The things no-one tells you about pregnancy

Even if you are not over-balancing and falling over because your center of gravity is nowhere near wherever it used to be, it will still feel like you are. If I had a dollar for every time I was poised, motionless, at the top of a staircase, looking over the edge of my monstrous belly to see where the first step was and suddenly felt I was falling down the stairs so began flailing my arms and grasping at the air - only to find I was actually still exactly where I had been for the last 5 seconds but was now also frantically waving my arms ... I would have a lot of dollars.

Getting out of bed is no longer an auto-pilot action that can be carried out while still more or less asleep. It requires shuffling your massive weight to the edge of the bed, rolling onto your side, dangling your feet over the edge, using your dangling legs as a counter-weight to pull your upper body into a sitting position, then sitting there on the edge of the bed for a minute while your baby and amniotic fluid re-equilibrate into a vertical position ... while using your remaining powers of concentration trying to not pee till you reach the toilet.

Unless you make a list of things that are important to remember, you will forget something. Once you have made your list, however, there is still only about a 50% chance that you will remember to do the things on it. This is true of to-do lists, grocery lists, lists of people, registry lists, and lists of things to pack before leaving the house.

Never congratulate yourself on making it x number of weeks into a pregnancy and still having room in your body to expand your lungs enough to breathe. All of a sudden, the next day you will find yourself gasping and out of breath while sitting still, and wondering how you ever used to do something as vigorous as folding laundry without an oxygen mask on!

Along similar lines, you will one day have to choose between satisfying your enormous appetite, and breathing. There is not enough room in there for both food and air.

Never be too proud or independent, once you can no longer reach your own feet, to ask for help putting on your shoes and socks on the way out the door! This will result in you struggling for several minutes (and becoming later than you already are because of your scatterbrainedness) while others try not to laugh. You will end up asking for help anyway, but will have looked like an idiot first ... plus spending that long scrunched over your belly trying to reach your feet is likely to result in you totally smashing what little lung capacity you have left, and passing out on the floor.

Being stretched tight across a watermelon-sized belly results in your skin becoming sunburned after about 1/4 of the time you would normally be out in the sun! Lather on that sunscreen!

Everyone in the whole world has ultrasounds for eyes (except you) and can tell what gender the baby is. And will proceed to tell you right after you've told them you're waiting to find out so you can be surprised.

Pitter-pattery little feet

We got to have another ultrasound last night - our baby's still cute :) We went to the clinic with Kris & Nicole, and Mark and Kris did all the measurements again to make sure we're still on track with the growth rate, which we are. So thus far my gestational diabetes hasn't been causing any problems, thankfully. (Other than to my diet, I mean!)
The baby weighs 4lbs 11oz according to the ultrasound calculation, which is already heavier than Mark was when he and Luke were born! They were 4 or 5 weeks premature, though, and there were two of them sharing the growing. Babycenter says that this week the baby is about the size of your average cantaloupe ... and yes, that's about what it feel like I have in my abdomen! I'm starting to feel those 'end of pregnancy complaints' ... low back pain, sore legs if I'm on my feet all day at the hospital, feeling general discomfort because my belly is so heavy, having to wake up at night just to roll over in bed because repositioning takes so much effort...! No stretch marks yet, though, for which I have mom to thank since they're a genetic trait :)

So here's our baby's right foot - 5 toes and everything! Not that I was in any doubt that its feet were in good working order - I get a thorough pummeling every time this kid wakes up! Because it's getting more crowded in there, it's harder to get those good face/ profile pictures. Plus, the way it was curled up made it hard to get to the face regardless. But Mark and Kris managed to coax a pretty cute face one out too :)
















It's a little harder to tell what the face is (although I, without a touch of motherly bias, can say it's definitely getting cuter!), but the baby's laying on its side and the darker of the two dark circles is its right eye. It's fat little cheek is to the left of that in the picture, and then the nose and mouth and other eye get a little fuzzier. See? Too cute!

Mark has been gone for this last week and he'll be gone again for the coming week, so it's nice to have him back for the weekend. We went for a walk along the river yesterday afternoon to enjoy the gorgeous weather, and ran into the parents of one of Mark's friends since high school. By the end of the conversation, we had a free crib that their last grandchild just outgrew! During the conversation they asked how much longer before the baby gets here, and we established that it's about 40-45 more days - how crazy is that! I don't know whether school has made pregnancy go by quicker or if being pregnant has made my school year fly by, but I feel like the last 7 or 8 months have disappeared into nowhere in a heartbeat.

We had our last childbirth class this week - we got a recommendation for a really good natural-birth class and have been going for weekly classes all this month. (Well, last month I suppose, since it's now April.) I feel a lot more confident about going through labour without pain meds now, although I'm still open to an epidural if I end up needing to be induced. I know contractions that have been induced are a lot more intense, so I may change my mind about not having any medication if that ends up happening! We'll see.

Here are some of my maternity pictures from Nikki - I love them! She has a kind of different editing style from Tiffany, but I really like them both. Thanks girls! :)