Prego Speak and Other Smatterings

Greetings All. I am full. Full with baby that is. I was wondering about the whole third trimester uncomfortable business everyone warned me about. Everyday I’m getting a good idea as to what they meant. Lately the descriptive words about my form have been – Huge, Ready to Pop, Oh My God…does it hurt?, and Ready to Go! I think to myself, I have another month till my due date, technically I could go anywhere from August 15 to September 15. Technically I wonder if my belly can handle this growth without doing an Alien split.

It’s interesting to see how people react to a pregnant lady. Especially in the line of business I’m in, public service. Not in the sense of co-workers, they are all great and I can be myself around them. But in the sense of complete strangers that, unbeknownst to them, are about to converse with a huge prego ranger…I do believe it is a bit like encountering the actual elephant in the room. Some folks are clearly uncomfortable talking to me, scrambling like the cat away from Pepe. Some folks ignore the belly, like I usually do. And some address the elephant right away.
Before I got pregnant I would have scrambled away myself, not knowing how to address a pregnant lady. One of my co-workers told me, “I’ve never been around a pregnant woman before, being around you is not how I imagined a pregnant woman would act.” I took it as a compliment. I’ve never really been around anyone pregnant either…so I have no role models in that area.

I kind of like fumbling through this whole process of pregoness. In a weird way, I’ve grown with my baby-indeed physically, but grown in a personal sense as well. I am the same person I was eight months ago, however I’ve added layers to my own sense of self. These layers have been added because of the whole question of how do I want Steven Alexander to come into this world. Believe me, I have heard this until my ears have bled, to not get my hopes up of my ideal birth experience…cause shit happens. I am fully, fully aware of that. But is it so crazy to plan and hope for an uncomplicated birth? Is it so wrong to be optimistic – which for those that know me best, optimism is not where I go first in most situations – I usually take the realistic/pessimistic view on things. But innately I feel, well, optimism. I have to trust myself that the choices I’ve been making are the best for us. I’ve trusted my instincts through everything I’ve done in life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made some toe curling decisions, but even out of those choices valuable lessons were learned. I still can’t believe through them I am where I am now in life. I guess if there were any advice I could give at this point in life, I’d say – always trust your gut instincts.

Ok, I soap boxed for a moment, sorry about that, lots of thoughts floating around in my mind. I was talking about uncomfortable in the third trimester right? Thus far, I can say, I have had a smooth like butter pregnancy. No barfing, no illness, no complications, just tired here and there. I don’t even think I have it that bad in the third trimester. Yes, I have cankles and my feet blow up, my wedding ring doesn’t fit, and I’ve abandoned the notion of a comfortable sleep. If I’m on my feet too long, do a good amount of walking, or sit too long at the end of the day my legs want to fall out of socket. I’m not digging the whole bending over saga, like picking up anything or putting on shoes…. And I’m thinking that stretch marks have to be right around the corner. But the flip side is this kid is going to be here soon. He is busy busy in his space and he rolls and splays and hiccups and even though I can’t tell a foot from a hand he must be doing just fine, and that makes my uncomfortable worth it.

So, tomorrow is my Monday at work (which is Friday to everyone else). I have about two more weeks until I go on leave. Seems unreal. If baby decides to stay held up for a while I might get to work from home a bit. Which would really help. Steve has been working so much to prepare for the winter I wish I could do more to help. Send out good vibes about this whole budget business, it’ll effect everyone on some level, but on our level I may not have a job at all come October. My plan was to be intermittent status until the end of winter or early spring and start back up full time then, that won’t happen if the perspective cuts happen – there just won’t be a job, period. I know, I’ll be able to stay home with baby, which is great and will save on daycare money – but honestly I need to work, too. What will happen…well we won’t know until it goes down. Guess no matter what happens, we’ll trust our gut instincts and we’ll be better for it.