One Month

It kind of snuck up on me a bit, but I'm suddenly feeling very pregnant. It's not like this feeling is unexpected -- I am 36 weeks along, one week away from officially full-term, less than a month away from meeting my little Kermit -- but still, it came up on me quite suddenly. I've been having plenty of aches and pains and awkwardness that goes along with the typical third trimester. But starting on Friday, everything kicked up a notch.

My Braxton-Hicks contractions are frequent and fairly intense. The pain in my hips has been joined by killer sciatica, making it difficult to stand, bend, or walk more than a few steps. I'm completely unable to move in bed. The moving in bed actually doesn't matter much, because I get intense pain in my legs whenever I'm horizontal for more than an hour, so I'm not really sleeping much in bed anyway. Kermit is suddenly taking up my entire abdomen; it definitely feels like he went through a huge growth spurt in the last week. And he is suddenly much stronger; when he stretches, I can see my belly move in response, in crazy ways. I'm constantly feeling off-balance. After 8 months of avoiding it, I suddenly have the typical pregnant woman crappy posture, where my back bows much more than it should, to compensate for the growing stomach. I waddle. And every single time I stand up, I get shooting pains through my cervix, which I can only hope is an indication that I'm starting to dilate?

In general, I feel awful. And yet, not ready to have this baby. I'll put up with it for a while longer, thank you very much, because my to-do list is still far too long to go into labor.

But, just in case Kermit decides to come a tad early, we're trying to get all of the essentials done as soon as possible. I've ordered all of the baby items that I didn't want to live without, and the last of them should arrive this week. We spent today frantically cleaning the house, because it seriously freaks me out to imagine tons of out-of-town family in our house in its current condition. And first thing tomorrow morning, we're packing our hospital bag, because I kind of feel like I'm playing a giant game of chicken by not getting that done. Also, the superstitious part of me hopes that the more prepared we are, the less likely Kermit is to arrive early, and I kind of want him to stay put until January.

LL, meanwhile, has started talking more about babies. He points to all the new stuff and explains that it is "baby's stuff." He gently rubs my tummy and whispers "baby...." (Lest we give him too much credit, he usually follows this up by pointing to his own tummy and saying the same thing, so his level of understanding is still very much up in the air.) And he has been insisting that we refer to him as a Big Boy, as he prepares to take on the role of Wise Older Brother.

One quick story. I was sitting in the glider in LL's room, rocking him in my lap. We were both fairly happy and comfy and sleepy. And suddenly Kermit, who has been getting remarkably strong and insistent in his movement lately, gave a swift kick to my stomach, which hit LL square in the back. LL turned around in my lap, perplexed, and stared at my stomach for a minute. Then he got a weird little look on his face, pointed to my belly, and whispered, "Mama! Jump! Jump!" So apparently the Kermit nickname was a good one.

Labor Anxiety

People have started asking me whether I'm nervous about labor and delivery, and I'll admit that I've been giving it a lot of thought lately. I'm actually not all that nervous about the actual labor and delivery part. I feel like I remember a fair amount about my labor with LL, and I don't feel like I'm being selective about what I remember. I remember some goods things (the anticipation; the growing excitement as things progressed; a sense of adrenalin-induced empowerment that I didn't really expect to feel once I started pushing; the incredible sound of his first cry) and of course, lots of things that were perhaps necessary but not what I would classify as "good" (frustration at the slow progression of early labor; annoyance that I couldn't walk around much; fear and disappointment when we found out that a c-section was necessary; and of course holy crap I remember a whole lot of pain). Overall, though, it wasn't a process that I dread going through a second time, though I am hoping for some fairly significant differences this time around.

During my pregnancy with LL, I spent much of my third trimester consumed with thoughts of labor. I'm not sure the right word to use. Not fear. Not dread. Anxiety? Let's just say that I was really really worried about it, because everyone seems to rank it as the most painful thing in the world and you don't know how long it's going to last and I had no idea what the pain was going to be like so my mind started inventing all sorts of crazy scenarios. This time? I'm honestly not all that worried about the actual labor and delivery. I'm bizarrely looking forward to it, actually, since I'm so excited to possibly do it without pitocin this time. And maybe even successfully deliver a baby without a c-section! This time around, rather than something to bring about anxiety, it just feels like a challenge. I can handle a challenge.

Having said that, there is something that I am feeling completely anxious and panicky about: how LL will handle my time in the hospital. I'm getting very freaked out about this. I have never spent a night away from LL, much less 3 or 4. LL has been put to bed by other people (grandparents, babysitters) but I have always been there when he wakes up in the morning. Things that are currently keeping me up at night:

1. Making sure that LL is taken care without too much panic if/when I go into labor. The possibility of going into labor during the holidays is making this particularly stressful. My mom has agreed to fly into town when I'm just short of 38 weeks, so that she can stay at our house and care for LL if I do go into labor, which is fantastic, but now I'm obsessing about what happens if I go into labor before she arrives. It's ridiculous because LL had to be induced at almost 42 weeks, and I'm suddenly worried about going into natural labor at 37 weeks, but still... I can't get it out of my head. We have a few friends lined up to possibly come to our house and stay with LL for a few days, but it would be very stressful for LL and that makes it very stressful for me.

2. If I do end up with a c-section, I'll need to be in the hospital for four days. That seems like a very long time to be away from LL. More and more, the main reason that I'm hoping for a VBAC is just so that I can get home sooner.

3. Another problem with a repeat c-section: when LL was born, I wasn't able to pick LL up out of his bassinet for at least a week, possibly two. I wasn't able to change his diaper for the first week, either. Every time I wanted to hold him, to feed him, to comfort him, someone had to pick him up and gently hand him to me. That was annoying but manageable, because S stayed with me in the hospital and did all of the baby-lifting for those first several days. This time around, we think that it would be easier on LL if S spent nights at home, so that he's around for LL's morning routine. But I don't know how I manage to care for Kermit overnight, including all those night feedings and diaper changes, if S isn't with me. As far as I can tell, my only option will be to let the nurses bring Kermit to the nursery after S leaves, but that kills breast feeding. So I'm kind of at a loss. If I have a c-section, it seems like S will have to stay at the hospital, and I worry about how LL will handle us both not being there in the morning.

4. I can't decide whether LL should visit me in the hospital or not. Does that make things easier or harder? On the one hand, I'm sure that he'll want to see me (and I'll want to see him!). On the other hand, what happens when he realizes that he needs to leave with Grandma and I'm not coming with him? Will that just make it harder?

5. Last week, I had an evening filled with lots of suddenly strong contractions. They eventually died down, and I was fairly certain the whole time that they were Braxton-Hicks and not the real thing. Nevertheless, they were shockingly strong and frequent, and I had to carefully breathe through them. I wasn't yelling or anything, but I was grimacing from the pain. And WOW, it freaked LL out. He kept coming over to pat my leg and talk to me and give me kisses, but mostly he just stared at me with a frightened look on his face. I kept reassuring him that Mommy was fine, everything was okay, but he was really very concerned. So now I'm worried about how he'll handle it when I'm in real labor but haven't left for the hospital yet. I guess from this perspective, it would be best if I went into labor in the middle of the night while he was sleeping, so that he wouldn't have to see me in pain, but I hate that then I won't be able to say goodbye to him before we leave.

So, yes, I'm worried about labor, but not for any of the reasons that I was worried the first time. And when I write them down, even these things seem very minor. Women manage to have babies without completely scarring and traumatizing their toddlers all the time. Things just work out. But I'm agonizing about it nonetheless.

Constraint Satisfaction

Several weeks ago, I wrote another in a series of agonizing posts
about trying to find a name for Kermit. At the time, we had it narrowed down to five possibilities, and I was desperate to narrow it down more than that, and soon. After much more deliberation with S, we decided to just pick the front runner and treat it like a done deal. Assume that's the name, start using it around the house, kick the tires a bit and see how it feels.

There's a certain relief that comes with feeling like a decision has been made, even if we can still change our minds many many times between now and Kermit's arrival. The name that we picked has grown on me more and more, and at this point, I'm fairly happy with it. S wants to kick it around a bit more before he declares it "the name," but says that if Kermit were born today, he'd be happy with it. For now, that's good enough for me. We probably have several more weeks to decide for sure anyway.

Two months ago, when we took LL for his two-year checkup, we informed our wonderful pediatrician, Dr. K, that she would soon be acquiring a new patient. She was very happy for us, and asked if she could help in any way. I was mostly joking, but I asked her if she'd heard any cool baby names recently that she thought we'd like. I figured, who better to have the pulse of local baby naming trends than a pediatrician with a growing practice? Her whole face lit up and she said, "Ooooh, I love helping with names! Any name requirements that I should know about?" We briefly outlined our constraints for her, and she said that she'd give it some thought and get back to us.

Fast forward to this morning, when I left a phone message for Dr. K about some minor tummy trouble that LL's been experiencing for the past week, just to make sure that we're "treating" it correctly at home. When she called me back, she said, "I'll talk to you about LL in a minute, but I've been meaning to call you about names! I've thought a lot about it, and I have the perfect name for you guys!" And then she said the exact name that S and I had already decided on.

After a short stunned silence, I just said, "You're kidding!" which she took to mean that I hated the name and was disappointed in her. She explained to me that she thought it was just so perfect, given our constraints, and it worked with LL's name, and she liked how it sounded with our last name. And she said that she normally puts together a list of 5-10 names for people, but with us, she hit on just this one name and thought that it worked so well that she just had to tell me.

And then I had to tell her that she was creeping me out, because that was the name that we had all but decided on. What are the odds that she'd pick the exact same one? (For the record, this is not a common name, or a trendy name; it's not like she picked the #1 most popular name, or #1 fastest growing name, or anything like that. It seems to me to be very random that we came up with the exact same name.) And she laughed, and then said very seriously that she is quite good at naming babies.

I've mentioned the name to a very small number of other people in the last few weeks, but I hardly expect people to really give an expectant mother an honest opinion on this sort of thing -- unless the person visibly cringes when you tell them, it's hard to judge whether they liked it or are just being polite. But getting the impartial out-of-the-blue recommendation from Dr. K feels like real third-party confirmation that this name works. Silly but true. And despite my contrarian reputation, that makes me like it even more.

I suppose it is possible that our constraints are very, um, constraining. But I do not believe that they are soooooo constraining that, given a list of every possible name in the world, they narrow the set down to a unique single possibility. But apparently they do. Who knew? And now we are officially barred from ever having another son, because there isn't a single name left that he could use. We've apparently already chosen the only name that works.

Parking Fiasco, Continued

I last reported (on Friday) that I had called the DMV to check on the status of my parking placard, so that I could park near my campus office for the remainder of my pregnancy, and they informed me that it would be another month at least before they would process the form. Horrible backlog, nothing they could do about it, not even in the system yet, blah blah blah. But they helpfully suggested that I could fill out a new form, get my doctor to sign it again, and take it to the DMV in person. But I would need an appointment at the DMV, and the next available appointment was (you guessed it) in a month. Fantastic.

Out of desperation, I made some more phone calls and discovered that I can bring the form to a DMV office without an appointment, if I'm willing to waste a day sitting around and waiting. Less than ideal, but at least I would get the placard this week, right?

I had a prenatal appointment on Monday (yesterday), so I got another copy of the DMV form and took it with me to get it signed by my doctor. But, um... did I mention that my doctor, Dr. M, is out on medical leave until mid-December? And I can't stand the doctor who is filling in for him? Dr. M was the one who originally convinced me to apply for the placard, but I spent much of my appointment on Monday trying to convince this new doctor to sign the form in his absence. He made me feel horrible for even asking. And then he filled it out wrong and I had to go back and ask him to fix it. Blech.

I then spent this morning sitting around the DMV waiting to get the form processed. Not like I had anything better to do.... But at long last, my number was called, fees were paid, and I walked out of there with the parking placard that I needed. Yay!!!! Happy ending, right?

The punch line of this whole story, though, is that the placard that I originally applied for by mail arrived at my house this afternoon, despite the assurances on Friday that it was nowhere close to being issued. The paperwork actually shows that by the time I talked to the DMV on Friday, the darn thing had already been issued and put in the mail, so I have no idea why they couldn't have just told me that over the phone. And the arguing with the sub doctor and the sitting around the DMV all morning were completely unnecessary.

On the plus side, now I have two placards. Yippee. Two hard-earned placards. Too bad it's illegal to sell one of them or something.

Time Off

I expected that interviewing for jobs while heavily pregnant would be an odd experience. Pregnancy is one of those protected classifications that isn't allowed to be factored into hiring decisions. I've been on the other side of interviews for several companies, and all of these companies had policies that prohibited us from discussing any of those protected classifications. You can't ask somebody about their family, or whether they're married or have kids, just like you can't ask them about their religion or comment on their gender. And if the job candidate volunteered some bit of information that we weren't supposed to discuss, we were instructed to ignore it and immediately change the subject.

Pregnancy is an odd case, though, because it does have a large (albeit short-term) impact on job performance, and it's such a giant obvious elephant in the room. The interviewer is looking at someone who quite clearly will need some extended time off from work in the near future, but isn't allowed to mention it. And the pregnant woman can't bring it up herself, because an ethical interviewer would stop her before she could say anything meaningful about it. Several people advised me that I should bring it up during my interview, so that I could reassure my potential future manager that I do plan to work after the baby is born, but I remember from my training that my potential future manager would then be put in the awkward situation of needing to stop me from talking about it. So I decided best not to bring it up, so that I wouldn't force him into a situation that he didn't want to be in.

Thus, while interviewing for jobs over the last several weeks, I expected to have lots of pseudo-conversations where people fished for information and I tried to reassure them without either of us saying anything explicit. Which is fine with me, even if it feels odd. You do what you have to do.

What I did not expect was that nobody would notice that I'm pregnant.

S thinks they noticed but didn't say anything. But in the last month, I've been interviewed by more than two dozen different people, and I can count on one hand the number of them that glanced knowingly at my stomach or gave some other indication that they figured it out. I simply don't believe that the rest of them are good enough actors to hide that they had noticed. On the other hand, I had variations on this conversation with more than half of the interviewers:

Interviewer: So, you're planning to graduate in January?
Me: Yes, that's right.
Interviewer: But you don't want to start working until June?
Me, looking pointedly down at my pregnant stomach: Um, yes, June.
Interviewer: Time off sounds like a great reward for finishing grad school! Are you planning to just relax? Travel? When I finished my PhD, I went to Paris.
Me, rubbing my stomach a bit: Um, no, no travel. I have, uh, family obligations to take care of.
Interviewer: Time with family can be fun, too! It's nice to be able to chill out like that for a while. Are you sure I can't get you some coffee?

Um. Really? You can't figure out on your own that I'm not flying to Europe in the near future? You can't fathom what I will be doing with my time off? I know that my field is known for a high level of socially clueless behavior, but still -- 7+ months pregnant!?! Open your eyes, people!

One interviewer (just one!) asked me more specifically what I was doing with my time off, and I mentioned that I was pregnant. And I only told her because I've known her for 10 years and I work with her husband and I was tired of playing games. And she acted startled and looked at my stomach and said, "Oh! Wow!" and was clearly surprised. (She then later asked me if I was finding it difficult to work out child care arrangements, which was her roundabout way of asking me if I was sure that I wanted to work after the baby was born. And I assured her that we had daycare all lined up, which was my roundabout way of saying yes, I'll definitely be going back to work.)

It was all very very odd. I'm still waiting to hear back about whether I get any job offers out of the experience, but I'm certainly glad that the interviewing is over for now! 33 weeks and counting....

Take a Hike

The downside of living off-campus while a grad student at a mostly residential university is the lack of convenient parking. I have a parking permit that gives me permission to park on campus, but it doesn't guarantee that I will be able to find a parking space. Pair that with an overall lack of parking near my building, and it means that I generally have to walk approximately one mile from my car to my office. I've been doing this for a long time now, and I usually don't mind it. The weather is usually good, and I don't have much time for real exercise, so a nice walk twice a day isn't such a bad thing. But throw in lugging a heavy laptop and a stack of papers while dealing with hip and back pain from a third trimester pregnancy, and things get a bit awkward. I've been having trouble making it all the way to my office. And I know that things are just going to get worse over the next 7 weeks.

I mentioned this to Dr. M several weeks back, and he encouraged me to apply for a temporary disability parking placard. Simple DMV form, Dr. M signs it, and just like that, I can park in one of the dozen handicap parking spots that are always completely empty right outside my office. Problem solved!

So I sent in the form to the DMV, and waited for my placard. My hips got worse, my back got worse, and still I waited. The DMV promised that they generally process these things within two weeks, but it has already been much longer than that. When I woke up this morning unable to walk from my bed to the bathroom without painfully hobbling, much less walk a mile to my office, I decided enough was enough. So I called the DMV to check on why it was taking so long.

Skipping right past the part where I was on hold for a full 30 minutes, I finally got someone at the DMV on the phone, and I explained the problem. It turns out that they're "a bit backlogged at the moment," so that instead of taking two weeks to process the placards, it's currently taking them 8-10 weeks. So far, my application hasn't even been entered into the system. Keep in mind that these are temporary placards, which means that they're only good for a few months -- how are they useful to anyone if it takes 2-3 months just to process the request?!? By the time it arrives, I'll have given birth, so this is no longer of any use to me at all.

The woman did point out that I could get a new form, get my doctor to sign it again (they don't accept photocopies -- it needs to be an original signature, and the original is lost in DMVland at the moment, so I need to get a new one), and then take it in person to the DMV, where they will issue the placard same-day. However, I absolutely need to have an appointment; they will not process these requests if you just walk in and wait. And the next appointment at a DMV office within a 50-mile radius of my house is December 20, more than a month away. Again, not helpful.

At this point, I'm actually calculating how much it will cost me to park illegally for the rest of my pregnancy and just pay the parking tickets. Think I can write off parking tickets as a medical expense?

Falling Behind

I am starting to truly feel beaten down by everyday life. I'm at a point where people ask me, "Hey, how's it going?" and I answer, "There's a lot going on, and I'm a bit tired, but things are good!" And then I start listing the things that are going on, and people start looking concerned. And asking me if I would like to sit down. And calling S to express concern. And gossiping to each other about how it's fairly remarkable that I'm still walking around. Um, yeah. Things are getting just a bit overwhelming.

I'm desperately trying to finish the full draft of my dissertation, which is getting harder as baby brain takes over and pregnancy carpel tunnel interferes more and more with typing. I'm desperately trying to figure out the job situation (I had one more grueling interview earlier this week, and it's likely going to be my last one before Kermit arrives, so I hope it was a good one!). We still haven't really purchased anything at all for Kermit, though I did sort and wash infant clothes last weekend, so we've moved from "completely unprepared" to "almost completely unprepared." Which I guess is progress? Our bedroom is going to be doubling as a nursery for the first few months, but we have done no work at all to make room for the things that need to be in there, much less purchasing or moving those things into place. My mom is going to be staying with us for several weeks, starting around Christmas, but it is currently impossible to even walk into our guest room, much less unfold the hide-a-bed or expect anyone to comfortably live there. It's completely uninhabitable. (As an example: the guest room doesn't even have a door. And the door to our guest bathroom doesn't latch properly. Nice, huh? We don't have overnight guests very often.)

I have an ever-growing list of things to do before Kermit arrives and none of them are getting done. My top priority right now has to be finishing the dissertation, because it has to be done before Kermit arrives, and preferably several weeks earlier. Number two is getting through the last of the job interviews and making a decision about a job for next year. But I'm reaching that point in pregnancy where I don't want to be doing any of those things anymore. I just want to be nesting and preparing for Kermit. But I haven't been allowing myself to do any of the baby prep things because I need to focus on the dissertation. And wow, nesting is one of those powerful hormonal deep-rooted instinct things, so suppressing it is making me fairly miserable.

To top it all off, LL is sensing that I have less energy these days and that I am trying to get S to do a bit more of LL's care. And LL is pushing back. Big time. For weeks now, LL has been insisting that I do everything for him. Every other sentence out of his mouth these days is, "No, Daddy! Mama do it!" S is not allowed to pour him milk. Or get him food. Or wipe his face. Or change his clothes. Or change his diaper. Or read him books. Or open his curtains. Or put on his jacket. Or pick out socks. (It's ridiculous -- S hands him a pair of socks; LL says, "No Daddy! Mama do it!" LL takes the socks back to his room and returns them to his drawer; LL runs to me, takes my hand, drags me to his room, opens his drawer, and points out the exact same socks that he just put back there, which I then hand back to him. What exactly has he accomplished other than tiring me out and making S feel unloved?) So even when S is home and theoretically helping to share childcare responsibilities with me, I am still doing all the work.

I'm exhausted. I'm restless. I'm having horrible dizzy spells several times a day. I'm unable to concentrate on the things that need my focus right now. I'm unable to take a break from the things that are tiring me out. And I'm 32+ weeks pregnant, rapidly running out of days to get things done. Anyone have any thoughts on how to slow down time?