D-Date is due date… in case you couldn’t figure that out! This also means I am 34 weeks along now.
Truthfully, I am not quite sure what to update on. I am just so sick of being pregnant and want it all to be over. But I don’t want to be responsible for a baby either… it’s all very scary.
Baby Stuff
We’ve set up a crib. We have a dresser now. I’ve had a couple of baby showers. (Thank you everyone, I will post more on these later.) We have adorable little clothes that need to be washed. Having all of this stuff around prompted me to say, “Wow… this makes it all feel so real.” My hubby laughed, “The belly doesn’t make it feel real?” But to be honest… that’s different. I still HATE being pregnant and I don’t enjoy all the baby movements, most of the time they kind of hurt or just feel really uncomfortable. But that hasn’t made me think “HOLY SHIT I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR ANOTHER PERSON!” as much as all of the gear around the house has.
Names
No, we really don’t have a solid short-list of names. Everybody keeps asking and it is making me feel like a parenting FAIL right out of the gates. Even one of the very first tasks we’re supposed to do is feeling impossible. I’m not asking for suggestions… just understanding when we say “No, we don’t really have names.” The Star Wars movies were on a lot this week, my hubby kept leaving the TV turned on to them. In Episode III when Amidala gives birth, she names those babies quickly after they come out.
Push, baby, Luke.
Push, baby, Leia.
I guess George Lucas needs to come write the script for my birth.
Leave
I am all approved for 8 weeks of “maternity” leave. I say “maternity” in quotes because my work doesn’t really offer maternity leave, people can just take FMLA leave and if they have enough sick/vacation leave accumulated then they’ll still get paid. (Which means all of the paperwork sounds like I have a disease.) Fortunately, I am loaded on the sick leave front… I rarely take sick leave because I work at home. My boss has been fantastic, even threatening that he would request to have my accounts shut down so I don’t try to work during those 8 weeks. He told me that it is important I have this time with my baby. I’m still nervous about leaving work for that long.
Body
As much as I imagine I will hate it after a while, I am actually looking forward to the soft, squishy belly that comes after having a baby… simply because that means this hard ball in front won’t be in the way anymore. Hopefully my stomach will no longer rest on my lap and I can bend forward again without a belly kickstand in place.
I’m also going bonkers with all kinds of plans racing through my head about how I will get back into running shape after all this. I know I need to give myself time to heal, but I also need something to look forward to. These plans may all fly out the window when I meet this person, but for now… it’s what I’m looking forward to.
For Humor
Remember when I first posted about getting maternity clothes (my 20 week update) and I laughed at the “stunt bump” that was supposed to make me look 7.5-8 months pregnant. Well, the other day I realized I was wearing the same shirt from that photo and I am 7.5-8 months preggo now… so we took a pic.
The shirt has shrunk some since I bought it. I blame this on a) I don’t have a lot of maternity clothes so they get laundered more frequently and b) maternity clothes just suck. Seriously, why are all of my maternity clothes starting to pill on the right side of my belly? It’s a weird wear pattern.
Another doctor appointment a little later today… I’m seeing her every 2 weeks right now, but that will change to every week after the next one. The appointments feel like a waste of time to me. I still can’t breathe, I don’t know that there is anything they can do to help that now but I admit, it is making me very scared about labor. How can I be expected to push out a baby if I can’t breathe when I’m just sitting down trying to relax?
Look at that… I found plenty of things to update on! It all just came flowing out. This is why blogging is a good part of therapy for me!
Jill Will Run 
OMG, the me of two years ago sounded exactly the same. Pregnant out of nowhere, I was NOT ready to even think about taking care of a little human being. You can tell the difference between our kids. The first one is super independent and has developed at a different pace than our second chubby monkey.
You will be fine! Women are blessed with some inert maternal… set of skills that will surprise you. They still surprise me. I started working out by walking right after the 6 wks (C-section) and took up running a while longer after that. I now have a double jogging stroller and we all go out.
You’ll be belly free and miss it. I know, it’s crazy. My two pregnancies were awful, couldn’t breathe, I hated the world for those 9 months. I was an evil pregnant woman. Anyway, yes. I agree with the feeling!
Thank you for sharing… it’s good to know that others have felt the same way, because it seems like everybody in the world talks like every second of this experience is soooooo wonderful and it’s all they’ve ever anticipated for life. Which in turn, makes me feel like an even bigger jerk! 🙂
Random thought as I read this today. Not having a name for the baby doesn’t mean failure right out of the gate. My best friend’s husband came up with Nathan at about 30 weeks gestation, my mother came up with the name Garrett, we went to dinner two days before Allyson was born and started writing down the waitresses names to see if we liked any. The name Allyson actually came about during that discussion although she was not named after a waitress. Kyle didn’t have a name until he was almost 2 days old and didn’t have a middle name until he was 2 weeks old. We knew the genders on all of our babies except Kyle and we still struggled with naming the babes. Fear not, your baby will survive if he/she doesn’t come into this world with a nametag. 🙂 Although, I think we were required to have a first name for Kyle before we left the hospital if I remember correctly.
It’s not so much that we don’t have names that makes me feel like a failure, more the way people react when they ask what our names are and we tell them we don’t really have a list. It’s amazing how many people can act like you’re doing such horrible things, even when they were clueless parents just starting out themselves at some point. I hope I don’t ever act like a know-it-all toward people when it comes to this stuff.
1. I hated being pregnant too, even though I had relatively easy pregnancies. I just didn’t like it. And all those people who said, “Oh, you’ll miss those little kicks once the baby is born!” can go SUCK IT. My kids were STRONG right outta the gate and when they were in utero, doing yoga or whatever the hell they were doing, it was uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful. I was SO glad to give birth both times.
2. When you said Kevin was watching the Star Wars movies, I thought you were gonna say he wanted to name the kid Amidala or Naboo or something. 😉 Okay, not really, but it would’ve been funny! We had named picked for both kids, but Annalie didn’t have a middle name till she was several days old. And it was just the thing that BUGGED me till it was settled. Around 6 months I got obsessed with names and couldn’t think of anything else till we figured it out. However, we didn’t get a carseat till the day after A was born, and we had no diapers in the house till after we brought her home from the hospital.
3. I’m guessing you bought inexpensive maternity clothes? Because yes, those do mostly suck. Expensive maternity clothes are much, much nicer. I only bought myself a couple of items with Annalie, and added a couple more well-made pricier maternity things with Elliora, though. Most of the rest of my wardrobe was made up of irritating, ill-fitting cheap crap from Target and Motherhood. However, I LOVED my GAP maternity t-shirts, and they weren’t outrageously expensive, either. Just not cheap, and they were amazingly comfortable and made me feel so much better about the way I looked. If you want to splurge on something to make yourself feel a tiny bit better in these final weeks, I recommend them.
4. When the baby drops in the last couple of weeks, you’ll be able to breath much easier. At least, I definitely could with Elliora. So it might not be too much longer till you can breathe easier!
1. Yeah, when people tell me I’ll miss the kicks, I have a really hard time believing that. I told Kevin I think the kid is trying out for the Olympic gymnastics team in there.
2. Oh man… that would be awesome if we named our kid after Star Wars movies! (Awesome in a dorky-way that would probably get us and the kid severely mocked!)
3. Yep, all my maternity clothes came from Target or Motherhood. Surprisingly, the Target ones are holding up better than the Motherhood ones, and they cost about half or a third of what the Motherhood ones did!
4. I have heard this… and I keep waiting for that magical moment, although I know it’s still a few weeks away! 🙂