The Baby-Sitter's Club #37

Today I've reached the 37 week mark, which is a milestone because it means my pregnancy is full term!  As I understand it, the baby's lungs are the last thing to finish developing, and from this point onward she would be able to breathe unassisted if she were born.  Since she could survive on her own outside the womb, there's no longer any need to worry about pre-term labor!

In celebration of reaching full term, I spent the morning reading through the pregnancy notebook I have been keeping along the way.  While reading old entries did nothing to alleviate the feeling that I've been pregnant forever, it did help me reflect on how far the baby and I have come since conception.  Pregnancy doesn't feel quite so unnecessarily long when I think about the fact that Baby D started out as a single cell and has grown into a fully formed infant that currently weighs somewhere around six pounds.  Bringing the baby to full term also makes me really appreciate my body's ability to endure so many difficulties in the process of getting her ready to be born.  Healthy babies might be born all the time, but I have several healthy friends who have lost babies at various stages in pregnancy, so I feel especially fortunate that all signs continue to indicate that our little one will be healthy when she joins us fairly soon.

I also thought posting some pictures of our recently completed nursery for everyone to see was another appropriate way to celebrate reaching full term.  I know I have been promising a video, and I tried shooting one, but it turns out that I'm not capable of showing the various features of the room without inducing motion sickness.  I think the pictures capture the look of the room pretty well, and if you want to see the baby's room in real time, you'll just have to come visit!

I always thought it was a bit strange to devote a lot of time and energy to decorating a baby's room because the baby doesn't know the difference.  What I realized after I'd repainted the room and began choosing wall decals, however, was that I was decorating the room for myself and not for the baby.  When we first purchased our house, I decorated the whole thing one room at a time.  I really enjoyed the process, which made our house feel like home, and I've enjoyed living in a space that felt right for our personalities ever since.  Once all the rooms were done, though, and I returned to graduate school, I guess I forgot how much I enjoyed decorating.  Since I had plenty of time this summer, making decisions about the room and executing them also gave me a productive way to channel my excitement about the baby into a task that has measurable results.

This first photo is the view from the hallway.  We decided we wanted to be able to see inside the crib from the doorway, so that made space planning for the room a little complicated.  Thankfully, we have enough clearance to put the crib here without blocking the entrance to the bedroom.  From this angle, you can also catch glimpses of the window valance and crib skirt my mom sewed for the room.  I think they look great!  She custom made both of them with the measurements I sent her, and I am really excited to have a crib skirt which goes all the way to the floor because it means I can store things under there while also keeping them out of view.

Right now the crib is holding the various baby toys we have to keep out of Oscar's reach, but we'll need to find a new home for them when the baby is ready to sleep there.  This angle does a pretty good job of showing off the purple and green butterfly mobile I found, and here you can also see the child-size rocking chair Billy's Aunt Nancy repainted and reupholstered for the little one using our color scheme.

Here is another view of the left side of the room, which also shows the bookshelf we put in the corner.  This gives us a place to store the baby's books and a counter on which to put the owl lamp Patti found.  We put some baskets on the bottom shelf for some extra miscellaneous storage.  I didn't want anything above the crib that could fall off the wall, so I put up some purple and lavender butterfly decals to compliment the mobile.  It looks a little strange in this photo, but in real life the mobile creates shadows on the wall, and I like how this gives the decoration a little bit of a multi-dimensional effect.  We have something else to put on the wall above the bookshelf, but that can't go up until we announce the baby's name. : )

Here you can see the other corner of the room-- the one that is off to the right when you walk in.  This corner is dominated by the glider Jacelyn and Allen very generously handed down to us.  You wouldn't know it, though, because it looks brand new!  We just got it from them over the weekend and I love it already.  I imagine our admiration for this chair and our appreciation for the gift will grow exponentially once we have a baby to rock in it!  The Jimmy Buffett quote painted on the wall above the chair is the only remnant from the original room decor.  I measured off a rectangle around it to leave alone when I repainted the room, and when I ordered the vinyl decals I had them send me a few strips of purple so I could frame out the quote.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the green paint I used to write the words even matches the green vinyl decal perfectly!

This last picture shows the corner of the room opposite the bookshelf, which is next to the closet that is immediately adjacent to the doorway.  I posted a picture of the tree decal when I first applied it, but now you can get an idea of how it really looks.  We had a different Ikea dresser in this spot that we were planning to keep, but we decided that we wanted something a bit sturdier that had more storage, so we replaced it.  The baby's great grandparents helped out a lot with the furnishings for the room because Mimi and Papa as well as Nana and Mr. Dick gave us monetary gifts so we could buy the things we really needed for the baby.  Their generosity made it easy to get pieces that fit the space and our storage needs.  This dresser is also a little bit taller than the last one, which made it the ideal place to mount the changing pad, negating any need for a separate changing table.

Now that the baby could theoretically arrive any day, and I no longer have the excuse of working on the nursery, I guess it is time to direct my nesting instinct toward cleaning the house.  I'd like her to arrive a little early (even though I know she'll probably come late), so I keep saying that I hope the baby inherited my aversion for procrastination.  I have told her several times that I take due dates very seriously and have never once asked for an extension on anything in hopes that she will take this advice to heart.  : )  Meanwhile, I keep putting off cleaning up, even though I know that if I don't want to do it now, I certainly will not want to do it after she arrives. : )

(I loved The Baby-Sitter's Club when I was growing up.  I think Ann M. Martin kept publishing them after I grew out of them, but up to that point, I had read them all.  My favorites were the Super Specials because I got to read about the same events told from the various perspectives of the different girls.  I guess my appreciation for these focalization shifts this should have foreshadowed my somewhat sophisticated interest in books. : )  The 37th book is "Dawn and the Older Boy," but I will not go into detail about what I remember from this issue because it is too early to be scaring Billy with the possibility that our daughter could fall under the spell of older boys.  Don't worry, Billy-- her friends are looking out for her.)

How to be Good

Time keeps moving right along in our house.  Last weekend, we got to celebrate Billy's cousin Gina's wedding.  Gina already posted her photographer's photos from the day on facebook, so I borrowed a few of them to share here.  Congratulations, Gina and Rich!

Tony, Aunt Nancy, Gina, her new husband Rich, and Chuckie after the ceremony

MomMom, Aunt Mary, Patti, and me at the reception

Brian, Billy, Chuck, and Tony

Nana and Mr. Dick were big hits on the dance floor, as usual!

This week, we had dinner with Vickie and heard about her fun trip to the northwest, and though I couldn't make it, Billy went out to dinner with his family to celebrate Chuck's birthday. The other exciting thing about this week is that we got plenty of good news!

Our weekly OB appointments began with another good checkup.  We learned that we have to get flu shots this year, and the doctor confirmed that the baby is ready to go in head down position.  My weight gain and belly measurement are still right on track, and so is the baby's heart rate.

Billy also had a meeting with his James Webb Space Telescope supervisors to go over his yearly performance appraisal.  He was given universally high remarks in every category, and his bosses have been very pleased with the work he has done this past year as well as the leadership responsibilities he has taken on.  He let me read the write-up they gave him, which goes into quite a bit of detail about all of the ways he has met and exceeded their expectations.  As his wife, I really appreciated the effort his supervisors put into writing up his review and enjoyed getting a chance to see how much they appreciate the hard work he does.  Anyone who knows Billy knows he believes that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well, but being this hard of a worker sometimes leads to frustration in a work environment if others are not willing to work as hard.  In his first few jobs out of college, I often felt like his employers took advantage of and didn't show much appreciation for his work ethic.  So even though he doesn't like everyone calling attention to his successes at this job, I do!  : )

I missed Chuck's birthday dinner because I was scheduled to give my presentation on my Katherine Anne Porter paper to the theory colloquium, which I mentioned a few weeks ago.  The presentation format was a little unsettling because after giving my opening remarks, I had to sit quietly and listen to my colleagues discuss the work for 15 or 20 minutes before I was allowed to say anything.  Listening to their feedback was really interesting, and some of their comments were very useful, but when I was finally allowed to talk, I wasn't sure how to address all that conversation at once.  Then there was about 30 minute of a more traditional question and answer format about my paper before we switched gears to discuss two unrelated articles for the second hour.  I had read and taken notes on those articles, but I wasn't able to focus enough to join that discussion because I sat there thinking about things people had said about my paper and scribbling notes to myself.  I came out of the session feeling good about the feedback I'd gotten but unsure about how well I had done in addressing the issues that were raised.  When I talked to my friends who've attended the colloquium for several semesters, though, I felt reassured.   They thought I did a good job of taking peoples' suggestions into consideration and defending my project when necessary without seeming defensive or unprepared.  A few of my classmates also mentioned that they'd like to talk to me about the project more when I have a chance, and that always seems like a mark of success.  Overall, I'm mostly just glad the presentation is behind me-- I've not only finished my requirements for the Critical Theory Certificate, but I also have some good ideas about how to move forward with the Katherine Anne Porter project.

Plus, we're one week closer to baby!

(How to Be Good is a novel by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Nick Hornby.  I don't actually recommend it, though.  My favorites among his books are High Fidelity and Fever Pitch.)

Five Weeks [as] a Balloon

Yesterday marked 35 weeks, which means I am five weeks away from my due date and two weeks away from full term.  My belly is officially too big for comfort!

I rang in the 35 week mark by getting asked if I was carrying twins.  When I told Billy about it, he said "I bet people think that because your belly is so big, but you don't look ready to deliver because you're not big anywhere else."  When he says things like this, I mentally award myself life bonus points for choosing him as my husband and father of my child.

In case you were wondering how the belly got to this point, please see below.  It creeps me out to see this many images of myself in one place, but it is funny to see the belly grow little by little, and it captures visually my sense that I have been pregnant for a very long time.  For quite a while, I didn't recognize myself when I caught a glimpse of my profile.  Now, I hardly recognize myself when I look at old pre-pregnancy photos, so I guess I have gotten used to my ever expanding midsection.  At this point, it's hard to imagine the belly going away, but it's nice to think there will come a time when I can sleep on my stomach again.

Now that almost everything is ready for the baby's arrival, I have been devoting more time each day to my schoolwork.  I'm hoping that keeping myself occupied with brainwork will help distract me a bit from the growing bodily discomfort I'm experiencing while also helping me pass the time without getting too anxious.  We'll see!

Speaking of school, the most exciting news of the day is that my good friend Katie passed her comprehensive exam this morning!  There are several big landmarks in the trajectory of our program-- finishing coursework, passing the comprehensive exam, getting the dissertation prospectus approved, and then finally writing and defending the dissertation.  Katie's been reading and studying furiously for the past several months, and today's accomplishment means she can now boast being the first member of our PhD cohort to win the prize for the best PhD paper, the first to be awarded a merit-based fellowship, and the first to pass her comps.  Congratulations, Katie!

I'm one step closer to clearing the comps hurdle, too.  Each student has to recruit four professors to serve on her exam committee, and I set the goal of locking in three professors for mine before the baby arrives.  Today, the third professor I hoped to work with agreed to work with me, so things continue to progress according to my plans!

(Five Weeks in a Balloon is a novel by Jules Verne, more famous for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.  The publisher apparently claims its a satire of other adventure novels.  I just thought the title (with a slight modification) described how I feel at the moment.)

Preparation

I haven't updated in a while because I feel like I haven't been doing much of anything that might interest anyone.  Mostly I have been hanging out with Billy and trying to enjoy the peace, quiet, and slower pace of these last few weeks before our time alone together with Oscar becomes "the old days."  In case you're curious what we've been up to, though, here goes.

The baby and I are doing well.  We had another OB visit this week, which confirmed that she continues to grow healthily.  The nurse thinks the baby is head down already, which corroborates my sense about her position based on the movements I feel constantly.  I really enjoy feeling her move, and it is fun to feel pressure on the inside and be able to tell it is probably her foot by feeling my belly with my hand.  She weighs about 5 pounds now and it certainly feels like I'm carrying a 5 pound child around inside my body.  I'm getting fairly uncomfortable, and the frequency of her movements makes it even harder to get comfortable.  I try to remind myself that she's probably pretty uncomfortable in there too, so we're in this together, except that at least I know what's going on.

We enjoyed a nice labor day weekend.  With it came the first Navy football game of the year versus Delaware, which the Mids won 40-17.  The day was beautiful but hot.  I was glad when the game began and took my mind off of my discomfort, and I was glad again when some cloud cover appeared during the second half to cool me down.  There are two more games I should be able to attend, and I think Vickie might even be able to join us for one of them, so I'm hoping the weather will be a bit cooler next time.  We have our south end zone seats again this year, where plenty of touchdowns were scored, so it was another exciting game.  The team has had a dominant quarterback for the past two seasons, but he graduated, so it was fun to see that his replacement is likely to do well.  Here he is rushing for a touchdown.

After a few weeks of not working, I guess I am settling into my "maternity leave."  I am glad most of my maternity leave will be spent with a baby because I am bored.  I don't miss working, but I miss being on campus and being in the mix of everything.  It was hard to see all my friends go back to school and realize this is the first time since I was 4 that I did not participate in the ritual.  Thankfully, I have been able to stay a little bit involved.  The one credit theory colloquium class I attend every semester is open to everyone, registered or not, and there are three sessions scheduled before the baby's due date, so I have long planned on continuing to attend those.  There are normally about 10 or 15 people in attendance, so when around 40 people showed up for the first session, I was quite shocked.  Then I began getting nervous because I am due to present a paper on Katherine Anne Porter at the next session on September 23.  Everyone will read the paper and a few complementary articles beforehand, and then I'll spend about an hour answering questions about the paper and the project.  It's a great opportunity to get feedback on your work, and I have been looking forward to it since I made the arrangements with my professor in the spring.  But even if only half as many people show up for my session, that means a lot of really smart people who spend most of their time reading really smart things will have read my paper, but I am trying to avoid developing too much anxiety about it.

I miss my dad.  I missed him when I got the email about this year's "Staff Development Day," which reminded me that my required attendance at this event last year ruined the trip home to Oregon I'd planned. As it turns out, that trip would have been the last time I got to spend time with him while he was "healthy."  I missed him when there were no text messages on my phone after the Navy football game.  I missed him when I thought about his friends gathering with our family in Lompoc with for the LHS alumni golf tournament.  I miss him when notable events like that one remind me just how many people are missing him and how much less laughter there must be in the world now that he is gone.  I missed him when the Oregon Ducks started the season in a highly anticipated, nationally televised game and I realized he had been alive for their last one.  I missed him when I realized that the first few days of a Grand Slam are still difficult for me to watch because they remind me of how excited I was about the Australian Open but how quickly the plans for that trip went from all of us going, to me and Billy going, to none of us going, to watching it in Dad's house on his TV while we packed up his stuff.  I miss hearing what he thinks about Federer's performance so far in the tournament, and if Fed ends up winning it, as I think he has a decent chance of doing, I will miss hearing Dad say you should never count out a champion with a killer instinct.  When people share their excitement about the baby with me, I know my dad would have shared it, but I miss experiencing in real life the ways I know in my head and heart that he would have acted.  I miss hearing how glad he would have been to have Nate back in Bend and how much he would have enjoyed meeting Ashley. I miss how proud he would have been of the work Vickie is doing and how much he would have been looking forward to her upcoming trip to Portland.  I miss him in moments when I expect to miss him and in moments when it catches me completely off guard.

Otherwise, I've been keeping busy by watching the US Open, trying to get some reading done, going to the gym, and continuing to get the baby's room ready.

It was fun to see Andy Roddick turn in several strong performances this tournament, especially since he has been plagued by injuries this summer.  He even beat #5 ranked David Ferrer, to whom we watched him lose while we were in Austin.  I thought he had a chance to make it competitive against Nadal yesterday, but he looked absolutely spent from the time the first ball dropped... and Nadal looked like Nadal.  After watching the way the matches have gone as a result of weather delays, I have a new appreciation for what a best of 5 set match does to the body.

As for reading, I've finally finished Katherine Anne Porter's 500 page novel, Ship of Fools, which means I've read all the fiction she published.  It also means I can join the ranks of everyone who thinks she was at her best when writing short fiction.  I've now moved onto Bonnie Kime Scott's The Gender of Modernism anthology.  The experience of reading this is equal parts "wow, this is fascinating!" and "dang it, I thought I was going to make that point in my dissertation, and someone else said it 20 years ago."

I still try to get to the gym about four days a week, and I've had to cut out a few of my lifting exercises as my body changes.  I spend about the same amount of time there, though, because I have to give myself more time between sets to prevent my heart rate from getting too high.  At some point I may need to stop the weights altogether and stick with walking, but I'm not there yet, and I'm getting so strong!  It used to be a little hard to lift a gallon of milk, but now I feel like I could throw one across the room, overhand.  My discomfort may be increasing, but overall I feel very fortunate that once I got help with the nausea, I've had a pretty healthy pregnancy. I think that is at least partly a result of being in good shape when I conceived and trying to stay active throughout.

And the baby's room is almost done.  Now that we have all of her things, we have a better idea of how much storage we're going to need, so we decided to use the money we've been gifted to get a new dresser and bookshelf for the room.  We are picking up the glider chair from Jay and Allen next weekend, and Mom is working on sewing us a window valance and a crib skirt with the fabric we picked out.  Once we get those pieces in place, the room will finally be ready, so we are looking forward to shooting a quick video of how it looks for those of you who won't be able to see it in person.  For now, though, here are a couple photos of the newest additions, carefully assembled by yours truly.  (I may be the only person in the world who enjoys assembling furniture.)

Oh, and we've survived all the bad weather relatively unscathed.  Since Sunday, Billy's weather station has registered 8.93 inches of rain, which is about twice what we normally get for the whole month of September.  Since all of this arrived after the ground was well saturated from Hurricane Irene, the low lying areas near us are having a really tough time with flooding.  Billy found the picture below, which shows that the restaurant where we held our wedding reception is under water.  We feel fortunate that the worst effect we've suffered is a few hours of lost power.

That's it from here, I think.  If you've made it this far without getting bored to death by my ramblings, you deserve a reward, so please check out how adorable and funny Krista's girls are.  If our little girl is born on time, her arrival is under 40 days away.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

(Preparation is a short story from a Robert Olen Butler collection I love, titled A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain.  If you like short fiction, I recommend all of his collection, and his novels are pretty good, too.  Some of the short story collections have really fascinating themes, like the one he wrote based on the inscriptions on vintage postcards he collects (Had a Good Time) and the one based the stories on real tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams).