HeeHeeHeeHooooooooooo

Paul has been bugging me to update more often and, indeed, there are so terribly many things that I want to and should write about but the third trimester is KICKING MY ASS.



Every muscle in my body aches, I'm totally congested, my joints crack, my stomach and boobs itch, I have Restless Leg Syndrome like I didn't even know you could get it and last, but not least, my acid reflux is so bad (despite daily Prilosec and Tums) that I frequently wake up in the middle of the night thinking I'm going to die because I can't breathe because I've thrown up while I slept. Fun, no?! Moments ago, here at my desk at work, I went to staple six pages together and had to try twice because I didn't have enough strength or energy to use the stapler.



But, I'm 31 1/2 weeks and Baby Boy is doing very well according to today's checkup. My blood pressure has had some too-high moments so I'm going in every week from now on just to make sure that baby and I are okay but so far everything seems to be going as it should. Boy is healthy and very active and I don't even mind when he kicks the crap out of me since it means he's thriving in his little liquidy home.



We finished our childbirth classes last week and I am really glad that we went, despite how hard it was to spend our Saturdays getting up at 7:30 and then breathing and squatting and getting quizzed for 7 hours each time. I learned some, although I had quite a bit of theoretical knowledge already, but more important that what I learned new was the reassurance of seeing other women in the class in the same head space as me and seeing videos of regular women who managed to get through this. If they can all do it, well then, so can I. We even got a tour of the L&D floor in the hospital which was good too as it helped us to prepare what we need to bring and be aware of.



One of the most interesting parts of the class to me was learning about Lamaze and other breathing techniques. I always assumed that those things were sort of BS 'cause how could breathing lessen the worst pain of your life, right? But the woman who taught the class (an RN/doula/mother of 5) explained that what we are trying to do is stop the Fear/Tension/Pain cycle. In other words, when you don't know what to expect you get scared, when you are scared you get tense and when you get tense, things hurt worse. That made a tremendous amount of sense to me and made the whole class worth it. Knowing more of what to expect at home as I labor and then in the delivery room and even where to park at the hospital and where to go to fill out registration forms in advance all reduces tension for a compulsive planner and list maker like me and that's going to help through all aspects of this.



So, too tired to write about non-baby related things (for example I'm in the midst of immigration paperwork again - good timing! and Smeagol is sick again and going in for these stinky treatments on a regular basis and then getting spayed in two weeks...and oh, so much more) but at least I got a little post in here.