My Spidey Sense is tingling

So, all through my pregnancy people have been asking me how I have been feeling.  At this point, I feel pretty good, but I am also entering my final trimester at this point and understand that things will go down hill from here.  First of all, I want to say one thing about all those people who talk about pregnant women glowing.  That's a freaking JOKE!!!  People don't glow.  I think that "glow" is actually a look similar to something like jaundice which comes from feeling like utter crap for such a long period of time.  I even asked my doctor about the whole glowing thing and she agreed with me that statement is a freaking farce!  Secondly, a bunch of people had been telling me that my second trimester would be great and that I will feel the best I have ever felt during those months.  Again, that's a freaking LIE!  Why are all these people lying to pregnant people?!?!  Granted, I feel better now, but is this the best I've ever felt?!?!  HELL TO THE NO!!!  Can I eat without booting every 10 seconds?  Yes.  Can I stay awake and functioning for more than 8 hours?  Yes, barely.  Is this the best I have ever felt? Uh, no.  I would have to say I felt better, um, maybe 21 POUNDS AGO!!!  I am slowing approach the point of needing a crane to get up off of the couch and having my own gravitational pull for any objects that happen to be orbiting me.  Of course, this includes Kit Kat bars which may help account for the 21 pounds, but we'll just overlook that fact for a moment if you don't mind. 

The thing which has been happening to my body as of late which is more annoying than anything else is that my sense of smell has significantly heightened.  Normally, this might be kind of cool, but let me remind you of a few things.  First, I work in a school and, as we all know, kids are smelly.  So, lucky me, I get to smell them that much more intensely than I did before.  WOOHOO!!!  Second, I have two small dogs and while I bathe them regularly, they do have a tendency to stink and to pass the most amazingly disgusting odors from their bodies that I have ever experienced.  I mean, if pregnancy was going to come with the ability to heighten my senses and give me super powers, why couldn't I have some cool powers like x-ray vision, super human speed or strength, or the ability to fly or something?  Why the sense of smell?  And if that isn't enough, with the sense of super smell also comes the increasing frequency and intensity of my own ability to pass gas.  Yes, that's right.  The irony of the super sense of smell comes the fact that my body will now produce the most grotesque odors it has ever produced and I am forced to experience them in a way that only those around me should have to experience.  It's sheer and utter cruelty I tell you.  I still wish I could cash in for a different super power.  Maybe something like the ability to eat as many Kit Kat bars as I want without gaining weight.  THAT would be spectacular!!!  

Hi! I'm Tom!......Hi! I'm Tom!

Have you ever seen the movie 50 First Dates starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler?  If you've seen it, I apologize for this little intro, but for those of you who have not seen it, here's a little synopsis.  Drew Barrymore is a woman has a car accident and, as a result, suffers a head injury which does not allow her to form any new memories.  One of the other people she meets during the course of her treatment is a guy whose memory only lasts about 10 seconds before he's back to square one, Ten Second Tom.  So, today's post is inspired by Tom because I think I am suffering from some type of brain injury which is affecting my memory...no, wait.  I guess that is not a brain injury messing with my head, but more of a uterine user.  Now, I don't know why everyone says this is supposed to happen, but apparently the memory of a pregnant woman is something that disappears quite rapidly...along with my waistline, my beauty (apparently), and any semblance of being able to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time (I am even worried that 3 hours might be overshooting it a bit...Damn).

Ok, back to what I was talking about...what was I talking about again?  Oh right, my memory.  Now, as some of you may know, I already have the memory of a 70 year old who has had too much to drink...for the past 50 years.  I already need to have my life down to a routine in order to function.  I keep my wallet in the same place, all of my cards in my wallet in the same order, my phone, car keys, work items, etc. in the same place.  If something is not in the place where I keep it normally, then I have absolutely no idea as to where I should be looking for it as I have no idea as to where the hell I may have put it.  At work, this means I keep my schedule in my pocket, I ask people to page me if I'm not in the right place at the right time, and I should buy stock in post it notes.  Now, with this pregnancy, I am suffering from early onset dementia and, as far as I understand it, things only get worse from here.  I am afraid that by the time the baby is born, Nicole is going to have to be bathing and feeding both of us as I will have no freaking clue how to do those things, never mind even figure out where the hell it is that I live!!!  I swear this kid better be incredibly intelligent because I have lost about 50 IQ points already which is why this last blog entry has been so long in coming.  Really.  I mean it.  I have had a lot of ideas of things that I have wanted to blog about but, shockingly, I can't freaking remember what it is that I have wanted to blog about when I sit down to write it.  So, with that being said, I am going to be making notes about the things I want to blog about.  The only thing I will have to do is remember where I put those notes once I write them.  Hi!  I'm Tom. 

You asked for it...

Well, many of you have been asking for the pics of my belly and so here we are.  Given the fact that, as mentioned earlier, I am growing larger by the second, I decided to embrace the spread (as much as one can embrace something that large) and incorporated it into my Halloween costume that I used for work today.  The only problem I had with this costume was that I was having immense difficulty trying to see if the eyes, etc. were positioned correctly because they were held on with velcro and many children took great joy in plucking the eyes off of my jack-o-lantern, so repositioning was interesting as both pieces of the velcro came off with each pluck.



As you can see from the picture at the right, my stomach sticks way out past my boobs.  Wait.  I guess that's not a totally new thing for me, but at least now I have a reason for my stomach to stick farther out.  Wait.  Forget I said that.  That could be embarrassing. 

And, with this final picture on the left, you see me holding up the bottom of the squatters current digs.  That is a position I have become quite familiar with for a couple of reasons.  First, while my abdominal muscles (as pathetic as they are) are working to keep this high rise up near the boob region, gravity has other thoughts.  In order to address that, my maternity pants, the ones that fit anyway, have the big tummy panel that goes all the way up, again, to my boobs.  I swear, I could make those things into body suits if I pulled hard enough.  Of course, it might trigger a significant case of camel toe (I'm not explaining that one.  If you don't know what I mean, look it up), but it's quite an entertaining visual.  No, I will not be posting pictures of me attempting to make this into a body suit.  Secondly, I often put may hands in that position, because I am pretty sure that my squatter, during the construction process of putting on the addition to my uterus, has rented a jack hammer and is furiously working to knock out that portion of my body.  A couple of times, I actually thought the work was going to knock me off my feet and, no, Sandy, the baby has not yet kicked me in the crotch, although I can hardly wait for that to happen.  I think I would enjoy that about as much as being audited.

Objects in mirror are larger than they appear

Ok, so all along I have been thinking that I am having a boy.  First of all, I just have a feeling it's a boy...I don't know why.  Then, I have been feeling as if I am carrying all in my belly region and that there hasn't been much "spread".  Now, I think that lends credence to the fact that it could be a boy because I have always heard that boys carry largely like a basketball and you can't really tell from looking at the mother from behind if she's pregnant or not because her fat doesn't spread all around her body.  Up until this week, I was feeling like I was all belly because my face hasn't really changed, my rings fit the same, and my body seemed to be mostly the same except for the mini me in me belly.  Now, if you noticed, in that last sentence, I said "up until this week".  Let me tell you why.  I had bought some maternity pants about 2 months ago for work and I hadn't yet gotten the last two pairs hemmed, but I was needing them done, so I asked Nicole to finish them.  So, I tried them on and, when I put on the first pair, it felt strangely tight around my ass region.  I went in to where Nicole was sitting and I said, "these feel really tight!"  I would like to say that her reply was reassuring and made me feel better, but it went more like this.  She saw me and her face contorted a bit and she said, "huh".  "Huh?" I replied.  She asked me to turn around (which I did) and again she went, "huh".  I spun around and she said, "Try bending over".  "Why?  Because you want to see if they're going to rip when I bend over?!?!"  At that point, I would like to say that she said something more supportive, but she kind of chuckled at me and didn't really say anything, but dind't really stop laughing either until I started crying.  Yes, I said I started crying.  DAMN HORMONES!!!  At this point, she said she would fix them, but, folks, the only way she can fix them is if she shaves about 6 inches OFF MY ASS!!!  So that experience had me look at things in a different light.  I began to realize that maybe there is a little more fat on my body (especially my back side) than I was willing to admit.

The next experience that made me reconsider how big I may be getting was what happened with some of Nicole's students.  Now, for those of you who don't know, Nicole teaches in the same school that I work in and she teaches the funtional skills high school class.  That means that most of these kids read on like a first grade level and need things presented to them in the most concrete terms possible.  In other words, if you ask these guys what state they live in, they will probably answer something like, "Uh, Hartford?"  So, one of Nicole's students walked past me in the hall, looked at my belly with her eyes bulging, and said, "Dr. Jen, do you have a baby?"  I told her not yet, but I was growing one and she smiled and kind of just walked away.  Later that day when I went into her classroom, one of the other kids says, "Hey! A baby?"  "Yes, a baby.  Just not yet".  Then, one of Nicole's favorite kids (who often chuckles in his seat as he replays in his head the last Tom and Jerry cartoon he watched the night before) was asked if he had heard that I was goign to have a baby.  He looked at me a bit confused and said, "There's a baby in there?" and I said yes.  Then, Nicole's assistant teacher, LaShintia, asked the student what is the appropriate thing to say to someone who has just told you they are pregnant.  He looked at her completely baffled for a moment, took a second to mentally scroll through his list of polite responses, and replied, "You're welcome".  At this point, folks, I tell you I had to leave the room temporarily because I feared  may lose bladder control from laughing. 

Those interactions, as well as the fact that I keep bumping in to things, can no longer put my socks on without grunting, and can not pick anything up from the floor while sitting in a chair have all led me to believe that I may not be carrying my weight as well as I had thought.  So maybe this is a girl making herself comfy in there.  If that's the case, then I start to worry about that old wives tale of "a girl steals her mother's beauty".  Thankfully, no one has said that one to me yet...Oh wait...I forgot...someone already has.  Thanks, Fatima!  Be-atch.

It's a .................

Hello, again! It's Nicole.  We are 22 weeks!  We had a doctors appointment on Friday for another ultrasound to look at the baby's heart.  As we were walking down the hall to the ultrasound department you pass the labor and delievery.  Well we passed a new mom, well I think it was a new mom, she was being pushed towards the exit with a carseat on her lap, and as we passed the seat, Jen and I both looked in and saw this little tiny head all bundled up.  I thought I can't wait, then Jen said, "I wonder if we have to provide the hat?  Is that another thing we have to add to the list?"  It was kinda funny, typical Jen, always worring what we have to do. But then, I think that's when it hit me, in a few months that will be Jen and I.  I kinda freaked out a little bit.  This little person it going to depend on us for it's every need.  Not that I didn't know this before, but it just seemed so far off.  But now that we are over half way there, it's kind of slapped me right in the face!  There's so much to do and it's not like I can forget about it because Jen keeps telling me of all the things we need to do.  Who knew that I would be the calm one in this situation and that I'd be reassuring her that everything would be ok. 

So we go in for our ultrasound appointment and I knew from the last one that that baby would resemble a baby and not an alien and that maybe, just maybe I would be able to sneak a peek to see if it is a boy or a girl.  Before the tech could even introduce herself, Jen so RUDELY interrupted and said, "We don't want to know".  Now I'm not hormonal or anything, but I did want to slap her at that point.  Anyway, the tech avoided that area at all costs and in my head I was thinking, "Well, the doctor still has to come in and look, so I still have a chance".  So, the doctor came in and took a look at the heart, the limbs, counted all the fingers and the toes (which, by the way, 10 of each, so we're good to go) and then he said the words, "I have to check between the legs" and before I could strategically position myself away from Jen's reach, she mama slapped me right across the eyes and pretty much embedded my glasses into my skull and said, in her very loving tone, "Don't you dare, Nicole!"  So, a few different times in the appointment, the doctor told us to look away and each time he did, in came Jen's hand for another mama slap.  However, I did some pretty good maneuvering and I am happy to tell everyone it is.......................wait for it................I have no idea.  I couldn't see anything other than Jen's fingerprints on my lenses.  Sorry Julia, I did my best, but I got nothing.  So now we really do have to wait because we won't have anymore ultrasounds unless there is a problem, so we won't be seeing him until his birth day....or her birth day.................or did I see something?  Hmm.........

You must be this tall to ride this ride

I started this school year being one of 4 women who are expecting (and when I say "expecting", I'm sure we all know I'm talking about having a baby and not some other weird thing like, expecting to have pasta for dinner or something...although, pasta for dinner does sound pretty good. Sorry, I need to focus. Back to my story). The first woman, Megan, was due in September, the next woman, Rachel, is due in November, Heidi is due in January, and I am due in February. This situation created a special bond between us  as we shared our stories with each other and talked excitedly about the movements of our mini tenants(or, at least I think it brought us all a little closer. Screw them if they don't feel the same way!). As Megan's due date approached, I found myself checking the parking lot each day to see if she had made it in to work or if there would be a message on the office white board announcing her absence and reporting the birth her baby. Finally, the day came when her car wasn't in the parking lot. I excitedly entered the building and saw the message that she had, in fact, had a beautiful baby girl. I happily smiled and talked about the happy event with my coworkers.

And that's when it happened. As I sat there thinking about Megan and her family's newest little member, it occured to me that now there are only 3 of us still waiting to have babies. Suddenly, I was overcome with that same sense of fear...nay, TERROR, that I had at the end of my first ultrasound. Have I not told that story? Ok, here it goes. We had our first ultrasound relatively early on in the pregnancy with the purpose being, essentially, to verify that it appears to be a viable pregnancy and not something else (e.g. an ectopic pregnancy or bad tuna). In that first appointment, the tech happily showed us the first images of our little bundle who, at that time, just looked like my breakfast or some other thing that was sitting in my belly region. The only reason I actually believed that what she was showing me was actually another person and not the remnants of a bagel was that this little lump of grey matter had a distinct hearbeat. That really made it clear to me that there is, in fact, another person in there. As Nicole and I walked down the hall to head out of the hospital I felt my first wave of terror emanating from the all too real issue that this heartbeat was going to grow into a mini-me that was then going to make its grand entrance via my...my...oh, it even pains me to say it...my vagina, my hoochie, my choch, my pooter, my...perhaps I should stop there as I have many other names for it, but I'm not sure what the age group is that's reading this out there. So, yes, the terror set in at that point for the first time in my pregnancy. As that realization slapped me in the face like a dead fish wrapped around a cinder block, I actually froze in my tracks which caused Nicole to turn around and worriedly ask what was the matter. When I explained the birthing process and how that thought was now directly responsible for contorting my facial features, she was so supportive with a reply of "It's a little late to think about that now, isn't it" and capped off this ever so comforting statement with small chuckle. Funny, but that moment also marked the first wave of hormones rushing through me as I felt the overwhelming urge to punch her square in the gut. In what would be the first moment of many, I restrained myself and, instead, simply resumed walking to the car.

Now, with Megan having had her baby, I was again hit with that wave of terror. Only this time, it was a bit more intense and as I looked around at my co-workers, I spotted that same look of terror fueled by realization in Rachel, the poor sap who's next on the list to have a very tiny person mistake the most sensitive parts of her anatomy for an emergency exit. In my sudden shell shocked state, I went up to her and tried to explain what I was feeling which is what I will do for you all now. Essentially, it kind of feels like going to an amusement park and being super mega excited to ride a new rollercoaster. You wait in line and talk with your friends about how awesome it's going to be and everyone gets more excited by the minute, and then, as your turn gets closer and you can actually see people getting into the cars, hear the clicks and clacks of the ride, and the screams from the poor saps at the top of the first crest, you suddenly realize you HATE rollercoasters and that they scare the crap out of you (which I hear actually happens during childbirth!). As you stand in line surrounded by all these other people who have already been on the ride before and, for some reason yet unknown to me, have actually voluntarily gotten in line to ride it again, you try to figure out your exit strategy..."Maybe I can fake being sick and I can't go on the ride" or "Maybe I can fake being too short to qualify for the ride" and then you see the faces of those around you and you know they are thinking, "Just suck it up and get on the ride! Stop being a pansy!" The only problem is all of these people who have already gone on the ride are LYING!!!! They maybe liked how they felt after they got off of the ride, but when they were being dropped from 5 stories in the air, none of them can tell me they didn't feel sick and weren't trying to figure out how to get the hell off the ride in one piece! So, as I'm sure Megan is now enjoying the after effects of the ride, I am still trying to figure out how to fake being too short to ride the coaster. I'm a little worried, though, because I don't think I can pull that one off. I just hope the poor sap who has to sit next to me during the ride (Nicole) is prepared for my kicking, crying, screaming, digging my nails into the safety restraints (aka her hands, arms, or any other part of her body I may be able to grab on to...she may need some personal protective equipment like from a bomb squad or something), and potential return to booting. Hmmm...Perhaps she should wear a rain poncho...

Quilt shop...

Ok, so some of you read about the quilt shop hop trip last weekend that I went on with Nicole, her mom, and some of her mom's friends. I believe that those of you reading this are fully aware of how I feel about shopping and quilt shopping...Well, ok, first, it's a misnomer because we weren't actually shopping for quilts, we were shopping for materials to make quilts with. Now, one of the reasons I am not a fan of the pastime known as shopping is that there are plenty of other activities I'd rather be doing. One, for example, involves very hot pokers and my eyes. Another reason is that I am extremely cheap and do NOT like spending money and what I came to learn rather quickly was that the process of making a quilt is a timely and costly one. So, while I can appreciate the beauty of the end product, it costs much more to get to that end product than one might think. Another reason I am not a shopper is that I am notoriously bad about matching colors. Now, women are not typically color blind and, while I can see colors just fine, I certainly did not inherit the gene that allows me to tell which colors match. So, when I have to go shopping for clothes, for example, I am likely to buy whatever is on the manequin because then at least I know it matches. Does anyone remember Garanimals? It was this company that made clothes for kids and had color coded animal tickets on every item and all you had to do was match the color coded animal tag to see what outfits went together. Unfortunately, they don't make those anymore, but I would spend a FORTUNE for someone to bring those back...not only for kids, but also for adults. And, I'm sure the unsuspecting independent contractor taking over my body would also appreciate those so that he (or she) can rest assured that his clothes match.



Ok, ok, ok. I have digressed. Back to the reason involving color matching. Part of the allure, I think, of quilt shopping is that the avid quilters head into each shop with a pattern for a specific item they want to make and then they have to find the materials they want to use for that pattern. Now, I don't know how familiar many of you are with quilts, but they are fairly intricate involving many colors and patterns. So, while Nicole and the other quilters are anxiously sifting through material and trying to come up with matching fabrics, I am desperately seeking out the free snacks in every shop because I know that, if Nicole asks me for help in picking out a fabric, she will sorely regret that decision once she gets to the final product and says, "Whoa. Uh...nice choice of colors, Jen. Thanks for helping. In fact, you did such a nice job, you don't have to help me pick out fabric ever again!" Wow. That is kind of my own little quilt fantasy happening there, isn't it. Anyway, you can well imagine that a whole day of looking at fabric and then trying to match the colors into a final product that I just can't even picture in my head takes its toll on a person. Thank goodness for the plethora of free snacks. And, yet, if Nicole were to ask me to go with her again, I would. Why? Because I'm a sucker and that's what you do for the people you love. At least, that's what I hear.