Meltdown

Trials and tribulations aside, I'm not one to complain about pregnancy. Well, at least not in public. My husband hears me complain All The Time about my hot feet which is technically me complaining about pregnancy because it was my first pregnancy four and a half years ago that robbed me of my once lovely-because-they-were-slightly-icy-all-year-round feet. I read about other women having a similar pregnancy symptom, in part because of all the extra blood flow in the body, but I was really hoping it would go away after Baby arrived. It didn't. And now, with Baby No.3 just around the corner and it being the first day of summer/longest day of the year/whatever this day is, my feet are on FIRE.

Did I mention our air conditioning went out today? You may already know this because I took to Facebook this afternoon in my heat and frustration because our system had been running all afternoon but absolutely no cool air was coming out of a single vent in the house. Actually, no air was coming out whatsoever. And my dear husband, who had taken our dear son bowling for the afternoon and left me at the house with the whiney I-want-Daddy-ONLY toddler, had not taken his phone along with him. So what could I do? I wanted to call any and every service person in the fair city of Hastings but was stuck in a bit of a 1950s dilemma because I didn't know how dear husband would feel about that. You see, I've been trying to tell him, since at least yesterday and perhaps even earlier in the week (or before) that I thought our system wasn't running properly. He brushed my complaints off, perhaps because of the constant hot foot whining and the fact that we were still waiting for a routine maintenance check on our system which would tell us how things were or were not running.

After some nagging gentle encouragement from me, Ben called this morning to confirm a system check appointment for next Thursday. I was happy. Then, as temps this afternoon climbed into the mid-90s for the second day in a row and our unit kept going and going and going while the temp in the house kept climbing and climbing and climbing, I was not so happy. Especially because I was stuck in the sticky house and today's was apparently the longest bowling adventure in the history of kid bowling and I had absolutely no way of contacting the slow bowlers to tell them to get the flip home and make some flipping calls to fix our flip diddle air conditioner until they finally got home at 4:30. On a Friday. Great time to be asking for a service call, eh?

Well, two and a half hours later and our fan is up and running again. We can't turn the thermostat on just yet but will be able to do so later tonight and a full repair will be made next week when a part arrives. So I don't have to sleep in the basement or at a friend's house tonight and I can quit hoping that I go into labor, just so I can have access to air conditioning.

Moral of the story? Maybe, just maybe, even when she is REALLY pregnant and always talking about her REALLY hot feet, a wifey might have some intuition that something in the house needs a'fixin. Now, said wifey is going to take a cold shower, put her swelling feet on ice, and anxiously await the actual air's return.

Rough Road?

It seems like, in the last handful of months, I have heard some variation of the phrases "Boy, you guys have had it rough" and "This hasn't been an easy pregnancy" from a wide range of family, friends, and even my OB. I guess that last one should have been my tipping point to believing or at least at acknowledging the truth behind these comments, but for the most part, I've tried to "Oh, well, yeah, it's been interesting..." and Pollyanna my way through them. Not that I've been a total saint about handling the ups and downs. I did document most of our trials here which was borderline complaining at times, so if you've been following along during this pregnancy you know what our holidays were like and how much we wanted April's shenanigans to up and leave us. For some reason, though, I just couldn't bring myself to agree with the idea that this baby was causing me fits.

Maybe that's because that wasn't the intended message behind the comments. Of course the baby hasn't been trying to make life difficult; we've just had some difficult days of life while waiting for him/her to arrive. After all, doesn't that seem fair? No one can expect anything to go perfectly or smoothly - certainly not for 40 weeks, and certainly not when you already have Littles in your house who are more than ready to share their sweet sticky kisses (and sweet sticky germs) with you day and night. There will be hiccups. And bugs. And stomach bugs. And it was the latest round of stomach bugs that brought me to my acceptance of giving in - but mind you, not giving up - to the notion that this hasn't been the easiest of roads to Baby.

Long story short, because you've heard enough of our health blahs, we spent the last week cycling, every couple of days, through someone else in the house having the stomach flu. HD started it a week ago yesterday and yesterday I finished it. Well, at least I think/hope/pray/will-do-just-about-anything-to-insure-that we've finished it. And I have to say, obvious as it may seem, being 9 months pregnant and sick with the flu is worse than any other month pregnant and sick with the flu. My belly is too big and my energy is too low to handle extra exertion right now, so yesterday about did me in. TMI warning, but I spent most of last night praying that my cervix would just stay shut because I was terrified of going into labor when I was already feeling so down and out.

Well, thank goodness the baby and my body listened, because I got through the night, and today both my stomach and my faith that "I can do this" are regaining strength. That's good because I'm hoping for my third natural delivery and let's face it - any delivery takes some major will power and determination; not something you want to go into right after being sick. Seeing as tomorrow is only 37 weeks, I'm hoping we get plenty more rest and recovery time before this sweet little peanut makes her/his grand entrance. If I end up going overdue again, I'll regret these words, but really, Sweet Pea, there's no rush. You do what you need to do in there and we'll be here waiting for whenever you're ready to come. All those rough days and nights? They will just become part of your story, part of what makes you strong and a fighter, and part of what makes our family stronger, too.

So, has it been a rough road? At times, absolutely. Will it be worth it in the end? All the time, absolutely.

Bump

It's taken me four-and-a-half years and three pregnancies to get it, but now I understand full on why a pregnant mama's belly is called a bump. Or, at least I understand why this rather clumsy pregnant mama's belly is called a bump. It's not a noun. It's a verb.

My poor tummy. Lately it seems that everyone in the house is crashing and bashing against my, albeit beautiful, very much protruding baby bump. Last week Ben caught me with a cupboard door as I was trying to scoot around him in the kitchen. Harrison literally runs into and bounces off my belly at least once a week as he motors runs around, doing what almost-four-year-olds do. Raegan, when she graces me with her presence, usually does so by flopping in my lap with a book; she seems oblivious to the fact that my lap is all but gone these days and that what she is really doing is throwing her sweet little 20 lbs. right into her soon-to-be-here baby brother or baby sister (who, by the way, usually starts kicking and pushing back when knocked like this). And even I am not immune to the bumps of The Bump. Just the other day, while trying to prepare a meal, I turned quickly in the kitchen and scraped the front of my belly against the edge of a counter. Ow and ow is all I can say about that.

And while it may feel like just the opposite, thanks to all the Bumping, it turns out that I'm no bigger than I've been at this stage in the game with my first two bellies. I mean, I know this because one, my doctor's visits tell me that my measurements - weight, fundus (I really get a kick out of that word), etc. - are right on track for what my babies have done in the past. And two, well, the proof is in the pudding pictures:

Yes, Sir. That's me at 36 weeks with each baby. I know I've been posting Baby No. 3's photos on the weekend, just like I did with the first two, but we always take them on Wednesdays as that is my actual week marker, so here you have it - a sneak peak (and proof that I am typically pretty tired by the time I hit 9 months!). And while it feels like I'm as big as I've ever been and running into everything and everyone, I know that's not the case. Actually, the only difference I see here is that this baby is hanging out much lower than the first two. To quote my old farmer husband, Well, shoot. My bladder and I could have told you that before we hit the halfway point with this kiddo! 

Based on previous experience, we may have anywhere from two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half more weeks to go in Bump mode. Here's hoping that in that time span I don't have to resort to wrapping myself in pillows to protect my belly...it is far too hot out and my wardrobe is far too limited to accommodate such measures!  

Tinker Ben

OK. Let me clarify. I am in no way comparing my dear husband to a tiny, little Disney fairy who wears a tiny, little green dress. Not at all. Who I am  comparing my dear husband to, however, is a tinkering old man who is absolutely caught up with his little backyard garden. Literally. The garden. Ben is all about it these days.

When we moved in last year, we knew there was a nice little spot for a garden in our backyard but between teaching and track and grad programs and small children who didn't sleep, we didn't exactly have the time or the energy to map out or attend to any sort of planting of said garden. We did have about a million little volunteer tomatoes (don't ask me what kind - small is all I can tell you) come up. We ate none of them. We also had six or seven potatoes appear as well. We ate almost all of what they produced! But that was it. That was the extent of our garden. If anything, because we let the tomatoes just do their thing, probably the most of anything we grew last year was a habitat for snakes. Ewwwwwww. 

With this summer marking Harrison's fourth birthday and all, we thought he might get a kick out of planting some seeds in our own backyard. Thanks to MOPS, I even had some bright red gardening gloves for him to use and some carrot seeds to plant in order to put this all in motion. It became quite clear, quite quickly, however, that the one who was going to get the greatest kick out of this little project was my husband.

I asked Ben to clear some space in the garden for said carrot seeds. He went out and bought lettuce and peas and beans and corn and sunflowers and zinnas to plant, too. That is, after he bought little green fence posts and rolls of green wire so he could fence off the whole garden to protect it from little critters (not to mention little Welschies). And a pitch fork or potato fork or whatever you call the pointy thing he's been using to turn up soil in the garden, which is apparently his new most favoritist activity. Our neighbors kindly offered to let us borrow their tiller any time we pleased but oh, no. My farm boy, nicknamed Big Country in college, is taking the old fashioned approach. He's out there all the time turning over the next spot he wants to plant (or, in the case of our attempted seed potatoes, spot that didn't grow) or picking at the edges of the fence under which the grass is trying to sneak back to him. And if he's not actually digging out there, he's asking me about where or what he should dig or plant or water next. As if I know! I may be a farm girl and my mom may be an excellent gardner, but you can bet your life that I know nothin' 'bout nothin' when it comes to being a backyard farmer (or any kind of farmer, for that matter!).

Even though I tease and throw out the teeniest, occasional eye roll about the role of our garden these days (let's face it - I'm focused on growing a baby, not lettuce), I too am getting a little kick out of it because I know Ben loves it. Since we've had kids, it has been next to impossible for him to find time to get back to his parents' farm and drive the tractor or tinker around the way many farmers do. I know he misses all that and I appreciate the sacrifices he's made to focus on us during the summers instead. So if playing in the dirt in our own backyard while the kids run around in the grass or wiggle the garden fence or "help" with their  own pint-sized tools gives Ben a taste of the farm, then OK. I'm happy to oblige. And, if anything else happens to fare better than the potatoes, well, then we'll all be happy to enjoy the magic (ahem! being punny - still not calling him Tinker Bell) of some homegrown goodness.