Welcoming...

He's here!

Schmoopse, Bug, and I are are proud to announce the safe and happy arrival of Mr. Baggins.

8 pounds 7 ounces
21 inches long
All are happy and healthy and well, and we are so blessed!

P.S.- I grew a baby with HAIR!

Here we go.

I feel like I should have something insightful or profound to say today, especially because if memory serves, I won't be making any significant contributions to intelligent discussion for at least a couple of weeks. I'll be relegated to gazing and cooing and talking endlessly about how my cervix performed during crunch time, and it won't be my fault because new moms are biologically wired that way.

Basically, I am packing and straightening and wrapping Bug up in my arms every time she crosses my path while swallowing down my tears for the way I am about to send her happy little world spinning into outer space.

I am giving thanks that, for the first time since the Crystal Light incident, I am finally more than 24 hours puke-free (I want one of those medallions they get in AA) and feeling like maybe sort of a human again.

I don't have any big words to describe the way the alien inside me squirming about is going to be an alien outside me squirming about in a few hours, and the whole feeling is just so surreal. Does he have hair? Does he look like his sister? How big is he? WHAT IS HIS NAME?!

I'm rambling, but I'm 9 months pregnant and I'm going to have a baby tomorrow, so I think I get a pass.

Wish me luck.

Progress?

I'll spare you the grimace-inducing details, but I am mildly, delicately, and not-very-convincingly hopeful that we're making some progress toward birthing this child. I'm going to be honest, I sort of hate being as in tune with my body as I've been forced to be the last couple of days. I mean, after 28 years, I generally know what the heck is up with this ol' frame most of the time, but all that has shot straight to the crapper over the last several days.

After consulting the brilliant minds of the internet (and, to be fair, the nurse at my doctor's office) I have been assured that I will either have this baby today, maybe right NOW, or else sometime before, say, Easter.

It's all very comforting.

On Sunday evening, I asked Paddy to take me on a drive. It was a prospect that allowed me to leave the house while still looking like a total slob. We enjoyed a little jaunt around the valley, and then made it all the way back to within two doors of my house before I had to leap out of the car and heave my Crystal Light into the fresh snow outside my neighbors' house. So classy.

(Guess I'm not sparing you all of the details after all.)

Since that time, I've managed to hold a tenuous grip on a pudding cup and half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Everything else, including water, has made a hasty exit.

All possibly-legitimate symptoms aside, I'll tell you what gives me the most hope. (Besides the induction which is already scheduled for a few short days from now, obviously.) After getting sick (again!) this morning, I had a strange and powerful desire to eat an entire breakfast burrito from Beto's.

Out of respect for my digestive system, I declined, but come on. It's got to mean something, right?

A girl and her dog

Alternately titled, "Will you be my Valentine?"

It's been a while since Lupe made a good solid appearance on the blog. Don't worry, we haven't forgotten her. In fact, while I was busy straightening my bedroom, Bug hand-delivered a Wubby (a treasure of infinite value) to her "Yuppy" for Valentine's Day.

Lu couldn't be more thrilled.

"I'm so thrilled you decided to have another kid. Really. I can barely contain my glee."

"Juuuussst. Holllllld. Stiiilllll..."

This is basically why we own a dog.
That, and because it was a life long dream of mine to house a creature who eats her own crap.

Who can spy Bug's papa toe poking out of the jammies?

"Mmmmmmmmwah."

37 Weeks

Based on the daily experience of my life, let's see if I can preempt all the very clever comments and questions everyone is thinking at this point:

Yes, I'm still pregnant! 

Yep, I'm positive there's just one in there.

You're right, it is nice that I work in a hospital. (Too bad it's not the one I deliver in. Unless, you know, accidentally.)

I feel like I'm about to pop, too!

Yes, I am being induced in 9 days. No, that is not "almost here!"

Pudding cups

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy pudding? I do, and Sherm must like it, too, because I have wanted a lot of it since I started growing him.

Somehow our doctor's appointment this week stretched to a three-hour long adventure including a trial run up to Labor and Delivery, you know, just for fun.

I don't really know what to say about all the details except that in the end, everything was fine and Sherman is still (painfully) wedged between my pelvis and my rib cage, right where he belongs. As a parting gift, we were granted an official end date for this whole adventure. (Dear Sherm, don't feel you have to wait for your court-ordered eviction notice. The early bird gets the worm, you know.) 

Two more weeks. Two weeks two weeks twoweekstwoweeks.

But here's the part I'm thinking about today.

The boy I married prefers vanilla to chocolate. He loves basketball and football and despises hockey and adores Diet Coke. He like government-action movies and little red-headed daughters. He hates those Labor Dispute signs with the Shame On ________ (insert company name) banners. He is funny and good and kind. People he knows only a little probably recognize him first by his warm smile, as he is rarely found without it. People who know him well know that he is, at baseline and without trying very hard, a generally cheerful and good natured man infused head to toe with sunshine. And the girl he is married to knows that he is also genetically wired to be a bit of a worrier. Three hour doctor's appointments do not generally suit his personality well. 

That's why I found myself a little surprised to be sitting in the tiny closet-like room of my doctor's office with the non-stress test monitors strapped to my round belly, laughing until tears streamed down my cheeks. The little red line measuring my contractions was bouncing crazily all over the monitor in time with my hysterical giggles, and across the room between his own peals of laughter, Paddy was playfully scolding me for messing up the test. 

The joke was one of those 'had to be there' sort of moments, but I don't want to forget it. In the stress of that tiny little room, we pointedly talked about anything besides the strange heartbeat readings we were seeing on the tiny screen. We wondered how Bug was behaving at home and planned the rest of the evening (before we knew we'd spend half of it strapped to versions of that same machine). My brilliant, hard-working Schmoopsie-face had just that morning passed the final exam for one of his professional designations, a feat nearly two solid years in the making, and I was (am!) oh-so-proud of him. What I meant to say in that moment was that celebration was in order. I smiled up at him from my large lounge chair.

"I'll have to make something tasty for dinner to celebrate your passing!" I said.

Surely envisioning his own death and the elaborate party foods I was apparently planning on serving to fellow mourners, he pulled a face. We both exploded into laughter.

It probably would've been over in a few seconds if I didn't have to keep seeing the proof of my giggles on that darn printout. Seeing those jaggedy lines all over the place would get me laughing all over again, and before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face. And THEN I started imagining the nurse popping her head in to check on us and finding me smack in the middle of what she would assume to be a pregnancy-induced crying jag, and that made me laugh even harder. Ultimately, that's exactly what happened, and that was funny, too.

Paddy shows he loves me by buying me pudding cups. He shows it in a lot of other ways, too, but I especially love the pudding cups. Sometimes he orders Dr. Pepper instead of Diet Coke so he can share it with me. He often does kind little things quietly and without a lot of fluff. Sometimes, for example, he pushes his own worries aside to make me laugh, and I know he loves me.

I share the vanilla layer of my pudding cups with him, and count my many blessings.

Superbowl lovies

Meet my two favorite people in the whole world.

Aren't they precious? Many thanks to Allie for snapping this most adorable shot at the yearly Superbowl party. I'm not posting the one that includes me because I am nine months pregnant and that is my right.

The post wherein I whine.

Quick! Anyone want to hear the topic of my emotional breakdown yesterday?

So basically, it all boils down to one point. I want to have a baby (good thing, huh?) and it turns out that at this point I don't get one of those without HAVING A BABY.

Right?

Here are my options: stay pregnant. This option sucks. I dream about what it used to be like to walk without thinking about walking. What wonderful ignorance! I used to race around the Emergency Room at work thinking about easy things like what needed to be done next, or possibly what would make someone want to sport a scrub top while wearing khakis and a belt (seems like an strange fashion choice to me, but oddly popular among the male physician sort) without any consideration for my ability to stride along. These days, I don't race anywhere. I sort of-- lumber, I guess. I lumber around the ER, and this is the new commentary in my head: "ow. ow. ow. ow." Oh, and the occasional "make another pregnancy joke at my expense and--pelvic pain or not--I swear I'll manage to balance long enough to kick you solidly in the shins."

For example, sometime last week I slowly and painfully made my way from one end of our 70+ bed ER to the other to provide a patient with some substance abuse resources. Right about the time I'm asking about the patient's withdrawal history, his friend glances up and notices, apparently for the first time, that the girl standing across the bed from him with the list of methadone clinics is visibly pregnant. I presume he felt his next comment was brimming with such incredible genius, so hilarious in its originality, that he simply could not possibly be bothered to wait until the end of my conversation, or, for that matter, the end of the sentence I was in the middle of before interjecting.

"Wow," he said, flatly. "It's a good thing you already work, you know, in a hospital or whatever. Just in case, you know, something, uh, accidentally falls out of there." Gestures helpfully at my swollen abdomen as if waiting for response.


Blink. Blink blink.

So that's option one, and it includes a million trips to the bathroom and lack of bladder control and exhaustion and pain.

Option two is have a baby.

Don't get me wrong. There's clearly a major upside here. Also, I presume it does become the only physically possible option at some point in the future, but let's ignore that for a minute the way I did during my emotional breakdown yesterday.

Having a baby requires pushing that baby out. And then dealing with the physical aftermath of pushing that baby out. And then there's no sleep for what seems like the foreseeable future and discomfort of innumerable types and bodily locations. Plus I have a two year old this go-round who I fear is quite smart enough to get in all kinds of trouble while I am caring for the wee one.

So at this point I'm faced with the following two scenarios.

1: Pain and exhaustion.
2: Pain and exhaustion.

This is the part where you remind me of the delicious way a new baby smells, with a little bald head nestled under my chin. (Or hairy head. I'm open to that, too.) Little tiny feet and fingers and round soft little cheeks all connected to those warm little bodies. Can someone just remind me of that part? Because right now I'm caught between the horrors of maternity waist bands and postpartum mesh underwear, and I can't decide which is worse.