Ain't that a kick in the pants!

So, Shankapottamus (that is what Nicole and I have been calling the squatter.  I guess I should explain that.  We were at the doctor's one night and I called the baby "it" and I thought the doctor was going to take my head off.  She insisted that we come up with a name to call the baby until we knew if it was a boy or girl.  So, then we had to figure out what to call mini-me and we were watching t.v. when one of those E-trade commercials came on with the talking baby.  I love those commercials!  Anyway, it was the one where the baby is in a locker room with an older gentleman after a round of golf and the baby starts telling the guy about the rules of golf and that he should stop his complaining and then he calls him Shankapottamus.  That's where the name came from and it stuck.  Sorry, kid, but that's really the story. But I have already digressed...again, sorry).  Where was I? Oh yes, So, Shankapottamus is in there, growing away and attempting to knock down more walls to make an even bigger space for him/herself.  At this rate, the kid is going to have more square footage available in my uterus than we have in the house!  Anyway, Shank has been kicking things up to the point where you can occasionally see my clothing move while I'm just sitting there hanging out and making the case for me to start thinking about soccer scholarships for colleges. 

Well, earlier in the week, Shank wasn't moving as much as normal for a few days in a row and the doctors had told me to give them a call if something like that happens, so I did and I spoke with a receptionist who took down some information and put me on hold.  After a few minutes, she came back, asked me a few more questions, and put me on hold again.  Then she comes back on and says, "You need to go to Labor and Delivery right now."  Now, seeing that I was at work, I said, "Wait, right now?"  And her reply, with a tone of disbelief was, "Uh, yes.  Right now".  Ok, so normally, I try not to overreact, but the fact that I was being ordered to Labor and Delivery by a receptionist was a bit more than I was ready for at 10 am on a Monday morning.  So, with rising panic in my voice, I call Nicole's classroom from my office and explain that the doctor wants us to go to the hospital ASAP.  Within minutes, we were out the front door and being shuttled to our car in the employee lot by Nicole's supervisor as the two of them start discussing the best way to get to the hospital (my thought is let's go by car and drive as fast as we can).  Anyway, long story short, we get to UConn, we immediately get taken in and hooked up to fetal monitors to hear the heartbeat (which was fine).  After about 45 minutes of that, the doctors decide to do an ultrasound to check for movement and there, sucking a thumb, is Shank.  We can see the heartbeat, watch the breathing, and we can now see that Shank is no longer in the breach position.  While it was nice to see Shank, the doctor starts talking about how she is looking for certain markers and Shank has achieved a score of 6 out of 10, but she wants to go for the whole 10 which requires Shank to move a bit.  So, reminiscent of an earlier ultrasound, the doctor starts punching and poking my belly to get Shank to move and...nothing.  Still just sitting there sucking a thumb.  A little more poking, some verbal encouragement from the doc and...still nothing.  Being a persistent professional, the doc keeps working to help Shank get a perfect 10, so she keeps poking and we finally get to see some movement.  Anyone want to venture a guess as to what that may have been.  I'll give you a hint...it was very similar to the other ultrasound story I told....don't remember?  Ok, Shank, while sitting there every so freaking cute, decides to give a slight ass wiggle to the doc and go back to just hanging out.  "Well, that's enough for me!" the doc chuckles and tells me to go home and rest.  No problem.

So, I go home, call out for the rest of the day, call out of my other job, and relax on the couch.  Well, I guess Shank had just been spending a few days chilling out to save up energy because now, for the next several days in a row and usually mostly during the time when I would normally be sleeping, Shank is up practicing bicycle kicks and using the new Soloflex system that was delivered in the middle of the night.  Now, seeing as Shank has moved into position quite nicely, he/she has more accessibility to the area immediately surrounding my bladder.  What this translates into is that at certain times of the day, I am overcome with an urgent need to pee which lasts about 1 second before passing.  Usually, I can handle this without a problem, but one morning, at work, Shank kicked the bejesus out of my bladder and I was ABSOLUTELY convinced that I was going to piss myself right there in the mail room in front of about 3 co-workers.  "HOLY CRAP" I shouted as those around me looked at me with concern only to have me explain, "Sorry.  Thought I was going to piss my pants".  Thankfully, the women in the room could relate and didn't look at me as if I had been using some of the students' meds without permission.  Then, later that night, Shank must have gotten mad at me for revoking his building permits and turned to face my backside.  As I lay there trying to go to sleep and being super hypervigilant about trying to feel for movement, Shank literally starts KICKING ME IN THE ASS!!!  Can you believe the punk?!?!?  I swear.  You all mark my words, once this kid is born and the doctor turns to me and says, "It's a ?????  Do you want to hold your ?????"  My response is going to be, "First, Shank has to do a 5 minute time out for kicking my ass!"  And, I hope Shank enjoyed the opportunity to kick my butt, because that will be the LAST time it happens without me returning the favor.  Do you hear me kid?!?!?  I'm not kidding!!!

Surprise!

Ok, so the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend, Nicole's family and my family got together and threw a baby shower for us.  Now, some people have been speculating that I knew about the shower ahead of time, and to some extent, that is correct.  I knew there was a shower coming, but I didn't know when or where it was going to be.  Now, I was absolutely CONVINCED that I had figured out that the shower was going to be on a Sunday afternoon.  "How?" you ask.  Well, Nicole has never been that great at keeping secrets, or least keeping surprises.  She's the kind of person who gets so excited over gifts she has bought people that she gets this ridiculous Cheshire Cat grin that begs the question, "What the hell is she hiding?"  Anyway, that is the rationale behind why I did not let her seek the ultrasound to find out if it was a boy or a girl.  There's NO WAY that secret would have been kept until d-day (aka delivery day).

Sorry, I strayed for a bit.  Let me get back to the story.  So, I started suspecting that the shower was going to be on Sunday early on the week before because of one question that Nicole asked me.  Now, before I tell you what the question was, I will tell you that it was a harmless question in and of itself and may not have triggered a whole lot of red flags in another context, but, for me, it was as if all the red flags, bells, and whistles in the world all got set off at the same time.  "What was the question?" you ask (and tough if you didn't ask, because I'm going to tell you what it was anyway).  The question was, "Do you want to go to brunch on Sunday?" DING.  (Bell one).  First of all, she asked me this on a Tuesday.  That is far too far in advance for us to be making plans to do anything unless it involves more than just me and her.   "Brunch?"  "Yeah, sure.  Brunch will be fun!" DING (that's number two).  Why would that be bell two?  Well, a couple of reasons.  One, we have never, in the whole time we have been together, ever gone to brunch with the exception of when her family took everyone out to celebrate her getting her masters degree.  Two, brunches are often done in a buffet format and, as much as I enjoy a buffet (even more so now that I'm pregnant), Nicole absolutely hates buffets.  And then there was the question of, "So, what are you going to where to Brunch on Sunday?"  DING! DING! DING!  This was a crazy amount of bells and whistles and flags happening in my head now which almost made it difficult for me to think.  First of all, we had no idea where we going to go to brunch, so how in the hell am I going to know what I'm wearing.  Secondly, brunch is still several days away.  Now, while I love Nicole immensely, planning things in advance is typically not one of her strong suits.  Finally, Nicole is fully aware, as I'm sure most of you are as well, that I have absolutely NO CLUE what I am going to wear from one day to the next (probably because I'm such a slave to fashion.  HAH!  That one even made me laugh!), never mind what I'm going to wear to "brunch" five days from now.

So, with the evidence mounting against Sunday, I started to get really cocky and started making smart ass comments to her about Sunday's "brunch".  With each question, I would chuckle a little to myself  and a little out loud and Nicole would make this pouty face as if to say, "Oh crap.  Did I let that slip?"  Now, the reality of the situation is that the shower was not on Sunday at all, but on Saturday.  That day, I was expecting to go to a friend's baby shower as she is due 4 weeks after me and the invite said the shower was going to be at the same place where her bridal shower had been, so it made perfect sense in my head.  So, when we got to the hall where CARA'S shower was supposed to be, we started walking down the hall and I spotted Nicole's best friend from college, Meredith, who was sitting next to her mother.  At that, I turned to Nicole and said, "You son of a bitch" in the most loving way possible.  As we turned the corner, I saw my mother standing there next to my sister-in-law and niece and again turned to Nicole and said, "You really are a son of a bitch" (again in the most loving way possible).  The rest of that day is a bit of a blur, but I do know there was an open bar AND I WASN'T EVEN ABLE TO ENJOY IT!!!!  OH THE HUMANITY OF IT ALL!!!  Anyway, for those of you who might be interested, my brother compiled a video of that day and has posted it on you tube.  Just search, "Jen's baby shower" and "chrisa65" and it should pull it up.  Oh, and for an added bonus, you'll be able to see the exact reason why I am not able to put on my socks without assistance anymore. 

Pop! Part two

So, I haven't written for a while and I do apologize for that, but now I have quite a few things that I need to write about, so there will probably be a few posts coming up in relatively quick succession.

Ok, so let me start with the first thing that has been on my mind.  First of all, I know I have written before about people guessing if I am going to be having a boy or a girl.  I still say that it's a boy, but whatever.  Anyway, there are all kinds of old wives tales out there that are supposed to help you predict what you're having.  There's my favorite - the one about stealing the mother's beauty, which I've already addressed as some people have already commented to me about that...bastards.  Then, there's the other one about spread.  I know I have already written about spread in an earlier post, but apparently, I am continuing to spread quite readily because more and more people at work have been coming up to me either telling me that they are CONVINCED I'm having a girl (hmmmppphhh) or that they think I am going to deliver early.  Now, I don't know how you guys interpret that latter comment about delivering early, but I tend to interpret it as, "My, your ass is getting bigger by the day!"  Along with that have been more comments such as, "Wow!  You're even bigger this week" and the all time favorite of "I think you've dropped" which translates into "Holy crap.  How much bigger can you really get before that kid pops out?!?!"

Now, I had been thinking that I was doing pretty well.  My maternity pants have continued to fit (after that debacle of the shrinking pair that didn't fit my butt after a week), my weight is relatively stable with only the weight gain the baby should have, and I am still able to wear some of my shirts that I have had all along (granted, they are not able to cover the gut as well as they used to, but THEY FIT, DAMN IT!)  I think I finally had to come to the realization that I was, in fact, growing into only a house, not a whole housing complex, when I got up one morning and went to take the dogs out and dropped one of the leashes.  This, in and of itself, was harmless, but I knew there was a problem when I couldn't reach all they way to the ground to pick it up without bending at the knees.  "Oh My God! I think I just became an 80 year old man!"  To make matters worse, later in that SAME week, I wanted to put my socks on and couldn't do it without grunting, rolling backwards onto the bed, and shamefully whining for Nicole to come and help me get them on.  Then, to make matters even worse yet (yes, they get even worse yet) I had my first experience of having difficulty getting off the couch without grabbing on to things or having someone help me up.  This is becoming a bit ridiculous.  I think it all became readily apparent to me how bad things were when, earlier this week, I was sitting on the floor talking to one of my students who was having a particularly bad day, when it was time for both of us to get up and leave the area we were talking in.  Only problem?  Yeah, you guessed it, couldn't get up from the floor.  I pathetically looked at the kid and said, "Ok, now that you're feeling better, I need you to do me a favor".  With that, the kid, who's about 9, quickly stood up and said, "I'm on it!" and reached out his hands to help me get up from the floor.  Pathetic.  Oh, and I need to make a correction from an earlier statement.  Apparently, I am NOT an 80 year old man, but rather an 80 year old with a fake hip and two artificial knees.  And the scary thing is that I still have quite a few weeks to go.  Oh boy...or girl. 

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.