Being Sara

My friends and family have been wonderfully supportive throughout my entire pregnancy.  From the moment broadcast the good news, we’ve have encouragement and support, people bring by gifts for no reason other than they’re excited (and they just can’t resist the adorable baby stuff).

In an attempt to be supportive, my friends, family, and near strangers have tried to encourage me this past week by telling me that I’m almost there, it’s getting close now, time’s almost up, etc.  Whenever anyone says that, I want to respond, “bite me”.  These next few weeks might fly by to them, but they are dragging slower than molasses in winter to me.  I think they forget that I’m waking up 3-4 times a night, and that I have to rotate myself like a rotiserie chicken to get comfortable in bed, that I can’t get in or out of any chair or bed these days without a great deal of effort, that I’m eating Tums as a late-night snack, that I have forgotten what it feels like to take a deep breath, and that even some of my maternity clothes are feeling tight these days and I could go on.  So every day is a long day - I’m tired, and my whole body hurts, and when people say I’m almost there, they think a few weeks is a piece of cake, but to me every day is a long one, and “D day” feels sooooo far away.

Instead of telling me I’m almost there, I wish people would remind me that this isn’t going to last forever, even though it feels like it will.

delivery, extended pregnancy, long pregnancy, maternity, pregnancy

As most of you know if you’ve read much of this baby blog, I subscribe to both PregnancyWeekly and BabyCenter newsletters.  I’ve found them to have pretty good information, and there surprisingly isn’t much overlap.  This trend of blogging pregnancy progress is obviously not new, and both sites have some blogs (or journals as BabyCenter likes to call them) that are quite entertaining.

My favorite one at BabyCenter is called She Said/He Said.  It’s cool because both the expectant mother and expectant father add their own input each week, and it’s interesting to see both perspectives (besides which, the mother in particular is quite entertaining in her prose).
My favorite baby blog at PregnancyWeekly is called The Mommy Diary.  Unlike She Said/He Said, this one is only from the mother’s perspective, but she also has a sense of humor, and poses interesting questions to the PregnancyWeekly community each week.  Unfortunately, these are older posts, as she has already had her baby, but going back and reading through them is still entertaining.  So, if you’re enjoying mine, check out some others, and if you know of any others I might enjoy, please pass them along!

blogs, baby blog, baby journal, baby diary

As anticipated, as soon as I started showing, every mother I met had some words of wisdom for me. I’ve read plenty of articles on this, and I know that the easiest way to handle the unsolicited advice is to simply say thank you and file it away. Most of the advice I’ve received has actually been useful, and I’ve found that I enjoy hearing about other women’s experiences with their children.

However, in the last two months I’ve started to notice a trend - warning about how difficult motherhood is. Previously, anyone who found out I was pregnant was excited, happy, and congratulated me on the good news. Now that I’m round and my delivery date is looming around the corner, experienced moms seem to relish in telling me how horrible my life is going to be. If I had a nickle for every time someone told me about how tired I’m going to be, and how much sleep I’m going to lose, I’d be able to be a stay at home mom! I think the lack of sleep warning is the one I get most often, but I also hear about how I’ll never be able to sit and eat a meal, how no one will remember that I exist when the baby arrives, how my house will be so messy and I’ll never have time to clean it, how I’ll always have spit-up or pee or some other fluid on my clothing. With all of these dire warning, it makes me wonder why anyone ever wanted to have a baby in the first place.

Of course I know that there are good moments too. I’m still excited about having a baby, I just think it’s fascinating that so many people want to tell me about the bad stuff, and no one wants to talk about the good stuff. Ironically, only one woman - a co-worker of my husband’s, told me how much fun I would have, how I would smile all the time, and how it would be a wonderful time in my life. When she and I spoke, it finally hit me that I hadn’t heard anything like that yet, and that for months all I had been hearing was how tired I’m going to be (as if I’m not already tired!)

So, my warning to any expectant mother is that when you start receiving these negative comments, as I expect you will, ask these women about the positive things - the responses you get are surprising, and nice, and make you look forward to having your bundle of joy instead of entirely anxious and depressed about it.

baby advice, infant, infants, maternity, pregnancy, pregnancy advice

I have been amazed in the past week or so how many people have first asked me when I’m due (not a new question - I’ve been getting that one for months) and then when I tell them I have over a month to go, they look shocked. So apparently, I’m looking overly pregnant already. The meter man in town (the guy who writes up tickets if your meter has expired - Frank), the cashier at the local market, other tennants in the building where I work, etc. Everyone seems surprised that I’m not due earlier. Should I be worried that I’m going to have a huge baby, since 5 weeks early I’m looking ready to pop? Ironically, my weight has been about the same for over a month now. I would assume that the baby is still growing, and my stomach certainly seems larger, but my weight is the same, which is weird to me. I’ll definitely ask my doctor about it during my next visit next week.

Another new and fun development this week has been cramps. I don’t believe these are Braxton Hicks contractions, as they are localized to one corner of my abdomen, and don’t move in a wave up or down my stomach, as they’ve been described in the literature. These cramps feel like payback for every time I went swimming without waiting an hour after eating. And, they get worse the more walking/moving I do, though they eventually go away when I rest. I haven’t read about anything similar to this anywhere, so I’m not sure what’s going on down there, but I also haven’t read about it being a symptom of something bad, so I’ve decided not to worry just yet. Instead, I will walk/waddle more slowly, and rest when I feel those payback cramps sneaking up on me.

9th month, braxton hicks, ninth month, pregnancy, pregnancy cramps, pregnancy discomfort, pregnancy pains

It’s not as bad as you think. Sometime around the end of a pregnancy, the baby apparently “drops” lower into your pelvic region, so it’s closer to the birth canal for the big day. The literature I had read on this referred to it as a “lightening”, so I was assuming that maybe my stomach wouldn’t feel like it weighs 300 pounds when that happened. Apparently I was wrong. My doctor asked me if the baby had dropped, and I told him I didn’t think so, but I didn’t really know what that felt like. He asked me if I was feeling more pressure lower, and I said “oh yeah I am”. So, apparently “dropping” for me doesn’t mean a relief from any of my current discomfort, it just means I’ve got more pressure in my lower abdomen versus up near my lungs. Thinking back, I haven’t been irritated about not being able to take a deep breath in a little while, so I guess there is less pressure up top, but nothing significant enough for me to notice. On the other hand, the baby dropping shows an end in sight - even the baby is indicating that he or she will be ready to come out soon, so that’s a plus - I won’t be pregnant forever, even if I feel like I will some days.

babies, baby, baby drop, lightening, pregnancy