Chestnut Week 33

*bleeaaaaaaah!*

Technically, this is what's going on this week:

• Chestnut is the heft of a pineapple - ~17.20 inches and 4.23 pounds.
• The early baby fuzz, lanugo, is disappearing now and being replaced by actual hair. The nails of baby are now long enough to reach to the tip of the fingers or beyond and may need trimming as soon as he are born. He may scratch his face even before birth.
• The baby is using his lungs to practice breathing by inhaling amniotic fluid. Baby is drinking about a pint of amniotic fluid a day now and urinating the same amount.
• Do not stop eating or start skipping meals as your weight increases. Both you and baby need the calories and nutrition you receive from a healthy diet.
• Healthy babies born at this stage usually do fine, though they need some care in the neonatal intensive care unit. 

Physical:

• Weight: 147 lb (+34)
• Belly circumference: 41.5 in (+13)
• Thankfully no more sleepless nights this week! I've been averaging about 4.5 hours each night and I'm pretty tired, though.
• Starting a couple of weeks back, I've started developing some lower back pain.  It's normally not very bad.  But I notice that it hurts a lot for me to hover over a cutting board while chopping things or stand over the sink to wash dishes for any more than 10 minutes. :(
• More charlie horses.
• Shout-outs to my friend Che for giving me a ton of very pretty maternity clothes!  I feel great wearing them.
• I fell off one of those swively stools in the clinic on Monday while leaning over to look at a patient's feet. It wasn't too hard of a fall but I did have a pretty strong contraction and Marcus was a little freaked out. :P
• We got a new mattress this week!  We slept on it for the first time last night and my hips definitely hurt less. Yay!

Spiritual & emotional:

• I finished my clinical rotation for this quarter and it feels great!  I've had a wonderful learning experience at this site and I am so thankful for my preceptor.  I'm glad it's over, though.  Those long days were so rewarding...but also draining.
• I am starting to really relate to those who overeat in stressful situations.
• Counseling update: I went to see the counselor on Tuesday.  I had Camille with me.  She had missed her nap that day but she was very pleasant.  Just played with toys.  Anyway, I can't say I had an automatic connection with the therapist, but she did have some helpful advice for me.  She basically said that things aren't ideal right now, so I just need to make certain adjustments to ensure that I don't get into a situation where I want to harm myself.  This means I need to make expectations very clear to Chin about the things that are absolutely on my plate and things that I can delegate to him.
• Chin & I had a very hard talk last night.  It started with me laying out all my responsibilities, tasks I could delegate, and things that have been frustrating me.  Starting this conversation at 1:30am was not a good choice.  Thankfully, we are on good terms now and we will continue to make progress toward a healthier way of relating.  Hopefully.

Click here to see the comparison to my pregnancy with Camille (MacNut) at the same gestational age.

Chestnut Week 32

That Marcus is
growing fast!

Technically, this is what's going on this week:

• Chestnut is the weight of a large jicama - ~ 16.69 inches and 3.75 pounds.
• The diameter of the head is almost 4 inches (10cm).
• Under the skin the fat layer is getting thicker.
• The toenails and fingernails are completely formed.
• During this time the baby sleeps most of the day.
• The uterus is getting to be a small space for the baby to move about, so you may have noticed a decrease in your baby's movements (not really!).
• Mom is gaining about a pound a week at this point, and half of that weight goes directly to baby. (Mmmph! This is going to be a girthy child!)

Physical:

• Weight: 146 lb (+33)
• Belly circumference: 41 in (+12.5)
• I thought I'd seen the end of the rapid weight gain period.  I was wrong.  I got on the scale at the clinic where I am doing my rotation and when I saw "146," I seriously cursed it!
• The word of the week this week is: sleeplessness.  A part of my normal routine is to stay up late after Camille goes to bed so that I could do homework (but, really, who are we kidding...I'm on Facebook & Pinterest).  Saturday night, I finally went to bed around 2am.  Marcus (Baby Chestnut) was totally up and just giving it to me. Kicky, kicky, kicky!! In addition, Chin was having the loudest snorning night ever.  I'd never heard him snore that loud before.  He must have been so tired, poor guy :(  Anyway, after 30 minutes of trying to fall asleep, I finally gave up and devised a plan to go fold the laundry and watch boring documentaries.  I watched two: "Cruise Inc.: Big Money on the High Seas" and "Food Fight."  I washed and folded 5 loads of laundry (which sounds really impressive, but really that was laundry I should have been consistently been washing and folding all this time). Around 6am, I started feeling tired enough to go to bed. I set out some stuff for breakfast (Mother's Day was the next day...or rather, that day) and then got to bed around 6:30.  I woke up a couple of hours later and was surprisingly not in a terribly bad shape for the rest of the day!  Wednesday night was another sleepless one.  That time, I was a zombie all day long at school.  I really hope this doesn't continue.  I love to sleep!
• New belly stretch marks started appearing this week.  They just appeared very suddenly one day earlier this week and took us by surprise.  I am not getting new stretchmarks anywhere else, though. With Camille, I had a lot of stretchmarks and they spread down as far as my calves!  With Marcus, my belly just shoots straight out so all the new stretchmarks are localized at the front of the belly.
• More contractions this week...and they are getting to be a bit painful.

Photo courtesy of Rants from Mommyland

Spiritual & emotional:

• Chin & I have talked about this for a long time, but I am finally pulling the trigger: I am going to see a counselor.  I just need someone to talk to who is not Chin.  I sometimes feel a suffocating sense of being trapped and not being able to honestly vent to anyone.  I sometimes wish I were Catholic so I'd have access to those confession booths.  But I'd like to get feedback, too.  Someone to tell me that I'm not crazy.  So, I checked with our insurance and I've set up an appointment to see someone in a couple of weeks.  I hope I will feel better.
• Our amazing friends have been gracious enough to fill in as our childcare stopgaps.  Thank you so much!!!  We are still looking for childcare.  I think the problem now is that...we don't know what we're really looking for.  We have childcare coverage through the end of this academic quarter.  Next quarter (starting June 18), I will only need childcare for about 2 hours in the middle of the day on Thursdays - from 11am-1pm.  This basically means I need someone to play with Camille for two hours while I'm in class...with Marcus strapped to me.  I am sure it will be very helpful to have a consistent person to help us out as taking care of a newborn and a toddler will be a little crazy.  But if we don't have anyone to help us out in the summer, maybe we can handle it.  Riiight?  (See why I need to go see a counselor?)

Click here to see the comparison to my pregnancy with Camille (MacNut) at the same gestational age.

Chestnut Week 31

Bonus belly picture

Hard to believe that Marcus could be here in under a month and a half.  I feel progressively heavier.  The belly just shoots right out (as opposed to the generalized fatness that I had during my pregnancy with Penelope and Camille).

This week, several people said, "Wow, you look like you're about to pop!" Which makes me sad that American schools are teaching that babies come from spontaneous abdominal explosions. What? They don't teach that? You mean those people were just insensitive idiots?!

Technically, this is what's going on this week:

• Chestnut is the weight of a butternut squash - ~ 16.18 inches and 3.31 pounds.
• He should more than double his weight again between now and birth.
• The eyes have now completely opened and are responding to light and darkness.
• A loud noise near you may cause him to jump.
• His lungs and digestive tract are very near to being mature.

Physical:

• Weight: 144 lb (+31)
• Belly circumference: 40 in (+11.5)
• Fundal height: 33 cm
• Great news this week, you guys: I don't have gestational diabetes!  I had an appointment with my midwife on Wednesday and she delivered the news that the glucose tolerance test results looked good.  Yippee!
• More charlie horses this week.

Spiritual & emotional:

• I'm really thankful that my sister GT has been here over the weekend and early in the week to help take care of Camille.  Camille loves hanging out with Di Be and I love watching them have fun together!
• Oy, I am so emotional this week.  Just the littlest things will push me over the edge.  I'm completely stressed out a lot of the time because of all the school/house work that has still been piling up since the long week that Chin & Camille were sick (I know, that was a long time ago). This week in particular, I got to talk to my academic adviser a bit more about my timeline toward graduation. As mentioned before, she recently discovered that the curriculum that was drawn up for me for the past two years is a little faulty and that my graduation date might get pushed back 1-2 quarters.  She doesn't seem to think that there is any flexibility. *sigh* I spent some time crying and it really didn't help.  I am just pissed.
• I find that when I'm already stressed out, I am just not very keen at taking criticisms. I just have a lower threshold for them. That's normal, right?
• In other news, one of my BFFs moved away to Oregon.  That is so not cool.

Doing tai chi at the park

More tai chi
(ok, so it wasn't tai chi...
but it sure does look like
it, huh?!)

After this picture was taken,
she *jumped* down the slide...

Hahaha!
(She was okay. We laughed.)

Watching ducks from the lifeguard chair

Starbucks Frappuccino Happy Hour
with Mommy

Just chillin' here

Click here to see the comparison to my pregnancy with Camille (MacNut) at the same gestational age.

Chestnut Week 30

Technically, this is what's going on this week:

• Chestnut is the weight of a large cabbage (not a small one, mind you) - ~ 15.71 inches and 2.91 pounds.
• He will gain about half a pound a week until week 38.
• The head is almost 3.5 inches (8cm) in diameter.
• The feet are nearly 2.5 inches (6cm) long.
• Eyebrows and eyelashes are fully developed, and hair on the head is getting thicker. 
• Head and body are now proportioned like a newborn. 
• Hands are now fully formed and fingernails are growing, eyelids are opening and closing. 
• The wrinkled skin is becoming smoother now.
• He can regulate his own body temperature.

Physical:

• Weight: 143 lb (+30)
• Belly circumference: 39.50 in (+11)
• The coughing this week was a drag.  Thankfully that pretty much all cleared up by Monday night.  I was running out of pads!
• I had my 3-hour glucose tolerance test this past Tuesday.  I had planned to go there at 7:30 to get my fasting blood draw, drink the disgusting sugary syrup, and then go home to sleep a little bit (I live less than 2 miles from the lab).  And then I was planning on going in for the second draw at 8:30 while Chin is still at home.  Then the last 2 draws, I would have Camille with me and we could go to the mall during that hour in between.  Perfect plan, right?  Well, after my blood draw and after I drank the nasty orange-flavored syrup, I was told I could not leave the lab's waiting room. WHUCK?!?! Totally did not plan to stay there for 3 consecutive hours.  When I finally got a hold of Chin (who was snoozin' away initially, with his ringer turned off), we were able to arrange for Camille to go to Yabi's house.  (Thank you so much, Amy!!) 
• By the way, if you are currently pregnant or have ever been pregnant and you feel not-so-great about your body, please go see this website: The Shape of a Mother.  This is what mothers look like.  This is what real women look like.  Embrace that temple.

Spiritual & emotional:

• I am really overwhelmed with life right now.  There's so much school work that I'm still catching up on after Chin & Camille's sick week, we still have no childcare for Camille, I'm having more hip pain, I'm getting more frequent contractions, and the house is a complete mess (doesn't help that I can't bend down very well).  So I think it's reasonable that it irks me to hear people who bitch and complain about problems of minute proportions.  Or perhaps that's me! ;)
  

Click here to see the comparison to my pregnancy with Camille (MacNut) at the same gestational age.

I know nothing of heaven

Yesterday on the drive home from my clinical rotation, I got to listen to this poignant story on NPR (yes, poignant = basically the word used to describe most NPR stories).  The piece was about a minister who, through a discovery process, found that she no longer believed in God.

Teresa McBain, the minister who discovered she is an atheist, retells the story of her struggle in her final days as a clergy person when she was tasked to preach things she no longer believed.

My heart went out to her.

Teresa, of course you felt confused.  Of course you felt frustrated by the inconsistencies you see in the Bible.  Of course you would feel like you were living a lie preaching sermons you don't believe.

She deserved to own all those emotions.

I believe that God lets her feel all the things she feels.  He lets her choose all the things she wants to choose.

Toward the end of the story, I felt hot tears streaming down my face.  It was this line that struck me the most:

Interviewer: I don't hear you say that you miss God.

Teresa: Uh, no, no...  I can't say that I do.

I felt a sharp pain in my heart.  At that point, I realized that God was teaching me one of the primary reasons why He made me a parent: That I could feel a deep emotion that God would feel as a parent.

My heart went out to God.

I know my kids will one day think that I am stupid.  They will one day find that they don't need me.  But I hope that they won't choose to walk away.  That would break my heart.  Much the same way that God's heart is broken when we choose to walk away from Him.  Yet He allows it...because He is a God of freedom.

Through a simple story, God teaches me a dual lesson about the purpose of being a child (with lots of teen angst) and being a parent.

Teresa talks about heaven and hell and where she thinks she might end up...

I know nothing of heaven.

But I do know that while I am on earth, there is a fulfillment in my soul that can only be achieved when I choose to be close to God.  That is a joy that I get to keep while I am here...in the present.

Heaven is a bonus.  And hopefully a wonderful one.