Men, take note

Men, the following is a dialogue that should never, ever occur between you and your pregnant wife.

The scene: a husband and wife are lying in bed after doing the deed.

Husband (tentatively): You know, honey, I think things are...changing...down there.

Wife (confused): What? What do you mean "changing"?

Husband (realizing he probably should have kept his damn mouth shut): I dunno...it's just...different.

Wife (defensively): Different how?

Husband (knowing he's going to get himself in trouble): Well, it kinda feels weird, and looks...puffier...

Wife (annoyed): Seriously?

Wife gets up, puts on clothes, and ends husband's access privileges for the foreseeable future.

End scene.

And, guys, in case it's not entirely clear exactly why you should never have this conversation with your wife, I'll explain. Pregnancy causes all kinds of body image issues. There is absolutely no need to add to those issues by making your wife hate her girly bits. She'll be doing enough of that post-baby (assuming no c-section, of course). You're supposed to be making her feel as pretty as possible right now. I understand that's no easy task when she looks like a small barge and feels like a whale, but you should really try. Telling her that her hoo-ha is "puffy" and feels "weird" does not accomplish that task. It's an especially bad idea to do so when she asks for a back rub because her back is killing her, but ends up having sex with you instead (and never gets that back rub).

So, to review, never, no matter what, tell your 34 or so week pregnant wife that her bajingo is "different". In fact, you should probably keep any thoughts you might have on the state of her vajayjay to yourself, at least for right now. Because, just when she thinks there's no way she could possibly hate her pregnant body even more, you pull that little gem out of left field and make her body hate rise to a never before contemplated level. Just consider this a friendly little public service announcement. And be thankful that you weren't the husband dumb enough to inspire this post.

Improvement

So, things are looking up. My appointment went well. I lost 3.5 pounds (probably all water weight); my swelling is down significantly; the nurse said I look slimmer; the doc thinks I look more rested, less stressed, and overall better; AND, most importantly, my BP is down some. It's still not great, but 124/86 is better than 137/91. And all this because my wonderful, amazing doctor decided I need to be working from home. I'm only four days into it, and look at all the improvements! If I've never mentioned that I love my OB, I'm doing it now. That woman is awesome. Also, the doc thinks there's a slight chance the baby might be breech, but she doesn't really think it is. We'll apparently find out for sure at my next appointment because that's when the internals start. The fun just never stops, does it?

In other news, we started our childbirth classes tonight. I apparently took the "wait to take the classes until you're further along" advice from everyone in the world a little too far. I'm the most pregnant person in the class. By kinda a lot. I mean, it's a five week class, and I'm due in six. Oops. So far, I'm not entirely sure this is going to do us any good, but I'll give it another week or so. At least I got a massage out of it tonight. B was being a very good coach tonight. Now all I need to do is talk him into giving me another one before bedtime. I couldn't get an appointment for a real massage until Wednesday, and my back is killing me.

Shoe lust

I like shoes. A lot. Being pregnant has really put a damper on my shoe fetish. Due to my unfortunate swelling, I had to give up heels months ago. Then, I had to give up flip flops and flats. I'm now stuck with nothing but tennis shoes. Blech. While I have nothing against tennis shoes in theory, I do not like wearing them with, oh, let's say, dress clothes (I also currently do not like wearing them because they require me to bend over and put them on and time them...not an easy task at this point in time...but that's for another post). I feel like a tool wearing tennis shoes to work. This whole situation has led to a serious case of shoe depression.

Adding to my shoe depression was my trip to Burlington Coat Factory tonight. I had never been to one of these before, but I'm always a sucker for these types of discount stores. Especially their shoe departments. So, against my better judgment, I took a stroll through the BCF shoe department, and it made me want to cry. There were a LOT of great, cheap shoes. For example, they had awesome Steve Madden boots for $29.99. Thirty bucks! I can't get a pair of boots at PayLess for that, let alone a pair of Steve Maddens. Unfortunately, I had to leave them there. Now, don't get me wrong...I didn't leave them because I was being sensible and realized that black stiletto boots aren't really in my future. I left them because I'm pretty sure that my poor, swollen feet are going to be bigger post-baby than they were pre-baby. I'm already distraught by the fact that I'm probably going to have to replace most of my shoe collection once my pregnancy is over; I just couldn't bear to add another pair of shoes to my collection only to have them ripped away by baby-related foot growth.

On a related note, a DSW is coming to my area in the next couple of months. This will be a problem for me. But the timing really is fortunate, since I'm going to have to replace all my shoes anyway.

Even more shower pics

I'm sure you guys are getting sick of shower posts, so I promise I'm done after this one. My mom finally got me some pics from my first shower (that happened almost a month ago), so here they are.

The lovely diaper cake my sisters-in-law made.

My sister, my older SIL, me, and my younger SIL (I LOVE her dress!).

Our one-year-old nephew playing with a balloon. This has nothing to do with the shower, but I felt the need to include a gratuitous cute baby picture.

The obligatory belly pic (sort of). 30 weeks, 2 days. It's amazing how much huger I've gotten in just a few weeks.

So, that should be it for the shower pics. I'm thankful for that because I've decided that I hate pictures of me opening presents. I look like a moron. Luckily for me, I won't have to look at any more of those.

More showering

After yesterday's shower, I'm really hoping we have all the baby crap we need. If not, I think we're going to have to move to a bigger house to hold it all. Seriously.

This shower was thrown by one of my college roommates and was for my family and friends. It was really nice, and, once again, we got a ton of stuff. Lump, B, and I are really fortunate to have so many loving, generous people in our lives. Here are the pictures.

The table decorations. It was rubber ducky themed. Cute, and not too baby-ish.

Me plus presents. This is really the only decent picture from this shower, so this is all the shower you get.

Me and my mommy (bet you can't tell we're related, can you?).

My roommates feeling up the baby. We forgot to get a picture together at the shower, so we had to recreate it at my house last night. The roommate on the left is the one who hosted the shower. The one on the right lent her culinary skills and helped with the food prep.

My belly at 33 weeks, 2 days. I feel like a whale. I'm sure that feeling is only going to get worse over the next six weeks.

You know you're hugely pregnant when...

...You get winded unloading your groceries from your cart. Yeah, that's how I roll.

(Go ahead and call me pathetic. I deserve it.)

I think the rest of the third tri is going to suck

I know I've only got eight weeks left, and I know I've generally been really lucky as far as symptoms go, but I'm going to whine for a minute. I had a doctor's appointment today, and it seems like my symptom-free pregnancy is quickly going down the drain. I'm not really very happy about this.

Before this appointment, my only real issue was ridiculous foot swelling. Well, now it seems that I've also got 1). hand/wrist swelling, which led to 2). pregnancy-induced carpel tunnel syndrome; 3). a strangely-positioned, super high baby, which = lots of painful squirming around in my ribs; and 4). potential pre-eclampsia. My BP isn't too bad (though it's been a bit above my baseline for my last two appointments), and I don't have protein in my pee or ridiculous weight gain (only one pound since last appointment. Woo!), but I've been getting at least one or two headaches a day for a little over a week, and, of course, I'm puffier than the Michelin Man.

(This is how swollen I am right now. Seriously. It's not pretty.)

I'm really hoping none of my little issues get any more serious over the next two months (especially that pesky pre-eclampsia thing). I kinda like having a pleasant pregnancy. I was really hoping to make it to the end without becoming a miserable whale, but the longer this pregnancy goes on, the less likely I think that is to happen. Boo.

Shower pics, part 1

I don't have any pics from shower #1 yet, but here are a few from shower #2. Enjoy!

My hostess with the mostest sticking her fingers in the cake. Please note how cute and glowy she looks.

Muh belleh. 31 weeks, 2 days. (The nasty looking red marks are from my non-materinty gaucho pants; they aren't stretch marks).

The baby from on top of the cake. I was told I needed to eat it for good luck. Then we figured out that it's plastic.

Butt Paste!

My friends are the best

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I have the greatest group of friends ever. My friend Brittany threw me a shower yesterday that was fabulous. It was small, fun, and had great food (I mean, half the reason I'm friends with Britt is her culinary skills). The ladies who came were incredibly generous. Some of the moms were nice enough to get me stuff that I didn't think to register for, but that they loved for their babies. I'm sure I'll be thanking them even more profusely for that stuff in the very near future. I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll update as soon as someone sends me some.

Thanks, ladies, for coming out for the fun and being so awesome. You're the best!

Third trimester sex sucks

Between issues of desire and issues of mechanics, it's just not that good.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Weekend update

This was a busy weekend, and I'm still exhausted. I've spent an inordinate amount of time over the past two days napping and trying to recover before having to go back to work tomorrow.

The only thing of any real importance that happened was my first shower. My sisters-in-law hosted it, and it turned out really well. The only little, teeny, tiny thing I was annoyed about was the shit game. My younger SIL decided it would be a great idea to play the game where you melt candy bars in diapers and make people guess what they are. This is the ONE thing I requested not be done at my shower. It's so freaking gross! Other than that, the shower was nice. The turnout was decent for Labor Day weekend, and we got a bunch of big things (swing, pack 'n' play, highchair, car seat), which I really wasn't expecting.

B got everything out and played with it as soon as we it got home. His intentions were good, but the whole thing sort of annoyed me because we don't have room for all this baby crap to be sitting out without being used, and there were a couple of things I was maybe hoping to exchange. I know that he can't leave new toys in their boxes, so I should have told him not to touch stuff, but I didn't think of that before I took my nap. I'm just pissed that I have a baby swing that won't be used for at least two or three months sitting in front of my front door because it won't fit up the stairs fully assembled, and a highchair that won't be used for at least five or six months sitting in the dining room. Completely unnecessary. I'm trying to put off getting out baby stuff for as long as possible. I hate my space being cluttered, and the best clutter prevention I've found so far is keeping unopened baby things in piles in the baby's room until it becomes absolutely necessary to get them out, put them together, and clean them. I know that ridiculous amounts of clutter are inevitable once the kid is born, but that doesn't need to happen yet. Ugh.

Other than that, we had lots of family stuff going on this weekend, and got to see our nephew, who's going to be one in a week and a half. It was busy, but fun. Now, I'm heading off to bed so I can function like a semi-normal human being at work tomorrow.