Well, ALMOST New Mom

I don't quite fall into the category of "new mom" just yet, though I did get my first Mother's Day card this year (along with a Sephora gift card - awesome!). I guess you could say that I'm well on my way. Today marks 36 weeks and 1 day of my pregnancy. Our first child (a boy to be named Roger after my husband's father) is due to arrive in, oh, 4 weeks or so. Specifically August 18, BUT I'm told that first children rarely arrive on time (regardless, I've still chosen August 18 as the arrival date in the pool we've started... I just can't shake the feeling that our little man is going to be right on time).

So I got this urge to become one of the millions of Mom Bloggers. I have this romanticized image of me in my rocking chair nursing my new baby boy as I blog away on my Droid, but alas, I can't admit to being entirely delusional (which is why I say "romanticized image"). I imagine the real image will be a lot more like chaos and a minimal amount of blog posting, but we'll see. It's at least worth a shot.

Pregnancy has not been all that fun for me. It happened like rapid fire. After 7 years on the pill I was quite convinced that conception would take some time - at least that was my understanding. I stopped taking the pill in October and on December 12 two EPTs happily displayed the word "Pregnant" on their itty bitty screens. I didn't really think it would happen like that... I was diligently reading up on monitoring my BMT, thinking for some reason that this was going to take some time, that I'd probably done a number on my ovaries with all those years of hormones. Then BAM. "Pregnant" says the EPT. Yep, "Pregnant" confirms the second one. Of course we were thrilled - this was a planned pregnancy. You just don't expect to go from sitting on the patio with your husband saying, "Let's do it! Let's have a baby" to being pregnant - snap of the fingers - just like that. Well, you roll with the punches.

The first six weeks of pregnancy were great. Hey! You don't even feel like you're pregnant. Then came the exhaustion and the "morning" sickness and subsequently a very messy house as I perfected my body dent in the couch. I would not, could not, did not want to get up and do anything (except make the occasional fast paced trip to my good friend the toilet). Ginger Ale was my savior, but now I could go the rest of my life without taking another sip of the stuff and be perfectly content. Now, 30 weeks later, I look like I have cantaloupes shoved in my bra and a basketball up my shirt and the best word to describe my current state is: "uncomfortable." Very, very, very uncomfortable. My husband thinks it's funny when I sit on the floor to do stretches and then can't get back up. I, however, am not likewise amused.

Yesterday kicked off my weekly trips to the obstetrician. After the birth class we took, I was feeling pretty confident about my abilities as a woman to labor and deliver a baby (as in, "Yeah, I can do this without an epidural!"), but it's somewhat disheartening when your OB states as she's manipulating your ENORMOUS belly, "Wow! You're growing a BIG BOY in there." My husband was something like 9 and a half pounds when he was born. My doctor estimates our little one to already be almost 7 pounds. I have about 4 weeks left of pregnancy! How much bigger can he GET?? I guess it explains my tremendous size (the clerk at 7-11 is not entirely convinced I'm not having twins), and it accounts for 7 of the (ugh, I hate to admit this) 44 pounds I've gained. But seriously, am I going to be delivering a gigantic baby? On second thought, how about we keep that anesthesiologist close by...

I am really excited though (well, "excited" is one of many emotions I'm feeling. "Terrified" would be another one). The nursery is really starting to come together. I still have to wash the sheets I put on the crib just for show and a few outfits so the little dude has something to come home in (something tells me he's going to completely bypass all those newborn sizes we got). Apparently the crib bumper has to go to; I'm a little disappointed since it's so cute with all it's little footballs and baseballs, BUT the birth class instructor insists they don't need it when they can't even roll and one of my many resources (books, magazines, etc) says that anything in the crib - bumpers included - can increase the risk of SIDS. We got the nursery curtains yesterday which I was overly thrilled about (that is, until I opened them and saw that the picture in the catalog didn't exactly do a great job of portraying the color... they are LIME GREEN, as in, one step below neon green). They're blackout curtains which was a necessity since the window in the room we picked for the nursery faces east and the sun tends to rise from that general direction. I'm eager to see how well they "black out" the light since they are a) not actually black; and b) come with a little booklet explaining that no curtain can block out light 100% but these curtains block out 99% of light. That sounds like a cop out to me.

Today's plans include washing my car. I plan on installing the baby seat in it this weekend (and feel I need to wash my car for this...). Yeah, I truly do plan on driving around for 4 weeks (give or take) with an empty infant seat in my car. I figure it's never too early to start getting the dog adjusted to sharing the back seat, though admittedly it's no indicator of how she'll do when there is actually a little being in that seat. Let the countdown to new motherhood begin!