The Days Before

Now that I've reached 30 weeks and am theoretically 3/4 of the way through my pregnancy, I thought I'd share a little more detail about how pregnancy is treating me at this point.

Looks like it might be time to retire these long and lean tanks that have been a maternity staple for me-- this one's working pretty hard.

For the most part, I feel pretty good.  I'm still able to go about my regular routines without too much interruption, but I have been trying to take things a bit slower.  I still get nauseous when I try to eat, so making sure I'm getting enough nutrition is a daily challenge.  I'm getting by with eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and high fiber oatmeal and by supplementing my meals with Clif Bars.  I was nervous that I might be falling behind on my weight gain as a result of my lack of appetite, but yesterday's OB visit confirmed that I am right on track with that, so that was a relief for me.  I'd like to blame my aversion to most foods on the fact that my stomach is compressed, but I have considerably less trouble eating sweets, so I'm not sure stomach space is the issue.  I have been eating enough sweets to counteract the few calories I burn exercising, but have been making sure not too eat so many empty calories that I fill up on them instead of nutritious foods.

I'm starting to get to the point where my belly is big enough to cause more discomfort, though.  When I sit down, there's no longer any clearance between my lap, my belly, and my chest, and the baby lets me know that she does not appreciate being squished by kicking me in the ribs regularly.  Leaning back helps, but that makes her rotate the wrong direction, so the most comfortable way to position myself in order to position her correctly is to sit cross-legged and lean forward a bit.  I've actually been experiencing a less trouble sleeping at night and am able to get fairly comfortable sleeping on my side, so that is another positive.  Have any of you tried those pregnancy sleeping body pillows they sell?  I can see how they might help, but it seems like they would take up so much room in the bed that they might be counter productive.

I also believe I am getting an early start on thinking my baby is exceptional.  Past 28 weeks, moms are encouraged to do periodic "kick counts" to make sure the baby's movement does not decrease significantly.  They say the baby should kick around 10 times per hour if she's healthy, but this little one has never taken more than 25 minutes to get to 10 movements.  The other night she got to 10 in only 8 minutes.  She seems quite active at various times throughout the day, but when I lay down for the first time in a while, she begins engaging in some kind of uterine olympics.  She has also taken up kicking and elbowing Oscar, who can't quite figure out why the nice pocket of space he's used to curling up in when I lay on my side is no longer there.  He has yet to react to her movements, but I think he must feel them periodically because her kicks are starting to get pretty forceful.  I try not to let him step on me, but recently he did step one paw on my side when he was repositioning himself, and she pushed him back.  I thought this was funny because it seems like an early sign that she will not be pushed around, but it was especially amusing because I have been trying repeatedly to get her to respond to my poking and prodding to no avail.  Figures.  : )

We've also completed two weeks of childbirth classes with Danielle of Informed Birth Choices, and I am really enjoying them so far.  In addition to teaching self-designed childbirth classes that seek to prepare women for un-medicated births, Danielle works as a doula.  I'd describe her approach as holistically minded but scientifically grounded, and her style has been a great fit for what we were looking for in a childbirth educator.  She shares many of the same priorities that convinced me to attempt natural birth, but she is really focused on providing us with the information we need to make decisions for ourselves rather than trying to push her own opinions or agenda on us.  The two classes so far have also helped me and Billy to realize that we share a lot of common ground in terms of how we hope the birth will go and how we plan to respond if it doesn't go as planned, so that has also been comforting.  I do feel badly asking him to sit through a nearly 3 hour class in the middle of his work week, and I know the content is a lot more interesting for me than it is for him.  But I also know that I am most likely to be pleased with our birth experience if I feel mentally and emotionally prepared going into it, so I feel confident that the time we've invested in the classes will pay off once I go into labor.

For the past two months, the pregnancy has felt like it was speeding by, but that feeling has begun to shift in the past week or so.  Reaching 30 weeks feels more like "I really still have 10 more weeks to go?" than "I can't believe I'm 3/4 of the way done!"  I think that's partly because I'm getting more uncomfortable and partly because the list of things we have left to accomplish before the baby arrives is shrinking.  I am only working for two more weeks, and I'm afraid time might slow down even more once I'm home every day.  Thankfully, I'll be able to make more academic progress once my professors are around again, so I'm hoping I can keep myself occupied with schoolwork while I'm waiting for the baby to arrive.

(The Days Before is an essay written by Katherine Anne Porter, and it's also the title of a non-fiction collection she released in 1952.  It's out of print, but most of it can be found in the Library of America edition of her work.  It's on my never-ending list of things to read.)