The Bump Chronicles- week 28

I’m not sick!

That’s my new standard response to the very popular and oh so annoying “how are you feeling?” question.

Am I always comfortable and fine? no, do I feel sick because of it? no, do I want to talk about my discomforts with you? again, no.  Do I want to rant about the same discomforts in my blog? that’s what blogs are for!

This week I’d like to NOT welcome hip pain to the host of other interruptions to my attempts at sleeping at night. I hope you don’t make yourself too comfortable hip pain, you’ll be fighting with pelvic pain, trips to the bathroom, back ache, leg cramps and baby’s kicks for my attention while I attempt to sleep.

Sleep has surely become more challenging lately, even with snack and bathroom interruptions I used to be able to sleep through most of the night, not so much anymore.  I wish we had a bigger bed too, I’m limited in the range of movement and positions that I can try.

Gone are the days where I could sleep in late on my days off, it’s not the aches that get me out of bed, it’s horrible hunger and the fact that baby, like his daddy, is an early riser and will be kicking up a storm until I go vertical, my belly doesn’t have a snooze button.

I’m fortunate that the bulk of the discomforts occur at night and I tend to feel pretty good during the day.  Yes, I now run out of breath walking from my desk to the copier at work but I was warned about the reduced lung capacity so I’m not concerned by it.

Plus I I now feel like I’ve officially entered that stage where I’m overheated most of the time, just in time for the arrival of Florida’s spring!  This is a piece of cake now, I’ll let you know how it goes in July when we’re in the summer time and the little furnace is bigger…

Baby is now head down so that explains why I haven’t had any tap dancing in my cervix for a while, thank goodness.  But with it now comes the fact that sometimes baby will press on my sciatic nerve, fun!  Thankfully it has only happened once and for only a few hours but what a pain in the rear… literally.

I received a link to a website that offers a lot of free stuff pregnancy and baby stuff in exchange for spam. Not a big deal as I have an e-mail address designated for spam only that I could use in the name of free stuff. What shocked me is how there wasn’t a single free offer on that website that appealed to me.

I could get a substantial discount on a 3d ultrasound, free formula, free disposable diapers and all sorts of other items that are not in my shopping list, yes I need a diaper bag but I don’t want a big Enfamil logo on it. I’m sure that this website would be considered a jackpot to a mainstream mom but it makes me wonder if someone out there has thought to do something similar for crunchy mamas. How about slings, cloth diapers and nursing pads?

And speaking of diaper bags, why are they so freaking expensive?  Aren’t they glorified purses?  I need to go to the store and carefully look at one inside and out to see what makes them so freaking special.  I read about how some of them have special compartments and such but even those that don’t have the special features cost close to $100.

Daddy Fox and I agreed to be practical and aim for a neutral black backpack style diaper bag, I’m just as happy with a rainbow tie dye beach tote but it’s only fair for daddy to be able to feel manly carrying the bag.  I just wish that I could find a decent one that doesn’t give me sticker shock.  The diaper dude bags are just as expensive and uninteresting as all the other ones.  I did find one that I liked and is half the cost of most other diaper bags and it doesn’t have a formula company’s logo on it.  So that will have to do.

Found out that my midwife can prepare my placenta for encapsulation, all I need to do is fill the gelcaps myself, deal!

A friend of mine had her baby yesterday and less than an hour after the birth she was posting announcements and pictures online.  I’m sure that the fact that she had an all natural birth helped with her not needing as much recovery time.  I can totally see myself twittering/Facebooking from my cell phone after the initial bonding session, not saying that I will… but who knows…

And since cloth diapers seems to be the most interesting topic in all of the Bump Chronicles…  Not that I have to justify my decisions to anyone but to set the record straight… The following are myths:

• I love doing laundry, and thus have chosen cloth diapers because I just can’t get enough of washing and folding stuff all day every day.
• I like poop.

The first one I endure,  and although my husband will argue that I have a butt obsession,  the second one I am willing to endure but it doesn’t come close to liking.

The above are not why we’re cloth diapering, hope you can all go back to restful sleep now.

I want to honor 2 friends that had their babies this week, one in the hospital, the other one at home.  Both 10 pounds and change giant babies, kudos!  Speaking of giant babies, at our midwife appointment this week she commented at least 3 times on our “big baby”, she didn’t mean it as a bad thing at all but the fact that she said it more than once did make me wonder… will I have to push a 10 pound giant out?

Too soon to tell.

I was having a conversation about homebirth with a person I met in an online mothering forum and she asked me if my appeal was the romantic fact that I could have candles, soft music and wear a pretty flowing robe while having our baby.  That is emphatically NOT the reason why.

Yes, it would be cool to have such a cool image of home birth but I want to be realistic.  Yes there may be music, it could be drumming, it could be Enya, I may want silence… I have no freaking clue what I will want as labor can’t be strictly planned, I can only imagine what I would like.

Yes there may be candles (although christmas lights seem kinda cool too) but I don’t see myself wearing a flowing robe and looking all relaxed.  Maybe during early labor.

If I wear anything it’ll be an old oversized tshirt and I expect that once things get active it’ll be time to get to work and I’ll look the part, why else would it be called labor?

I don’t doubt that some people out there have been able to have this idyllic version of homebirth and it would be awesome if I did too but I’m not putting all of my eggs on that basket.  I think it will help that I’m not walking into the homebirth with romantic illusions of it being easy and “pretty”, I’d rather not set myself up for disappointment.

On other news, I didn’t realize that I was still subscribed to the newsletter for the obstetric practice that I saw for all of 1 appointment last year.  They were asking for contact from parents that they delivered babies for.  Are Obstetricians now UPS/Fedex?  I know that the word deliver is very common in the field but as someone that believes strongly in the power of words I find it disempowering for most women who are seen as being delivered of their babies rather than them birthing their babies, I guess that’s why I like it when midwives talk about being baby catchers.  I’ll step off this soap box before I write a book on the subject.

Sorry, no belly picture this week.  No heartbeat recording either, we did listen to the heartbeat on Tuesday but technical difficulties with hubby’s cellphones didn’t allow us to capture much.

I expect to be able to post new bump pictures in the next update after we return from camping this weekend where I hope to have some photos taken by the lake.