A Few Facts From My Eighth Month

- At thirty-five weeks and three days, on a state route in Montgomery county, Maryland, my Vomit-Free Pregnancy Streak ended. We were heading home from an errand and I had to have my husband pull off the main road and wait for me to sit with my head hanging out the car door while I'm pretty sure at one point my body turned completely inside out. Morning sickness at 35 weeks? Terrrrrifffic. Why my body cannot do even one thing having to do with pregnancy in a normal and expected way is lost on me. Either that, or I ate some bad lasagna. Somehow, however, the food poisoning theory wanes when taking in the fact that my whole family ate the lasagna too and no one but me got sick.

- From my weekly pregnancy newsletter:
Your baby is weighing in at over 5 pounds and is nearly 18 inches long this week! Obviously they've got themselves a nice little fatty covering, which will keep them nice 'n' warm when they arrive on the outside. Your doctor or midwife will soon be monitoring your cervix for effacement and you're starting to get the pre-labor jitters for real. Worried about the pain? We discuss the options in depth.
Funny, I was actually wishing for the pain of labor last night. At least then it might appear that at some point in time the pain I'm feeling now would end. If I'd known it was going to go on this long, I would have bought stock in Tylenol. Also prozac.

- Also from the same newsletter:
Mommy's uterus is now a thousand times its original size. Yikes.
Yikes, indeed. I've made it clear before why I've chosen not to post frequent belly pictures throughout this pregnancy... it's unpleasant. Here's another thing that's about a thousand times it's original size (oh, and I might add, also unpleasant, so feel free to look away if you don't have the stomach for it):



- I scheduled my c-section last week. Dr. BeenThereDoneThat pulled out the hospital schedule and said, "Now whom would you like to deliver this baby?" I, as tactfully as I could, said, "Dr. NotThatGuy." We looked closely at the schedule and found that neither Dr. BeenThrereDoneThat nor Dr. Coolness is in the hospital at all during the week he wants to deliver me. My options were Dr. RandyQuaid, Dr. Doesn'tKnowHowToUseASphygmomanometer, and Dr. NeitherOneOfThem. I said couldn't I deliver a week later? He said couldn't I deliver a week earlier? We both figured out that we were at an impasse and settled on Dr. NeitherOneOfThem.

- My colleagues at work threw a baby shower for me yesterday. First, let me make it clear that I was extremely touched by their efforts and display of friendship and affection. Since The Dormouse was born, I've always felt that I received more support and non-judgmental advice from the eight people I work with than all my peers who are mothers at church, in the neighborhood and in playgroups. That being said, I don't have a good reputation for baby showers and I freely admit I don't enjoy the typical ones. Since this incident, I haven't been invited to a single of the nearly dozen baby showers for the other preggos at church. Which, I ain't complaining, I'm fine with that - but it does make me feel a little uncomfortable having any kind of a forced "bring me a gift" event for myself and inviting those self-same people who did not invite me to their "bring me a gift" event. So when my visiting teacher called a few weeks ago and offered to throw a shower for us, more out of obligation than care and concern, we politely declined. The truth is, we have a veritable plethora of stuff left over from The Dormouse's formative years and other than a few random things, we don't really need a lot of other stuff - especially since this baby is also a girl.

So ultimately, I feel guilty making any efforts to pry money out of others' wallets. But what do you do when people secretly decorate your office, plan a surprise party and make up ridiculous songs to sing to you? You suck up the fact that you don't enjoy baby shower stuff in general and you thank them profusely. Even when the whole thing sets you back a day on the work you were trying to get done by the time your maternity leave starts. The highlight of the event was when one of the women insisted on playing a couple of baby shower games and had everyone measure out a piece of string that, to the best of their estimates, would fit my waistline. Then, one by one, they all had to wrap the string around my waist and see who guessed the closest. The one man in the office was also made to participate. I don't know if it was naivety or wisdom, but his piece of string barely wrapped halfway around my waist. I looked over at him and announced, "You were always my favorite."