I had certainly heard of 4 month old sleep regressions, and then I suddenly found myself in the midst of one, confused. As if the 4 month regression wasn’t supposed to apply to me.
For nights on end, my little bubbly crane has been waking me at least every hour, screaming to nurse. It was so startling. And then, after days, I found myself exhausted and questioning things like co-sleeping, nursing, and parenting in general. I was worried that I was making the wrong sleeping decisions for our family, and asking Milton every day what we could change so that we could all get some sleep.
Most startling was the scream he would wake with. As if I wasn’t right there, next to him. I worried that he was getting demanding with the boobs, thinking about all of those “cry it out” instructions and all of those people who ever told me that co-sleeping wouldn’t work. I didn’t know quite what to do because, hey! we live in a studio. Crying it out would be crying it out for the whole family, and I can’t have that right when I’m about to go back to work. Plus I can’t bear to hear it from my awesome baby. If he’s crying, he needs me. And we needed sleep- not exhausted tears!
The worst was last Saturday night. I was getting ready to go out for my very first dancing night on the town since, goodness, last New Years Eve, and our little crane was nuts with screaming. I’ve never heard anything like it. We had been out all day and he was certainly sleepy, but he had gotten some naps in and shouldn’t have been feeling as if he were being murdered. Eventually, he fell asleep in Milton’s arms… Milton shoo’d me out the door… and I went DANCING. I felt horribly guilty, but it certainly renewed my confidence and efforts through the all night long nursing.
As sleep regressions are supposed to be coupled with big developmental surges, I watched our crane for scooting, which he’s doing a little bit of, but that sort of brain activity didn’t seem to count towards screaming. Little guy is too sweet for that.
Finally, yesterday at bath time, he pulled a my finger to his mouth. He loves tasting the water on my fingers. Water is a crazy curiousity to him, right now! He likes it, but hasn’t figured out that it can be fun. It’s scary, interesting… and it tastes good. He chomped down on my finger and OMG! TOOTH!! His lower left-hand front tooth is poking out!
I cried my eyes out and gave him his first breast milk popsicle. I’m going to cherish every last one of the gummy bites on the right side of his mouth.
I was extra patient through last night’s nursing. Poor guy. Teeth hurt! I was really hoping we had more time without them.
In other news, he is rolling over! He started about 2 weeks ago. Above is a photo I managed to snap right after his first time getting to his belly on his own. I asked him how he felt! He said I FEEL TOUGH.
Since he’s such a big boy now, I put him in the main seat of his stroller for the first time. It was hard for me to do because I love to have him face me in his infant seat so that I can watch his every funny expression… but I thought we’d try it out. I’m happy to report that he was also skeptical about not seeing his mom all the time…
Also of note… our guy now weighs 20 pounds. I know! Right?
In the beginning, we decided to use disposables for a few weeks so that we could learn our Little Crane’s schedule… and figure out how to change diapers in general. Our plan was to switch to a pre-fold diaper service after the trial disposable period, which was supposed to last for 2 weeks.
We started off with Pampers Swaddlers because someone had brought over a few and they seemed to work well. After a short while, I was totally disenchanted with them. If he wet himself an awful lot, the diapers would ooze bits of the gel inside that contained the wet. The gel was hard to clean off and really grossed me out. What is in this gel, anyway? I didn’t know that I wanted it near my son’s bits. Also, the Pampers had this crazy crazy diaper stink. The kind of smell that comes out of a public bathroom, where they try to contain all that nasty with detergents that we all now associate with more nasty. Every time the lid to the diaper can (which was OH SO CONVENIENTLY next to our bed during the first 3 weeks) came up, my sensitive noise balked and my gag reflex engaged.
Luckily, he quickly grew out of size one diapers and we switched him to Whole Foods brand size 2 (for some reason the ones were not available). These don’t use nasty gel to contain the wet, and do a pretty awesome job without it. I’ve never had a problem with leaking unless our son has been obviously neglected (I won’t get into those afternoons when maybe we weren’t as attentive as we should have been). Also, they don’t try to hide the fact that poop stinks with a fragrance that frankly, stinks. So, in my opinion, the diaper pail was easier on the nose.
By now you’re probably thinking that we used disposables far beyond the reach of 2 weeks, and you’re right! We were a little bit daunted by the idea of cloth diapering during that first month. The second month, I procrastinated a little. Finally, some friends of ours gave us some Thirsties brand covers to try out. My mom also generously offered to pay for several months of our diaper service. I finally started using the pre-folds with covers about a week ago!
I have to say… it’s really easy. I’m sort of ashamed that I didn’t start a little sooner, but at least I know that we don’t have to fear the cloth! A pre-fold service is probably the easiest way to go if you’re turning to cloth. I don’t have to handle any more laundry in our tiny studio; all the dirty diapers magically disappear once a week and get replaced by clean diapers right outside our door! Once I got the knack of folding and positioning the fold, I got pretty darn quick with it.
Sadly, the Thirsties didn’t last more than 2 days. The extra small size was just too small on our gentle giant. Luckily, I had a bunch of Bum Genius covers that had been lent to us from an old friend back east. I tried them on a few weeks ago with the inserts she sent along before we started getting pre-fold service and they were pretty giant on him. We immediately had a terrible blowout that managed to somehow work it’s way all around the house! I put them away for a while, thinking that they would maybe fit when he was 6 months old. But, well, when I decided that the Thirsties didn’t fit and that I didn’t want to buy a whole ‘nother set of 6 diaper covers right away… I tried the Bum Genius covers out again, this time just using the pre-fold against his skin, rather than stuffing the pocket. I know that’s not the way you’re supposed to use them, but they seem to be working just fine! We haven’t had a single accident in the past week, which is more than I can say for any other week with disposables.
Now our guy lets us know EVERY TIME he is wet. IMMEDIATELY. He does NOT like to be wet. Luckily, the wet voice is has a pretty obvious tone. It sounds like he’s saying, “Hey! WTF? I’m not comfortable and you need to take care of it.” It’s not a cry! It’s an uncomfortable alert that will eventually turn into a cry if we don’t change him within around 15 minutes. Now I’m finding that this guy generally needs changing every 45 minutes to an hour during the day. This is actually pretty awesome because I feel as if it will ultimately make our communication with each other much better. I am hoping to start watching for cues during the next few months so we can try our hands at Elimination Communication for a few hours every day and perhaps give him an early start to taking care of business on his own.
Because he gets so upset about wetting himself, we are still using disposables during the night and when we go out for long spells in not very kid friendly venues during the day. I’m just not willing to stress the whole family out by taking on multiple diaper changes during the night. We are enjoying sleeping for a few hours at a time! We are also enjoying the mornings, when I bring our Crane to bed at 5, just roll over to nurse him at 7, and sleep until 9. That delicious morning time wouldn’t be possible without his sporting those disposables.
Here he is just yesterday in a Bum Genius cover, as I swaddled him to take a nap and he thought about how to torture the cat once he gets full control of his hands:
Swaddle Times
(Please ignore the fact that his outfit does not match. It made sense before I took his pants and jacket off for his nap!)
“Is he sleeping through the night?”
I must get asked this question at least 4 times a week. The first person who asked it was asking when our little baby boy was only 2 weeks old! ”Of course he’s not!” I answered. Had he been sleeping through the night at 2 weeks of age, I would have been ripping my hair out wondering what was wrong.
According to every book I read about infants and sleep, he won’t be physically or mentally prepared to sleep through the night until he’s about 4 months of age. This is universally accepted from the rigid Baby Wise to the attachment parenting guru, Dr. Sears. So? Why am I being asked this question about my 8 week old?
About 4 nights ago, our Lucky Crane slept for a full 6 hours. I, however, have not gotten 6 hours of full sleep since he was born. For the last 2 hours of that 6 hour stretch, I laid on the couch next to the pram, dozing and waiting for him to wake with my huge aching breasts, telling myself not to worry and NOT to wake the sleeping baby.
So, you see, he’s not the only one who’s not quite ready to sleep through the night.
We have adapted pretty well to the strange new parent sleeping cycle. I try to let Milton sleep through most of the feeding shifts because he has to have brains enough to work with during the day, whereas I can (and often do) take a two hour nap in the afternoon right next to the baby. The biggest physical problem I’ve noticed in myself after a couple of months of sleeping in 2 hour bursts is that I’m grinding my teeth quite a bit and spending a lot of my day with an aching jaw. I’m hoping that my next acupuncture appointment can relieve some of that pressure. I know for a fact that quitting coffee would also relieve some pressure… but I’m not sure how to do that just now. I tried to quit right after the birth, but was so plagued by the withdraw headache that I went right back to my cup in the morning and have not felt one ounce of guilt. This isn’t a huge problem, though, the headaches from coffee withdraw are far far worse than the occasional headache from my jaw being troublesome.
I get a lot done in the middle of the afternoon and early evenings when our guy sleeps for long bursts. And I get a lot of cuddle sleepy times in between 6am and 10am, when we both wake and sleep in each other’s arms between bursts of cluster feeding. This has become one of my favorite times of the day! I truly believe in breast feeding on demand, and feel very connected to him through this process.
So. No, our boy is not sleeping through the night. But we’re feeling pretty alright about that for now.
Sleepy men
So. I want to lose 10 pounds of baby weight by the end of the summer.
I kept in pretty good shape through my pregnancy! I did yoga very regularly and walked everywhere. My eating habits are pretty darn good, too. But, still, I gained 35 pounds. 2o of that came off right away, and then 5 more were sweat into the bed in the first week or two after his birth. That was great! I had never undergone such a physical change so quickly. There were days when I looked into the mirror and said things like, “I can’t believe I EVER thought I needed to lose a single pound before pregnancy!” After all those weeks of growing bigger and BIGGER, I felt so tiny in those first weeks after labor and delivery.
That said, my skinny feelings are over. Like, really over. Nothing fits. I have a closet full of pretty dresses that won’t zip over my anything. I have a shelf full of size 28 jeans that can barely fit around my ample thighs. It’s not horrible. It’s not earth-shattering. It’s certainly not a deep and meaty thing to talk about… but it I do feel a little disheartened.
I am stoked to be a mom, but I want to be a hot mom! I want to be a mom with something that resembles my old body. I realize that I’ll have a little bit of extra that requires me to wear my Spanks a little more often, but I at least want my dresses to zip.
SO! With all of this in mind, I have eaten my last almond croissant for a while and I am getting down to business with proper eating. I’m sure that I’ll feel like eating the floor often enough, and I’m also sure that I’ll let myself eat the floor since I am breast-feeding a boy who is above the 95th percentile for size… but the floor had better be made of whole grains, veggies, and lean proteins. No more fish and chips from Ivar’s, no more sneaking cookies, and no more rationalizing french toast for breakfast.
I am also glad to have the green light to work out to my heart’s content again. Mind you, my heart’s content isn’t all that much… it’s usually just enough.
To help my workouts, I have made a promise to myself to be more outdoorsy. We live in the Pacific Northwest, and this is absolutely stunning country. When I moved here, it was my intention to get more in touch with my love of nature. I had lost touch with the land after all of those years living in New York City! It can’t be helped! So I figured I’d get back in touch with mother nature in the Olympics and the Cascades, no problem. Yet, I’ve been here for two and a half years now and have only been on ONE single hike. It’s just hard to get moving in the great outdoors when you’re a total downtown dweller with no car.
I vocalized all of this to a friend recently, and she let me know that she too needs to be more outdoorsy! AND! She actually has a car.
We made a date to head out to our first hike today with another girlfriend in tow! It wasn’t a huge hike, but it was still a pretty impressive feat for our first time out. We hiked the trail to Rattlesnake Ledge, which is 4 miles, roundtrip, and about a 1200 foot elevation gain.
Axelrod rode in his Ergo carrier, which is so perfect for longer walks. He fared pretty well! I had to stop in the middle of the climb to nurse him. Once we got to the summit point, I changed him like a big brave hippie with all of these totally stunning views around us. Then, he lay there on the rock with us, wide eyed. He really loves being outside in the sunshine! He gets so alert and I wonder just what he can see out there. He always cries when I pick him up to move to our next destination. I love that he can sit still and enjoy himself so much, and don’t take a moment of that peace for granted.
On the way down the mountain, he got a little difficult and I figured out how to nurse him in his Ergo while hiking down the mountain. I felt very proud of myself, like the La Leche League should give me a special advanced nursing badge or something. And now? I guess I’m fully a PNW mom.
I did learn a few things for our next hike. Like!? Maybe I should have had pants and booties on the baby to keep his little legs and feet away from all of those mosquitos. And maybe I should have brought a banana with me, because I sure wanted one. Maybe I should have brought a little pad for him to lay on (though laying on the Ergo seemed to make him happy enough). But we did a pretty good job, and boy am I ever tired tonight.
And, all that diet talk aside… and I totally ordered a beer when we went out for lunch after our hike. Gosh, was it ever deeeelicious.
Burping on the trail
We three got all gussied up last weekend for a lovely wedding! It was my first real night to play dress-up since our boy was born, and I really tried to represent for all new and exhausted moms out there.
I bought a new dress, dictated outfits for Milton and Axelrod (they only rolled their eyes at me a little), and hopped up the street to the salon I work in to (finally) get my legs waxed earlier in the week. The day of the wedding, I even had my makeup done at VAIN! Thank goodness it’s only a few blocks away and my girl Belinda can work fast on under eye circles.
The bride walked down the asile to Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space and I about crumpled in a thousand romantic tears. I even missed the perfect shot of her walking down the aisle because I was just so overwhelmed taking in the beauty of it all. Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to set me off these days. All anybody ever needs to make me cry is a mix of love, family, and gorgeous music … add some pretty dresses on a sublime Pacific North-West day and a couple making a life-long commitment to each other and I am done for!
We took some photos of each other holding the baby in all our sunny day finery!
My Handsome Gentlemen
Getting used to his monkey suit
Sadly, the little vintage romper that our little boy is sporting barely fit his baby flub! I had to leave his zipper partly undone. I’m so glad he got to wear it out once! He’s growing out of his adorable duds way too quickly. Between the both of us being so chubby, I don’t know how I’ll ever keep up with finding outfits that work.
I have to admit! I made one big fat mothering mistake with our outfit planning. I couldn’t find a dress that I liked that was good for nursing. Milton and I figured that we could just bring a few bottles to the wedding with us. I don’t mean to sound cold when telling you that I choose fashion over nursing, but the boy doesn’t really have a problem taking bottles from his dad in the middle of the day or in the evening when I go to the gym! But, apparently! nothing but a boob will do for his 6-8pm bedtime witching hours. Now we know! I spent a good portion of the wedding reception in the bathroom with my pretty dress around my waist and my baby at my breast.
That lesson learned, I think that I’ll be going out in our neighborhood once a week this summer so that Milton can show him just how great it is to be dadded down with a bottle!
Once I momed him down, we put him straight into the Ergo on Milton and had ourselves some cake and dancing times. We were home by 10 for a final bedtime, enjoyed by all, high on love and romance.
This Guy
Please don’t crucify me for admitting this to the public at large, but I was a little worried all through my pregnancy that I wouldn’t bond with our baby. It’s not that I didn’t want to be a mother… getting pregnant and extending our family was something I worked pretty hard at doing for a while. From making sure I was healthy in every possible way to making sure I was somewhat financially sound before walking down the road to parenthood- I planned everything.
The thing is, I planned everything on a suspicion. I suspected that becoming a mother might be a good step for me as a woman. I suspected that having a child would be a great experience for Milton and me. But like so many other times in my life, my faith was constantly questioning. Would I be good enough for this guy? Would I love him enough? Clean our house enough? Engage with him enough? I even wrote to Milton in the middle of my pregnancy with worries that I would leave him with the baby, trotting back east to resume my selfish city girl high life because I just couldn’t take the parental heat.
I was worried that I would be one of those women who just didn’t connect with their babies. Maybe I worried because having a baby was never a really concrete part of my life plan. Maybe I worried because I have a hard time keeping up with my own business, much less the business of someone else. Maybe I worried because I was so free and easy with abusing my body and burning the party candles at both ends for so many years that I wondered if I could really, REALLY be a responsible parent. For whatever reason, I really worried about taking the heat and giving this guy the responsibility he deserved.
Being a responsible parent, to me, means being a loving parent. Babies beg for love. The children, teenagers, and adults they grow into beg for love. Parental love is the first love any of us can beg to get. If you care for a child, you are responsible for fulfilling all of that child’s needs, especially the need for love. I wondered if I could possibly have enough love in me to put up with the spit, the diapers, the plastic baby gear, the aching back, the sleepless nights, or the belly that would lay beside me like a sad puppy after pregnancy. I figured, if I can adapt to these MAJOR life changes, maybe I could hack my way through the other many years of parenthood.
Today, I am happy to report that I woke up on the second morning of our child’s life, after going through the shock of childbirth and the barely remembered haze of his first 24 hours, and saw my baby’s face in the first morning’s light. He looked like such a sweet little buddha laying there, stirring in his swaddle and newborn cap! I felt a surge of LOVE that I couldn’t believe, referred to him as Mr. Snugglepants, and kissed him all over his beautiful face.
Since then, I’ve only gotten worse with the doting. This guy and I are bonded, for sure.
So, I’ve been waiting and waiting for my newest nursing tanks to arrive in the mail. I’ve been using Bravado tanks since he was born, but only ordered 2 of them. Two tanks and one nursing bra? Yeah. 3 options are not enough for me. Wanna know why?
WELL! I just got the tanks from Glamourmom in the mail this morning. I tried them on and I like them OK, but they’re not perfect. I can see the nipple cut out contour through the fabric and I really don’t like lines. So I thought, I’ll think about this for just a minute. I was torn between sending them back and ordering more Bravado tanks or just keeping them because I’ve been waiting SO long and the lines aren’t totally terrible. I mean, I usually wear a cardigan or vest of some sort with my nursing tanks, anyhow. I also thought I should try them out with some different breast pads to see how that looked. So, I looked around the house for some breast pads, and then my kid started to squirm and squeak in his bouncy seat. So I looked at my kid, and wow, he is SO SO cute. Can you believe this cuteness? I am just beside myself with baby joy when I look at this guy…
Joy
Anyhow, I take a look at this guy and get all fluttery inside because HE IS PERFECT AND AMAZING and I decide that he is going to sleep for a little bit longer while I find a breast pad and look at the lines in my tank top when BAM, I look down and this has happened….
I Guess I'm Keeping This Top
Milk everywhere. Breast pads are no where to be found. This top is going straight into the wash and staying in my wardrobe because there are no longer any other options.
And this is how nursing is going for me! My fountain runnith over. My faucets are constantly ON. The tiny breasts that enjoyed so many lusty summers flying perky and free under scant, flimsy silk tops and camis have become mountains of femininity. I can now make pornographic cleavage out of a rack that once only enjoyed a small “woopsie” when part of the package popped cutely out of my itsy bitsy tini wini.
I have been trying and trying to go without breast pads all week because these fountains of mine are supposed to regulate by now… but, seriously, I don’t know if the fountain is ever going to stop. I pumped yesterday after yoga because Milton feeds our dude with a bottle when I go to the gym. My breasts were so soft when I was done that I could’ve sworn that I wouldn’t leak… but leak I did, just 5 minutes later. And, honestly, I don’t have to look at my kid’s cuteness in order to spring a leak. I am pretty sure that Savasana is an oxytocin inducing wonder because I run from class three times a week with two sand dollar sized circles on my tank. I’ve even started bringing my cardigan into the yoga studio so that I can cover up as soon as the lights go on after class.
I realize that lots of woman have lots of problems with breast feeding, and I am SO thankful that my kid is feeding well enough that he seems to have doubled in size over the past 5 weeks. But, man, as petty as it sounds, I sure wish I didn’t have to worry so darn much about wet spots in conspicuous areas.
UPDATE: While I was finishing this entry, Axelrod woke up. I nursed him. I was then spit up on in rivulets half a dozen times while still wearing this same tank. If any of you pregnant girls out there were to ask me, “How many nursing tanks should I get?” my answer would be, “As many as you can afford, if your breasts and your kid are going to be anything like mine.”
Baby on one knee... iPad on the other.
With the exception of our nursing and napping enabler, the marvelous iPad, we’re both super sensitive to baby gear. Most of it is junk. I see it in the store and immediately visualize it in a landfill. It’s pretty much all badly made molded plastic crap, and much of it requires a batteries. Gross. I cringe at the use of even a disposable water bottle or plastic shopping, so you can imagine how all of this other stuff makes me feel.
I tried to get around the baby gear issue by only registering for very few things and buying vintage. The furniture I bought to house Axelrod’s little onesies and pajamas is midcentury stuff that matches all the blonde wood we have in our space, refinished a little with some fabric that will eventually translate well into his own room (someday, someday!). Our pram is a fantastic mid-70s vintage. We co-sleep when he’s not in the pram, and hope to totally avoid ever owning a crib. The little books and toys we’ve gotten for him are stashed in bins on the blonde wood shelves.
The big, amazing, SUV style BOB stroller is the big item in one of our only big closets. The ugly Graco infant seat was my one plastic concession in our living room, along with a vibrating chair that is on loan from another family. We found that we could strap him into the car seat and rock the seat with our foot, creating a swing effect, OR put him in the vibrating chair. They both work, depending on his mood. I thought it’d hold out through the infant swing phase nicely.
And then he started to get fussy in ways that only a good rock would suffice.
He’s generally not a fussy guy. He doesn’t cry unless he has a really good reason. He cries when he’s hungry. He fusses when his diaper needs changing. He cries when he has gas. The thing is, that whole gas issue? Yeah. That happens a LOT. He’s always working something out, be it a man sized burp or a series of charming farts. He grunts and pushes and cries. I can’t blame him. Digestion issues are the devil. We use a little Gripe water from time to time, but this stuff certainly doesn’t put him down for a nap, hands free.
The thing about infants is that they get all worked up. They’re happy and gorgeous and smiling, and then something will happen to tip the scales and you could be looking down a rocky road for the next few hours of family peace. It’s not that he screams, really. We are very fortunate to not have a baby with colic. He just fusses. He grunts. He squeaks. He squirms. If it goes on for two long, the scales get tipped and his head gets all messy and refuses to sleep. You’ve got to reset that baby brain with some white noise and swinging to lull him off to sleepy time, thereby lulling yourself off to some precious sleepy time.
For us, the worse time is in the morning. It starts to happen any time from 4am to 6am and can sometimes (luckily not often) last until 2pm. He starts to get gassy and he starts with the grunting and the squeaking. Sometimes, this makes for parental shambles for the whole rest of the day. A baby who nurses at midnight, 2, and 4 and then decides to be mostly awake until late morning or early afternoon makes for a parent who is trying to survive the day on only 2 hours of sleep. Exhaustion makes everything worse. We will start to snip at each other and argue about areas where we generally feel peaceful. That’s not a pretty way for new parents to go!
Enter… my bratty foot stomping insistence on buying a baby swing. I was lucky to have the backup of my mother and sister-in-law on the swing front. They were all visiting- Milton was uncertain of this ugly plastic monstrosity, but it’s rather hard to argue in the face of so many mothers. Our family needed a swing- it was decided. We headed to a local baby gear consignment shop and put our fussy baby into some of the ugliest swings I’ve ever seen to test them out. In the end, Milton and I decided to come away with the cheapest one. His sister used the same model for her little girl, and it worked for her, that was good enough reason for us! We bought it and brought it home. My mother sent me to bed for a much needed nap and commanded absolute silence from my very young sisters and step-father. She scrubbed the swing while I slept. It now looks practically new and now doesn’t have that sweetly rancid other-people’s-baby smell that I associate with day care centers and baby consignment shops. Phew.
Today is the first day we’re getting to test the swing. His little head flops around a little in it, so I’ve got him supported with an adorable purple elephant that a good friend of ours knit. I put him in that swing when he was grunting, squeaking, and badly in need of a nap… and he went down for the count. After 10 minutes, I moved him to his pram for a proper sleep and breathed a sigh of relief.
The swing will go right back to that consignment shop in a few months. Our living room will look worse for the wear in the meantime, but we three will get some sleep in the meantime. We’ve learned that a sleepy baby by day means a sleepy baby by night… so I don’t doubt he’ll be lulled to many naps in this thing.
Once he grows a little more and can focus on some different things, I’ll tell you all about the ugly playcenter hand-me-down that was dubbed by it’s previous owner as the “Neglector 1000.” We’ll use that thing (currently stashed under the couch) and pass that right along to the next baby, too.
In baby world, the fussbucket motto must be, “By Any Means”. Even if those means are plastic.
A Night of Hemingway
I was up all night last night with 45 second long contractions that started every 2.5 minutes. It was very similar to a bit of false labor that happened last Sunday, but last Sunday’s hours of excitement and discomfort followed a cervical sweep, and this night did not. This particular false labor followed a walk around the 3 mile path of GreenLake.
The walk was REALLY difficult, which surprised me. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had no problem keeping up a terrific pace around the lake. One week ago, I had no problem mounting the hills of Seattle on an hours and hours long walkabout with my husband. This time I crept along at a snails pace. The last mile of the lake about killed me. Aching knees, aching feet, grumpy pants. I could have curled up on any old patch of grass for a nap, but then I would have gotten to the car (and ultimately my bed) even later. I can’t believe the difference one week post your due date makes! I’ve always been in great shape, and feel a little broken. I feel detached from my body in a way that I never have before. I am watching my lumbering from afar. Sometimes I wake from a nap and wouldn’t know I was pregnant… until I have to move and roll over to somehow make it up and to the bathroom for my every 10 minute trip to the toilet. Everything is taking so much effort that I’m a little concerned about what a long labor is going to be like. Having strong Braxton Hicks for 8 hours straight is not at all painful, but is absolutely exhausting. Will real labor take even longer? Will real labor be 10 times stronger… or 100?
We went in for a 41 week ultrasound today. The baby looks great! His cheeks are chubby like mine and we think he has his father’s eyes (which is how I always pictured him). I felt as if I was cheating a little bit with our sneak peak, but placated myself with the knowledge that we were doing this to make sure everything was ok.
(Honestly, I knew everything was ok. He’s totally chilling out in there.)
I’m exhausted today. I just woke from a 4 hour nap and, having eaten a sandwich, am thinking about retiring for 4 more hours. Maybe I’ll wake up in for real labor some day soon. My sleeping schedule is totally screwed so I must be ready to be a newborn nursing mom, right?
