Sunday, November 6, 2011

38 Weeks

One of the things I did not want to do during this pregnancy was to go into labor at my office. In particular, I did not want my water to break in unlikely-but-dramatic, Hollywood fashion. You see, we have this carpet at work that stains if you look at it funny. For serious, a small splash of water causes a permanent stain. So we theorized that a dramatic-Hollywood-style water-breaking would leave a giant, permanent stain and people could forever point and say, “Yeah, that’s where Suzanne had her baby.” Because, as I’m sure you know, as soon as your water breaks, the baby falls out.

Well, the good news is that I will not be going into labor at the office, because I am now officially on maternity leave. In fact, according to the state, I am officially disabled and have been for two weeks. And this makes me wonder why my baby’s daddy did not refill my coffee cup when he got up to refill his.

This week is again rather disappointing in produce. Baby H is as long as a leek. Which is really quite long when you think about it. This explains why he is mostly bunched up, but also quite assertive about trying to expand my uterus in all directions. Everything I read says that his movements are becoming more muffled and less frequent, due to his extremely cramped quarters. This is still not happening! Instead, he is moving with the same level of enthusiasm, but now he is, you know, a basically full-grown, brawny infant. As a result, I mean, ouch.
His efforts are not going unrewarded, however. As is evident, he is indeed expanding my uterus on the daily.


Pretty breathtaking, isn’t it? On Friday, my last day of work, people said these things, many of which were really lovely things to say to the gigantically pregnant and as such were probably lies, but I don't care (See: Suz and flattery):

“That just looks physically impossible.”

“You remind me how flipping weird pregnancy is.”

“You are too small to carry that belly... how in the world is your back holding up?”

“How is is that you still have a bounce in your step? You should clearly be waddling.”

“Wow. I mean...”

And truthfully, my back has started to get a bit sore in the afternoons. That this just recently started is pretty amazing, given that I have a really terrible back (or I thought I did). I feel very lucky that it waited this long to complain, and also that I don’t have to sit in a desk all day anymore.

Number of people who have touched the belly: 24
Number of contractions I felt this week: probably around a dozen?

Number of weeks until my maternity leave starts: zero (0)
Number of months until I return to work: 6
Number of reports I drafted in the final hour before I went on leave: 1
Number of boxes required to pack up the contents of my cubicle: 2 (My whole office is moving across the Bay while I am on leave!)

Number of pieces of Halloween candy I consumed this week: a lot

Number of mobiles in Baby H’s room: 2
Number of nerdy posters in Baby H’s room: 3

Number of pages we have left in Cryptonomicon: 34 (Jasper has a theory that Baby H will not come out until we finish the book, because clearly he is eager to hear the ending and maybe thinks the reading is only happening inside the belly?)

Leek photo: Baby Center

No comments:

Post a Comment