Library Lust

I want a library like this. So much.

Mindfulness

I got accepted into the Mindfulness and Pregnancy study at my hospital and I was put in the experimental group, which means I get to take the mindfulness class! Very excited about this. I think it will be good for me.

Yoga Pants and Cheez-Its

Today is a yoga-pants kind of day. I actually try really hard to get up and get dressed and put on makeup and do my hair every day, even if I don’t plan to go out, because I don’t want to get into bad habits.

Today is not one of those days.

Last night, after my first hip-related wake up at 1am, I went back to bed, and propped myself up into my new sitting position. I had been noticing that baby tends to be very active when I sit up in this position (or, at least, I notice her moving a lot more). But not so much last night.

And then I remembered my OB’s warning about monitoring how often the baby kicks. I thought back over the day, and decided I hadn’t felt her doing any major acrobatics all day.

So I started to get worried, of course. I remembered the doctor’s instructions for getting a kick count. I lay back down on my sore left side and started concentrating on feeling for movement or kicks.

Nada.

Twenty minutes passed and I started to freak out. I started wondering if I had done anything out of the ordinary that day that might have hurt her (Thai food? Mall walking? That single sip of wine at the food tasting for work?????). I remembered the friend of a friend who recently lost her baby at 22 weeks. I started jiggling my belly, trying to wake baby up.

And then I started praying and pleading as one only does at 1:45 in the morning when one hasn’t felt the baby kick in 45 minutes. It was dreadful. I was also in a LOT of pain in my hip by this point, but I was determined not to move from my preferred left side.

And then she kicked. Sort of. I couldn’t be sure. So I counted it as “one maybe.” Then I got to two maybes, then three. Number eight was pretty plainly a kick, so I counted it as “seven maybes and one kick.”

I made it to “nine maybes and a kick” by 2am. Then I decided to get up and have a snack—also one of the doctor’s recommendations for kick counting. I went downstairs and ate a slice of bread with peanut butter and half a glass of milk standing over the sink, shivering in the dark.

By the time I got back to bed, she had the hiccoughs. And then she rolled over. And I nearly cried, I was so happy.

So I’m giving myself the yoga pants today. And the handfuls of Cheez-Its I ate at lunch. This morning I watched my belly undulate and roll as she did a series of contortionist moves and tried to tell myself that she’s OK.

No Sleep at 25 Weeks

I have not been sleeping well. All the books and advice told me not to sleep on my back after 20 weeks, and I thought, “No problem. I prefer to sleep on my side anyway.”

Yeah. Well. That was before my hips decided that they wanted to hurt like crazy every night after sleeping on my side.

First trimester it was my lower back, and sleeping with a pillow between my knees did a lot to alleviate that. But now it’s my hips. Not the joints exactly, but like the deep muscles where I’m lying on them.

So I go to bed around 8:30 or 9pm and a fall asleep right away and sleep for about four hours. Then I wake up at around 1am and my hip hurts. I get up and use the bathroom and then go back to bed. I was lying on my back a bit before rolling over to the other side to give my hips a rest, but I’m paranoid about it, and I don’t want to fall asleep that way.

I might manage to get back to sleep for another two hours. I wake up at 3am in real pain, and now it’s on both sides, so I can’t just switch. My latest idea is to prop myself up with forty-billion pillows and try to sleep sitting up from this point on. I’ve discovered that if I doze sitting up for half an hour to an hour, I can then lie back down on my side and sleep again. So, between 3am and 5:45am when my husband’s alarm goes off, I might get another hour or so of quality sleep. Maybe. If I’m lucky.

I’m in bed for around nine hours, but only averaging about six hours of sleep. The worst part is that I wake up achy and tired and not at all interested in doing yoga or any other kind of working out.

Suggestions?

Afraid of PARENTING

I saw a deal recently for a subscription to PARENTING magazine for only $1. And I really truly thought about subscribing to it. But I didn’t get it, because I’m afraid of how PARENTING makes me feel afraid.

They’re certainly not the only culprits, but they’ve got this thing down pat where they take any little thing and make it into a BIG thing we’re meant to be afraid of for our kids.

I’ve been reading the Free Range Parenting blog, and I’m discovering that I don’t want to be so afraid. In fact, I wrote my editor’s notes column for the baby magazine about that very thing.

I made a commitment not to renew some magazines I was getting that didn’t jive with my lifestyle (SHAPE magazine, for one) and I just decided that PARENTING probably didn’t live up to that standard either.

Do you have any family or parenting magazines that you like?

24-Week Checkup

Went for my 24-week checkup today, and the doctor said everything was progressing normally and healthfully with Baby Bean.

I, on the other hand, have gained about 25 pounds—the amount she wanted me to gain total for the whole pregnancy.

I'm of two minds about this. First, I was upset and depressed. Weight has always been an issue for me, and the very last thing I want in all the world is a) to be unhealthy while carrying Bean or b) to gain a ton of weight that I will have to worry about losing after the baby is born.

But second, I'm not sure how to feel about this. The doctor is basing this ideal weight gain number on my BMI at my first appointment. I looked it up, and my BMI at that time was 25; 25 is the beginning of the overweight category.

But really, what's the difference between a 24 and a 25? If I had been 5 pounds lighter at my first appointment, would she be telling me I'd gained too much weight?

Finally (I guess I'm of three minds), I don't know exactly what she wants me to do about it. I was told not to diet under any circumstances. I was told to eat healthfully, which I believe I am. I was told to get some exercise. Which—OK, I could get some more, but I am getting SOME.

So, all in all, I'm trying not to get too upset about it and reminding myself that I'm going to keep gaining weight regardless as the Bean grows. It's still a little hard to wrap my brain around, though.

When are you due?

It must be official: the first stranger asked me when I'm due today.

It was a TSA at the Dallas airport, and she was thrilled that Bean might be born in May, as she was a May baby.