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October 1, 2003
So last time I left you, Mike & I had finished renovating our rental, settled into our own house and found out we were having a baby girl...
The last few months of my pregnancy were much more uneventful than the early months, but we busied ourselves getting settled in, pulling the nursery together and doing other household projects. Mike painted the entire interior of the house, put in new Pergo flooring in the kitchen, carpeted the basement, removed some cabinetry, did lots of yardwork.
I mostly sat on my ---, watched him work, and complained (that he was always doing projects and not paying attention to his gloriously pregnant wife). As you can tell, I was a great help and can take almost no credit for how cozy our house is now. Oh wait, I CLEANED. I cleaned for a good portion of the last 3 or 4 months of my pregnancy. Our house was spotless and our vacuum was tired; panting I think. If only that nesting instinct remained post-birth...
I also spent a good deal of time driving those around me crazy, obsessing about how to paint & decorate the nursery. Pale blue? Yes. No. Yellow? Absolutely. Wait, nah, won't do. Ecru? Yes. Ummm, no. Yes, thats it. White bedding? Ecru bedding? Dark wood crib? White crib? Ack.
We settled on ecru paint (same as the rest of the house). In certain light its more of a soft yellow. Dark wood crib. Ecru bedding. A darling pastel patchwork quilt. There are a couple of pictures on our website (www.mikeandjessica.com) although they don't do the room justice (in my unbiased opinion). Anyway, I was neurotic about it, but I'm happy with the results.
Another thing I obsessed over (while in my 3rd trimester) was birth announcements. I had grand plans for some adorable handmade announcements. In the end, I went to Target and got the very basic picture cards. A lot of obsessing for naught, once I found myself with a baby who was MUCH more entertaining than cutting and folding small bits of paper. But I'm getting ahead of myself here...
Overall my entire pregnancy was uneventful (I mean the pregnancy itself, not my life during pregnancy). I was blessed & had no problems or complications or horrible side effects. The baby moved when she was supposed to, turned head down when she was supposed to, engaged when she was supposed to, etc. Of course I worried & fretted about each of these things and more, but it all fell in to place, so to speak. I gained about 30 lbs total; most of it in the last month or two. I felt like a cow by the end of my pregnancy, which surprised me b/c I had gone through most of it without much change other than a basketball belly.
I worked up until my due date, May 22. At that point I was so shocked that I didn't have a baby yet, I started my maternity leave so that I could focus all of my energy on making this child be born (dammit!).
For awhile I thought she might come early (I hoped, I prayed, I danced to the gods). Then May 22 came. And went. And May 23. And May 24. You get the picture: so on and so forth.
I was a mess, and I should use this public forum to officially apologize to my loving husband for staying with me. There were more than a few times I cried out of pure frustration. There were many times that I got mad at him for no reason. I thought it just might be possible that I would be the one anomaly who truly IS pregnant FOREVER. I would bemoan the fact that no one understood how I felt(yeah right, only every other mother on the planet) and send myself into a tizzy. I was madly emailing every mother I knew, asking for secret tips and tinctures to bring on labor. I was hypervigilant about every movement, every sensation in my body. I was reading any birth story I could get my hands on to find that magic clue that would tell me when IT would happen. I was walking 6 miles a day. And I was coercing Mike to have sex with me at any opportunity I could find!
And then I relaxed. One Sunday evening (Labor day weekend), my mother-in-law came for a nice, leisurely dinner. Then we went for a nice leisurely walk, admiring the setting sun and all of the new flowers popping up in everyone's gardens. We talked, we strolled, we laughed. We had the most pleasant, non-baby-obsessed evening I had had in awhile. I went to bed and remarked to Mike that I almost felt like my normal self (i.e. not obsessing about when the hell this child would COME OUT). I layed my head on my pillow for a night of sweet slumber (well, as sweet as it gets at 40+ weeks).
And I awoke at 4am having to go potty. Certainly nothing unusual there. A bit of blood. Hmmm. Nothing to write home about, but interesting. Back to bed. 10 minutes later...my first contraction. I don't know how many people break into a &$*%-eating grin at the onset of contractions, but I sure did!
Next time, the birth story.
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