Pregnancy week 34

So very tired. 2-4 p.m. is the worst, but I’m now pretty much tired from the time I get up until the early evening. Once 5 or 6 p.m. rolls around and I might actually be able to rest, I’m suddenly alert and can usually stay up easily until midnight or one. I know I need to put in a few more weeks at the office, but I am really feeling the need for a schedule that allows for mid-day naps.

I’ve been counting down since October 1st and am now around the halfway point. That’s a relief, though six more weeks seems like an awfully long time.

I’m already coming close to busting out of the maternity clothes I started wearing less than three months ago. I now use a black belly band to prevent my bare belly from popping out at work.

Yoga is depressing me. I did prenatal yoga up until the day I went into labor with River (I began labor just after I returned home from yoga). It’s not happening this time. The teacher has higher expectations and I end up more bummed about all the stuff I can’t do than I am relaxed and soothed. Also, there was a great community in my yoga class last time. I’m still in touch with most of the people three years later. But too many people are coming in and out of this one, so it’s lacking the sense of we’re all in this journey together. I regret signing up for another session.

My stomach is a calabash, one of the firm semi-circular gourds commonly used around the house in Africa.

I am notably conscious of carrying around a large, moving object. This has made it not only difficult to maneuver, but is at times painful.

Picking up a small object from the ground has become an Olympian feat. Doing anything with my shoes is getting to that level of achievement. I still pick up River (I feel like I don’t have much choice there – I have to get him in and out of bed, onto and off the toilet and sometimes in and out of the carseat), but lifting 36 pounds doesn’t seem like the best idea.

I’m starting to feel a special level of consideration, especially from men. People hold open doors for me, they let me go first if we bump into each other in the hall. I’m getting the “it must be coming soon” looks from people. Nobody has commented that I’m especially large, but they are not surprised to hear it will be arriving just over a month from now.

I feel like I take up the entire hallway at work. Walking down the hallways, I feel debilitated, like I’m falling to pieces, and like this must be evident to people who see me. Perhaps this is where the “it must be coming soon” looks are coming from. I don’t feel quite so bad walking in other places. Perhaps it’s the effect of long periods of sitting.

I am so beyond grateful for finding an incredible masseuse and the treat of a weekly massage. Heaven. Absolute heaven.

I read somewhere that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks tend to do fine in the long-term. I don’t think I’m much at risk of delivering early. But still, it’s nice to know that it’s close to fully baked, close enough that it is likely to have a normal life should it come at any point now.

I feel an attachment to the idea of the person who will appear. In the same way I now imagine River within me, and am glad I was able to provide him with what he needed to begin his journey to the person he is now, I’m sure I’ll eventually have similar feelings about this child. But for now, it remains very much a thing inside me. I can’t visualize it. I don’t talk to it. I don’t try to expose it to music or other stimuli. I don’t feel much connection to it. When my yoga teacher tells us to put our hands on our belly and connect with the beautiful life we’re creating within, it feels false to me.

I am made happy by:
-clean environments
-apple strudel from a gourmet bakeshop with vanilla gelato and goat milk caramel sauce
-the intense color of the sky in the late afternoon
-strolls through mild weather and crisp autumn leaves
-looking into River’s eyes and feeling the sense of perfect mutual understanding
-conversations with friends
-my commute. As long as the weather holds up, I like having the opportunity to walk four miles in the course of the day, to listen to audiobooks, and to have a little quiet time to myself.

-cooking, organizing, recording, planning

Week 34 belly shot

Bigger still.

another nice fall weekend

Among the highlights:

I received my first batch of Christmas cards, wrote something on them, got River to sign them, got Mark to write something on the ones for his family, stamped them, addressed them and put them in the mail. I’m astounded. A few people are not only going to receive cards from me, but they will get them before Thanksgiving. I feel like superwoman and credit the nesting hormones. For a review of the cardstore.com cards I ordered and a 20% off coupon, see here.

Dancing in the living room with River while we twirled ribbons. He still had whiskers painted on his face from an afternoon event at the library, where he was made into a dog.

We found a new tenant, at least for a few months, and it’s a married woman. I feel much better about the possibility of going into labor or dealing with breastfeeding and/or pumping with a woman around than a man. And she’ll be gone on weekends, so there is a chance I won’t have to disturb her with my labor.

The in-laws visiting, bringing with them roasted duck, fried oysters, scallop ceviche, pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookies and side dishes. I could get used to that.

The in-laws reminiscing about their recent safari in the Serengeti, reawakening my travel urges and providing River with valuable lessons about the place and animals. I’ve taken a safari in the Serengeti (it’s amazing) and it’s one of my dreams to do that as a family when my kids are teenagers. There is nothing comparable to seeing wild animals up close and in their element – plus I’m taken with the people, the landscape and the history of East Africa. Mark is not so enthusiastic. The other day, while gazing at the full moon, River said he needed a spaceship because he wanted to go there and see the craters. He suggested Mark and I go with him. Maybe the Serengeti doesn’t sound so far away after all. In any case, it seems closer to River now that he has seen some photos and has some carved animals, some books and a t-shirt with Swahili phrases.

I have lots of things to plan for and to look forward to in the coming weeks – a constant stream of events, gatherings, meals, celebrations and things to cook. This is putting me in an unusually festive mood. It’s also distracting, which is a good thing now.

Time to read statistics (not that I especially enjoy it, but it has to get done) and poetry.

An afternoon nap, two days in a row. It completely changes the second half of the day. I can’t wait until I can have some rest time every afternoon.

Continued mild, golden weather.

A fun playdate at a friend’s house. They seemed to be functioning surprisingly well just a few weeks after the birth of their second. So that gives me hope.

The passage of time. I’m getting closer to wrapping up work and closer to getting this large moving object out of me.

feel like you worked hard today?

Try doing what these guys do. I love these pics.

gender differences in sleep disturbances

An interesting new piece of research showing yet another area where moms are putting in more than their share – in getting up in the middle of the night to care for children.

I wonder how much of this discrepancy is due to breastfeeding. While breastfeeding, the burden is pretty much on the mom to deal with middle-of-the-night feedings, either by getting up, or by pumping enough milk so that dad can give a bottle in the night. Dad can get up to change the diaper before the feeding (for me, that was a big help) but still, dad’s sleep disturbance will be 10-15 minutes and mom’s will probably be 15-60. At what point does a well-rested mother, who can be a better parent during the day and/or better breadwinner for her family outweigh the benefits of breastfeeding?

Assuming both parents are equally capable of meeting the child’s need, an author advises, “For parents of young children, the best approach might be discussions and negotiations about whose turn it is to get up with the baby tonight."

I have to thank Mark for introducing the idea of earplugs. It seemed a bit cruel to me at first, to tune out the sounds of your baby’s crying. However, it forced us to decide each evening, who gets to wear earplugs? The person with the earplugs in is allowed to sleep. The person without the earplugs is the one who gets up. So the decision as to who is responsible is made every night before we go to bed. We were lucky to not have to deal with much in the way of sleep disturbances after the first few months – but taking turns and having a schedule definitely helped us get through the initial period.

How do you decide who gets up in your house?

last farmshare pickup

Tonight marked the end of a season. It was our last farmshare pickup. We were back to mostly greens, as it had been when it started in June – lettuce, escarole, kale, swiss chard, mustard greens, radishes, garlic and scallions. But unlike in June, it was already dark when we arrived. Even in the blackness, I could see that the plants had been cut down and the fields lay bare waiting for next year. It was lonely driving up the gravel road in the dark, only one car outside of the lighted barn. It was such a contrast to the summer months, when I sometimes I had trouble finding parking, and families and couples strolled the fields, collecting their flowers, hot peppers and herbs.

This is the third year I’ve belonged to the farmshare. It was an incredible year in terms of bounty. We have only a half share, yet were getting over 10 pounds of organic tomatoes per week for weeks on end. There was no way I could use anywhere near that much (sometimes we received nearly 20 pounds), so despite giving many away, my freezer is now bulging with freezer bags filled with tomatoes.

But my favorite part of the farmshare this year was the way River was able to participate. I considered joining a farm that drops the shares off at a local natural food store. It would certainly save time and gas to not have to go to the farm myself. But I find participating in the connection between the earth and my nourishment is good for my soul. I love the smell of the air in the field, the sight of the vegetables hanging from tendrils, and the resin that sticks on my hand after picking cherry tomatoes. I like knowing that the food I eat was just pulled from the earth that day. Best of all was giving River that connection.

I arranged my schedule so that I’d have the car on the farm pickup day and could leave work on the earlier side, allowing me to pick up River and get to the farm before traffic got too bad. He accompanied me most weeks, helping me to pick peas and tomatoes, to cut flowers and herbs, to weigh lettuce, arugula, cauliflower, potatoes and sweet potatoes, to collect peppers and tomatoes and greens. In the course of one season, he learned more about the origins of his food than I knew when I went to college.

He’s still only 2, but he knows that you pick tomatoes when they are red, and blueberries when they are blue (“no verdes!” he says). I allow him to use the garden shears and he is capable of cutting flowers on his own. He can use tongs to put objects on a scale and he understands the concept of measurement. He took such joy in the collection of flowers, arranging them in the vase, smelling them and admiring them through the week. He understands that flowers die and can be replaced with new growths. He understands that no more vegetables will be growing until the spring comes. He recognizes a corn stalk and knows if the corn has been removed.

We recently started to stop by a nearby dairy farm to buy eggs, meat and cheese (once I got over the price shock of real farm eggs and decided it was worth it). There he saw the cows milked and the origins of his milk. He now makes a point of making clear that his milk comes from cow teats. During our visit this evening, he asked why chicks hatch from some eggs and other eggs are eaten.

I suppose for a two-year-old farm child, this would all be common knowledge. Perhaps I’m overly impressed because I was so far removed from this world during my childhood. I grew up near a sheep farm and would visit it sometimes. So I had a decent idea of how wool is shorn. But with the exception of a short stint with a garden plot, I didn’t have a clue about where my food came from or how it was produced. Nor did my parents seem to care much. I grew up on white bread, Jell-o, and iceberg lettuce.

I think it’s exciting and beautiful to watch my child understand this connection and to participate in the process. For this reason, even though my schedule is going to be tighter and my responsibilities greater by next farm season, I plan to sign up again and take River for weekly excursions to pick up our food from the source. I can’t wait to share in this time with him again.

So glad I'm not flying this holiday season

As if the thought of traveling pregnant with a toddler, or with a toddler and a baby is not intimidating enough on its own, now I’m supposed to choose between putting myself and my small children through a full-body scan with unclear effects or an invasive patdown? I’m
supposed to be content to have a private room with a witness as me and perhaps my children are mawed by security agents? Either my children have to go through radiation and their naked images appear to officers (some have gone as far as to call this child pornography) or go through what could be a disturbing and scary experience (described by one pilot as molestation)? No thanks. I think the TSA can do better. In the meantime, I’m glad to not be flying.

Which option would you choose for yourself and your children?