we do go through times where the relationship seems to be just a bit off key or when we feel a little distant from each other. I find that those times usually can be traced to us not spending the kind of quality, one-on-one time together that keeps us connected. No, I’m not just talking about physically! I mean things like taking an extra half hour on a weekend morning before we get out of bed to cuddle and talk, or going for a long walk through our neighborhood, or sitting together and watching a favorite TV show without simultaneously surfing the Web, or even spending an afternoon together running errands.

I know that once the baby is here, we aren’t going to have the same kind of time to ourselves, and that’s what worries me, because I know that we – I – need it. I’m the one who often gets grumpy and out of sorts when we don’t have enough time together, and when I’m stressing out about work or other things going on in my life outside of our relationship, I tend to become more distant, too. That’s why I’m afraid of the double-whammy of new-parent stress – with all the sleeplessness and uncertainty and worry that brings – combined with us having less alone time together. I worry that I won’t get the time I need with Andy to reconnect and get back in tune.

That’s why I’m going to do my best to try to keep our relationship a top priority as much as possible even after Baby X arrives and life as we know it changes forever. In reality, though, I know that in those first weeks and maybe even months, I won’t really have all that much control over my time – or anything else, for that matter (a super-scary thought in itself). So I guess what I really need to do is just learn a better way to deal with it all. Yikes. I’ll let you know how that goes …

The Nanny Quest

“Available: Experienced, loving nanny for long-term position. After earning my degree in early child development and opening a renowned daycare center, I decided to pursue a career in pediatric nursing and worked in that field for 3 years. I’ve since decided to return to my original love, caring for children, and would love to find a job looking after 1 to 3 children. Skills: CPR, healthy cooking, potty training, fun/educational games. Location: Northwest suburbs.”

Okay, I know I’m living in a dream world, but if anyone does see an ad that reads like this, please pass it on!!

It’s kind of daunting to think about how to go about finding the best person out there to care for your tiny, helpless baby for 40-50 hours a week. In theory, that person would be me, though I’ve discussed a little bit on here why I never really planned to go the stay-at-home mom route.

Still, I’m glad that if it can’t be me, we’re at least to be able to get the individual attention a nanny can give (compared to a larger daycare, anyway). I also feel good about sharing the nanny with Laurie and Jeff – I know they’ll be as vigilant about working hard to find the right person as we’ll be, and the experience they bring to the equation from their previous childcare experiences over the past five years will be a big help in the process as well.

We me the other week to discuss a few more details about how the whole thing will work. Besides figuring out where to look for potential candidates – craigslist? a reputable-but-pricy agency? sitterycity? nannies4hire? care.com? – we also had to decided basics like how many hours a week we need (50 – sounds like a lot but with 8-hour workdays plus driving time it adds up) and what times, how to handle sick days (ours, the kids, and the nanny’s), what we want the nanny to do besides actually watch the kids (prepare meals? clean? laundry?) and how to handle the business end of things i.e. a contract, vacation time, taxes and a background check.

We decided that we’d each put together two lists of interview questions for potential nannies – one for initial phone screens and another for more in-depth, in-person interviews. We’ve already got a good start because a friend of Laurie’s who just hired her nanny emailed over her fairly comprehensive question list as a reference. It’s a good place to start. A lot of the nanny agencies and other sites offer their own templates online as well, so that should be helpful. (Seriously, could you imagine life without the Internet? It boggles the mind).

If anyone experienced in this arena has good advice on what to ask that we might not think of or come across on the general lists, I’d love to hear it! Wish us luck!

Battle of the Bulge

Okay, that subject line is kind of misleading. Fortunately for you readers, this post isn’t about my up-and-down feelings about gaining weight (again). It’s more about that fact that all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere – though obviously this has been a long time coming – I feel noticeably large.

Others are seeing it, too. I was in my boss’s office the other day and she says, “Wow, you’re really getting huge all of a sudden!” Jarring as that can be to hear (pregnancy is truly the only time ever that anyone could get away with saying such things to someone else, isn’t it?) I didn’t take it the wrong way because I’ve been thinking the same thing myself. Even though Andy and I have been watching my belly’s daily outward progress, I haven’t really been FEELING big. But in the last few days, I’ve just really been noticing how different feels to carry around this extra weight.

When I was bemoaning this fact in my facebook status the other day, a friend commented that I shouldn’t really start feeling big until I can’t see my feet. Well, guess what – I can’t! Yikes.

I’ve always been a bit of a waddler – unfortunately, I never really had one of those sexy, sashaying walks – but it’s getting worse by the day. Putting on shoes and socks is increasingly difficult, though still doable on my own (though I did warn Andy over the weekend that he’s either going to have to start cutting my toenails for me soon or sending me out for more pedicures. Shockingly, he chose the latter). Getting in and out of our new car, a Ford Escape hybrid that’s higher than what I’m used to, also takes a little more effort than before.

It’s hard to imagine how it will be when I’m REALLY big – after all, there’s almost four more months of growing left to do. My doctor (and all the baby literature) says that the measurement in centimeters from the top of your uterus to the pubic bone should equal the number of weeks you are, and at my last visit it was right on – 22. It boggles the mind to think about that number reaching 40! I’m unsteady enough as it is (Andy might say unbalanced) – I just hope I don’t fall over!