Things I Want to Remember About Being Pregnant

Backdated to 10/09/10: 39wks3ds

Things I Want to Remember About Being Pregnant:

Most of it sucked. The nausea and anxiety at the beginning. The middle bit was ok, but I had that scary heart tachycardia nonsense. And the last chunk totally blew. Killer pelvic pain, and increasingly terrible heartburn. Not to mention that during that last week or so there I consistently forgot how very large I'd become and crashed mah belly into doors, corners, David... It was pretty ridiculous.

I definitely want to remember how ridiculously helpful and sweet David was after he came home from the boat. He definitely went out of his way to help around the house and to try and help me be comfortable during the last of my manatee days. He kept me stocked in milk, which was no easy feat, as I was going through it at a rate of about 1 gallon every day and a half. He is an amazing husband and I am truly grateful for all he does. I love him so much. I never doubted that he'd be a good father, and the way he took care of me at the end of my pregnancy further solidified that.

I want to remember how it felt to feel Little Miss kicking inside my belly.

I want to remember that at the end I was waking up to pee every 1.5 hours.

I want to remember that at the end, my hips decided to join the pelvic pain party. I want to remember how GOOD my heating pad felt, but that it didn't *quite* melt the pain away.

I want to remember all the ridiculous things we tried to get Little Miss to flip over from breech presentation before birth. We tried ice on my tummy. We tried playing music at the bottom of the baby-bubble. We tried a handstand in the pool. We tried lotioning the belly, rubbing clockwise. Counter clockwise. We tried laying on a slantboard, which is a board that we wedged one end of under the cushions of the couch and I laid on it so that my head was at the bottom (on a pillow, of course), and sat there for 10+ minutes at a time. I say "+" because 10 was usually the GOAL, because it was RIDICULOUSLY uncomfortable, with the belly pushing even harder into my ribbitys, and my stomach being directly attached to my gag reflex. We tried slantboard + music. We tried slantboard + ice. We tried slantboard + lotion(clockwise). We tried slantboard + David singing to baby (which was really cute a sweet and hilarious because he made up his own songs). We tried acupuncture, where the girl roasted my pinky toes with a smelly smelly smudge stick (look up "moxibustion" if you're in a googling mood). We moxibusted my toes at home for a week after the initial acupuncture session. We tried acupressure... clothespins on my pinky toes for 30 mins per night. We tried the chiropractic "Webster Technique." We tried massage by my awesome friend Ashley.

We were scheduled to try the ECV which stands for something-something-Version on Sunday the 10th at the hospital. That's a medical procedure where they ultrasound you to confirm the baby's position, and then they PUSH on your tummy and basically shove the baby into the proper position.

I want to remember that every time David and I had sex, I had contractions all night long, but they were sporadic and ridiculously spaced out and always subsided after just a couple of hours (meaning I wasn't really in labor, just "false-labor").

Speaking of contractions, at the end, it felt like every time I went pee, I'd have a contraction. Just one. Which sucked and felt strange, but I was pretty sure that's what was happening. Especially those middle of the night pees.

I want to remember that we picked out three names for Little Miss and waited to see which she looked like.

I want to remember that my bellybutton never actually "popped"... It just kinda flattened out. No turkey-timer on this mama!

I want to remember what it was like to take a nap whenever *I* felt like it.

I want to remember how much stuff I couldn't eat! How much stuff I couldn't DO! But, that's what this blog has been all about.

I want to remember how scared I really was about having this baby. How I kinda sorta changed my mind about even WANTING to have a baby at both the beginning and the end of this pregnancy. I wasn't going to back out (not that doing that would have been easy in ANY way to do), but it became more of an inevitability than a happily awaited event. Pregnancy for me was something to be endured, rather than something to enjoy. At the end, having the baby simply became an alternative to being pregnant!

These are things I want to remember about being pregnant. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the conclusion to The Nausea Chronicles typed up and posted, but I wanted to get these all typed out first. It's the end of an era. :]