after much play…
week 3734984 of the pregnant largeness
i dunno what week i am in with this pregnancy. i’ve gotten to the point where i have stopped counting. in fact, if we hadn’t been methodically trying to conceive this baby, and i hadn’t known when exactly i had gotten pregnant, i would be convinced by now that the baby was due last month.
two weeks ago, an older gentleman stopped me in the grocery store to congratulate me on the impending birth. totally sweet, right? he then asked when i was due. “next month,” i told him. his eyes got wide and in the kindest way possible, he said, “ma’am, i don’t mean any disrespect, but i’m afraid you won’t make it out of this grocery store, let alone to next month without having that baby.” i smiled and nodded, told him he was probably right. then i made my way towards the pink lady apples of which i cannot seem to get enough of.
i am that large.
or rather, my abdomen is that large. this baby is that large.
i, on the other hand, have been losing weight at different times throughout this pregnancy. odd how that can happen, no? i mean, you’re one body and you weigh X amount and then your fetus weighs X amount and you combine the two and throw in some numerical formula add a placenta and multiply the amniotic fluid and boom, you have your pregnancy weight, right? no. not so much. while the large pickle has been growing, she has also been taking my weight on as her own. so i’m down a few pounds and yet she is gaining and yet we are one in the same vessel.
chew on that for a bit.
i’ll get my next estimated fetal weight of this baby girl a week from today. any bets? at 32 weeks, she was a little over 5 lbs. and here we are, roughly a month later. i’m goina go with 14 just to be safe. we were 1 percentage point away from entering the macrosomia stage at our last estimated fetal weight, and i have been consistently measuring 2 weeks ahead of schedule for a while now.
(all of this supports my theory that the baby was due last month. math is dumb.)
for the most part, onlookers have been entirely sweet and kind when it comes to their gawking. and that has been genuinely appreciated. much like my pregnancy with jackson, i feel lucky… lucky that i can carry this large, healthy baby without the onset of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, etc. i feel lucky that i still have normal person feet that have not swollen. i can still wear rings on my fingers. (it’s the little things.)
all of that said, this body that can do such amazing things with the uterus that knows no bounds is tired. i’ve slowed down A LOT, which i feel guilty about especially when it comes to jackson. keeping up with him is a challenge lately. he has been as patient and understanding as any almost 4 year old kid can be.
“mom can’t push me on the tire swing as high as dad.”
“mom needs to rest with pickle. they get tired.”
“mom’s belly is moving a lot. does it hurt?”
“i can clean up the dog hairs. mom can’t reach.”
sleeping has become something that i both dread and look forward to. there is nothing better than propping oneself up on numerous pillows in addition to a maternity pillow and settling in for the night. but then there’s the heartburn and constant consumption of TUMS (fear not, i am golden in the calcium department) not to mention the baby’s not-so-subtle movements and shifts as she loses more and more space being housed in my body. my bladder and i have had a talking to regarding the numerous trips to the bathroom i take a night. there is a silver lining though with these bathroom trips. i walk through our living room to get to our bathroom and take a moment to stand under the ceiling fan and cool myself off from the hot flashes.
i think i can speak for the rest of my family when i say that we’re OVER IT in terms of this whole being pregnant scenario. jackson asks when his baby sister will come out nearly every day. paul is ridiculously excited and grateful that he gets to meet his daughter. and i feel very ready to have this kiddo out of my body… no longer bruising my ribs (literally) and punching her way out of my nethers, and a part of what will be our family of 4 (plus a crazy dog).
in the meantime, we continue soaking up each day we have as a family of 3, and thanking our lucky stars to be where we are right now.
on height (sort of but not really)
it’s funny what you grow accustomed to in your partner. some things seem to fade away over time, or no longer get noticed like they once did. you’re so used to looking at one another. you’ve studied one another for so long that you could sketch your partner’s face blindly. recall the contours. count the eyelashes.
but wait… are his freckles here? or is that where he is missing freckles?
when we were newly married and in the market for our first bed together, i remember friends of ours being astounded that we weren’t shopping for a queen mattress. we went straight for a king. (this of course was after spending the first month of our marriage on an air mattress and living with paul’s 3 roommates).
it just made sense to us to instantly go for the largest, paul-friendly furniture that we could find and had the means for. our living room couch is overstuffed and over 9 feet long. the matching chair is a chair-and-a-half. our dining room set is tall, resembling bar stools with an accompanying high tabletop.
i’ve never once questioned any of these things that have been so constant in my adult life with paul. i’m so used to his size that i forget just how tall he is until i see a picture of him. then again, it has to be a picture of him with someone else, because i’m tall too. if i’m next to him in a photograph, it’s deceiving because we fit each other well. if he’s in a picture with someone else, someone of average height, it’s an entirely different story.
a decent amount of my weekend was spent editing pictures from our beach trip. it was going through these shots that caused me to reflect on the larger-than-life size of my husband.
he’s a quiet man. always has been. in fact, that was why i didn’t want to date him when we were in high school. i told my mom, who had already fallen for him and decided he was the one for me, that paul had nothing to say. i wasn’t interested in someone who “didn’t have a voice” (related: OMG, WRITERS CAN BE SO DUMB).
he doesn’t talk, mom.
sure he does. you just need to listen.
when you hear a person described as being larger-than-life, typically that means that their personality is so enormous that it can overshadow other aspects of the person.
when it’s paul being described as larger-than-life, it’s in the literal sense.
you can only imagine how much fun this is for jackson, who mentions his dad’s strength and size, comparing it to that of the hulk, only 7,493,502,280 times a day.
the expanse of my uterus knows no bounds
i’m thinking the title of this post would serve as a decent tagline for a blog. not mine. i like my tagline. but for you? or you? take it. it’s up for grabs, mommybloggers!
seriously though, my uterus is ENORM. fo realz. my doctor’s appointment this week taught me about the “trend” amongst those of us blessed mothers who birth larger than average babies. apparently with each subsequent pregnancy, the wee fetus gets competitive and *may* outgrow their previously born sibling. at this stage in the game, pickle is outweighing what her brother weighed. she is just over 5 lbs and in the 89th percentile for size. according to my doctor, she is “showing the vital signs of a full term baby,” though i am at 32 weeks (full term is 37 weeks). and… with me at 32 weeks, pickle is measuring in at 34 weeks. so, carry the 2 and divide by pi, and she is 2 weeks ahead of schedule.
what does all this math and gestational discourse mean? i dunno. there was talk of her arriving early. there was talk about the beating that her long and large body is inflicting upon mine. there were words like macrosomia thrown about. but all i could focus on was being told what a healthy baby i have growing in my body. and that, my friends, is something to celebrate.
(now, before you go all ZOMG YOU HAVE GESTATIONAL DIABETES AND PREECLAMPSIA AND YOU’RE MORBIDLY OBESE AND HARMING YOUR FETUS because you clicked that link above and freaked yourself out, let me assure you, i am none of these things. i did not have gestational diabetes with jackson nor do i have it now. i am not currently showing signs of preeclampsia. and i am not morbidly obese, though what i have seen in the latest victoria’s secret commercials may show otherwise. EAT A SAMMICH, LADIES! anyway, what i am is larger than the average chica. and, as we well know, paul is larger than the average sasquatch. thus far, i’ve gained just over 18 pounds with this pregnancy, and aside from sciatic nerve pain and recent migraines, this has been a fairly uneventful pregnancy for me. sometimes BIG babies happen, my friends. and you bypass purchasing the newborn clothes.)
in other news, i think it’s safe to say that i’ll never look at another pickle jar the same way ever again. and i’m ok with that. while skyping with my family a few nights ago, i learned that there is a jar at mom and dads’ house reserved for teeny slips of paper that have names on them. names that my parents and my brother have submitted as possible pickle names. they cannot stop guessing what paul and i have chosen to name miss pickle. and when they told me this, my heart SWELLED with delight (and not just because i’m certain that none of them have the name right).
something incredible about pregnancy that i don’t think i took note of when i was pregnant with jackson is the occasional PAUSE that you’re given. as the one who is carrying the beloved fetus, i am finding moments in my day where i PAUSE and gain a bit of perspective, a lightbulb turning ON, perhaps a warm-fuzzy, the shedding of a single tear, because it hits me that what is happening in my body and the subsequent reactions and behaviors from others is so beyond the cool things one can imagine for oneself.
(yes, i realize that is the longest run-on sentence in the history of all non-sentences.)
i had one of these moments of PAUSE when my silly family told me about their pickle jar. the extent of their involvement and excitement in preparation for meeting this little lady hit me like a mack truck.
i had one of these moments of PAUSE a few nights ago, when i watched paul and jackson have an in-depth conversation about superheroes and jackson had the realization that SIBLINGS ARE EVERYWHERE.
“that’s loki. he’s thor’s brother.”
“THOR HAS A BRUDDER?!?!?!”
“yeah bud.”
“MOM! THOR HAS A BRUDDER!”
these moments of PAUSE are coming more frequently as this pregnancy is coming to a close. perhaps it’s because we are saying hello to pickle in the near future… perhaps it’s all of the emotions and hormones and FEEEEEEEELINGS. either way, i am grateful for those moments. they bring about a sense of contentment that i want to remember forever.
in other news, i’ve been mentioned as a funny mom, alongside many other funny moms. if you peak over at my right sidebar, underneath where it says “NOT SANTORUM,” you can click on the little “vote for me” badge and show me some love once a day until march 21st. it’s always nice to be recognized for the silly stuff you do. thanks to circle of moms for the nod.
the stuff i do not want to forget
it’s starting to set in that these last few weeks before i give birth are our last few weeks as a family of 3. i’ve thought about that concept, but i don’t think it’s really sunk in until recently. and even now, i’m still uncertain it’s really hit me.
as a result of this revelation, both paul and i have been spending extra time reading to jackson before putting him to bed. relishing the time that is still just us. cuddling more. rocking off to the land of slumber.
“and now we can snuggle more?”
“yes baby, we can snuggle some more.”
and then i adjust myself in the rocker, large and round with baby, and jackson wraps himself around me and his little sister, breathes deeply, and asks me questions…
“does pickle come out of your belly soon? like tomorrow?”
“do the pelicans live here too, or just at gigi’s house?”
“how come there’s no school on sunday?”
“when does daddy fly his plane far away?”
“will your belly get much bigger?
we rock and sing and breathe together. my favorite times are shortly after his bath, when he smells like aveeno and is still damp with water and suds.
soft skin. even softer voices.
and then the not-so-soft jab from the child in my belly, the one who hears her brother’s questions and pokes and kicks to answer them herself.
she responds to the boys in a way that i don’t quite know how to put into words. it’s something that i feel happening in my body, but when i try to describe to them how she moves when she hears them, i’m at a loss. it is more incredible than i am capable of conveying.
this morning, at my doctor’s appointment, she heard paul talking to me. we tossed out numbers, guessing her estimated fetal weight. i guessed 14 lbs. paul laughed out loud.
then i felt her entire body shift to my left side. towards her dad.
late at night, when the day is done, and there’s a slice of time spent on just paul and i, we chat and his hand is on my belly. we think it’s just the two of us talking and laughing, but it’s not. with paul’s hand on my belly, she finds him and kicks.
he moves his fingers. tap tap taps. she plays back. he laughs. he talks. she responds.
and i feel it all.
it’s like she wakes up when she hears his voice.
and i know what that feels like. so i smile.
“mommy, does pickle start with P?”
“will green be her favorite color too?”
“can i hold her with my hands?”
“mom, can she come to my birthday?”
Have a Sip
