39 weeks

Have you ever seen the Monsterpiece Theater skit on Sesame Street entitled "The 39 Stairs"? I've linked to it in case it's been a while since you've watched it. Other than Jason, I don't know anyone out there who actively searches on You Tube for old Sesame Street favorites. This one was always a favorite of mine because Grover is just so absurd. He makes it for me. The whole thing revolves around counting (to 39, obviously) and on the effort it takes for Grover to get to the top. And it's quite an effort, let me tell you. Grover never does anything by half-sies.

For the last month I've felt like Grover on those stairs. Apropos, there being 39 stairs and me finally at 39 weeks, right? That's right, I'm drawing parallels.

At stair #10 Grover stops and proclaims - "I know there will be something exciting awaiting me at the top!"

10 or so more stairs later - "There BETTER be something exciting at the top!"

I'm at the top. All I can see is that damned brick wall and I'm having a very hard time resisting the urge to be impatient. Impatient and whiny. And hormonal. Impatient, whiny and hormonal. Three things not conducive to a harmonious pregnancy. The tears threaten each time I think - Who the hell decided that 40 weeks equals 9 months? Can't they multiply? 4 times 9 is 36! Didn't they watch Sesame Street?

I just have to keep reminding myself that Grover was right- there will be something VERY exciting at the top of the stairs. It's just that mine have one extra step.

when fingers do the walking

I shouldn't be allowed to get bored at work because when I roam the interwebs I find things like this -





Am I the only one who thinks this is the coolest David Bowie onesie ever? I guess technically it might be the ONLY David Bowie onesie ever, but who's counting?


I'm also partial to this one -



Get it? Baby? In the corner? On a onesie?

Genius.

Thanks Etsy seller Truly Sanctuary for the awesomeness.

what's to come

Last night was our final birthing class we were taking from the hospital. I've hesitated about writing about it until we were finished because I kind of wanted to reserve judgment. So I did. The funny thing is, even four weeks later, first impressions can be SO true.

Our first class started with what I will call the usual introductions for this kind of situation - names, due dates and sex of the baby if known.

My first WHOA moment occurred after only three people had introduced themselves. All three ladies had my due date. I sat in stunned silence trying to find my chin which was somewhere in the vicinity of my lap. They - them right there? - were as far along as I was? They all looked like their bellies might explode if someone in Idaho sneezed too loudly. Not having anyone to compare myself to until now had made all the comments I'd received of "oh your belly is so tiny" seem weird. My belly wasn't tiny. Couldn't they see the stretch marks spreading though my shirt? Couldn't they hear my joints groaning when I thought about bending over? I'm huge, HUGE I TELL YOU!

But no. Apparently I'm just what they said - tiny. A word that has never in my 28 years of life been applicable to me. And can I tell you how much I LOVE it now. I don't love that I was sick for 6 months and that's why I'm still not as rotund as others but I do love that my belly is petite on a body that will never EVER be.

So. Back to the class. There were about 20 couples that first night as we began discussing some of the physical discomforts we'd been experiencing. And some of the questions these people asked foreshadowed the ignorance to come.

"I've been having bad heartburn. Is that normal?"

Excuse me? Heartburn? You're really asking if heartburn in normal for a pregnant lady? Okay....

Let's move on.

"I'm tired ALL the time."

Well, that's not really a question now is it. But yes, I'll give you that one and it's normal. Totally normal.

About this time I starting thinking - couldn't believe it- but started thinking that maybe NONE of these women had read a single thing about being pregnant. Could that possibly be? In this day of instant Google access, could ALL these women really not know what to expect during pregnancy? And yet the idiotic questions continued.

I think Jason and I could have handled the ridiculous questions if they had been limited to the mundane aspects of being uncomfortable during pregnancy. But then we moved on to other areas such as what we could expect during actual childbirth, C-sections, epidurals, episiotomies, and we began to hear questions like this -

"I saw this thing on TV about a lady who gave birth and the baby came out backwards and with three heads, all of which spoke Cantonese. Could that happen to me?" (Actual question may have differed a little from this but the sentiment was the same.)

Yes. It could happen to you. It's totally normal. Extremely normal. So normal in fact that TLC felt the need to make a SPECIAL about it, warning every woman out there of the probability that it would happen to them. And, **bless her heart, the lady teaching the class couldn't seem to say NO to any outrageous questions these insane pregnant women were asking. Instead she hemmed and hawwed and said "no, not really" "well, not always" "possibly" and if the woman asking the questions pressed, the teacher would give in and say "yeah, sometimes, that might happen to you."

What??? Did she really just confirm, to a room full of women scared of passing something the size of a cantaloupe out their lady bits, that someone - someone in this room! - might give birth to a baby with three heads who speak Cantonese?

When the 2 1/2 hours were finally over, Jason and I looked at each other and seriously considered saying "screw the $60" and staying home the next week.

Instead, we went back. Again and again. I know, we're suckers.

Now it's done. Do I feel any more prepared than before? Not really. But then, I've read three pregnancy books and have Googled every aspect of birth at least a dozen times before. I'm anal retentive at the best of times. Completely OCD now. I don't think I was really the target audience for those classes. But like I said, they're done with now. And if I went into labor tomorrow I would be as prepared as I could possibly be.

Except that the Cantonese/English dictionary I ordered hasn't been delivered yet.

You know, just in case.




**This is something we say in Utah when we really mean the person is a complete idiot who means well but does much more damage than good when they are speaking.

hot time in the old town tonight

I grew up in Arizona from birth to age 25. So when I tell you I'm used to the heat, I want you to understand the full meaning of that. Back on June 26, 1990, when temperatures soared to 122 degrees and three were found dead from heat exhaustion - I was at a water park. For 6 hours. Developing second degree burns all over my back because I didn't reapply sunscreen. I know hot.

That being said, I've also lived in Utah now for 4 years and I'm beginning to think my blood has thickened during that time. That or pregnancy has just thrown off my entire internal thermostat. Because when we were in Phoenix this weekend I was hot. So hot. Too hot. Not even sweating because my body couldn't cope with the heat hot. I felt like all those years running around barefoot on concrete during the summer hadn't prepared me at all. Four short years spent in a cooler climate had destroyed a lifetime of building up an immunity to iocane powder....I mean, the heat. Shouldn't have.

But Friday I felt it. Felt it like when you open the oven door too close to your face and it feels like your eyebrows are melting. The heat left me drained and miserable. All day I felt like I was on auto-pilot as I tried to visit with my parents when all I really wanted to do was die. Lay down on the floor of the German restaurant we were lunching at and die. A/C was no balm to my stickiness. I had the air conditioner, a ceiling fan AND a rotating floor fan going full blast. But they couldn't ease the burning. That night I even tried sleeping on the bathroom tile but it was just too painful on my overstressed back. Any sort of fabric touching me felt like a heating pad. I was tired, cranky and my skin was roasting in its own juices. So I did the only thing I could do.

I cried. Like a baby. For over an hour. All I wanted {besides not being hot anymore and to be in my own bed with my own pillow with my own cat} was to have Jason hold and comfort me. But I think he knew that if he touched me I would have punched him. Hard. Many times.

The next night Ambien came to my rescue. (Thank you, Mom!) If it wasn't for that little pill, I'd probably still be crying on the floor in my old bedroom, cursing the Valley of the Sun and everyone who decided it was a good idea to live there.

So. The moral of this story - No matter how miserable you feel, a good sleeping pill can help you ignore your discomfort and fall asleep.

A GREAT sleeping pill can make you forget that your pants are literally on fire.

the venting effect

I'm not one to usually toot my own horn {TooooT} but sometimes it's essential to the story.

My two month time off/rehire process is over and I've been back to work now for about a month. In that time I've come to realize I am DAMN good at what I do and that my workplace suffered without me. And I mean suffered. My desk looked like it had upchucked after some really sketchy oysters and a round of tequila at a shady dive bar. That's not to say that nothing had been done. Some things had. But only the barest minimum. So minimum that you couldn't see it with the naked eye but needed a microscope to find it. For the first two weeks I was just focusing on what I had to do to catch us up.

Don't talk to me! Don't look at me! Can't you see I'm looking for that one specific, extremely important invoice from July 17th that HAS to be around here somewhere? Where is it? Have you seen it? Why are the gods messing with me?

Those were my days. For two straight weeks. But now that I'm caught up (that's right bi-atch, I caught up with two months worth of work in two weeks!) I'm beginning to see where the limited time I had to prepare my co-worker wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. And wouldn't have been enough if I had had a year to try. I don't say this to make what my workmate did while I was gone seem insignificant. She tried. She really did. It's hard when you go from two to one. Without me there, she was basically plugging the hole with her finger while the dam crumbled around her.

Her fatal flaw was thinking she knew what she was doing. She could have called me. Could have asked what was most urgent. Could have consulted those notes she took when I thought she was listening to me jabber on about why we do certain steps that might look redundant but are the LIFEBLOOD of my job! She chose to do it her way instead.

And now it's falling to me. Calls, emails, memos, requests.......they've begun to haunt my dreams. Some things weren't done correctly. Some were done only halfway. Some weren't done at all.

And this is why I vent.

Because if I couldn't, my office mate would need medical attention after I'd shaken her about by her eyeballs.