26 weeks
26 weeks
Originally uploaded by queentassone. What a wonderful, busy holiday! My Dad's family had a baby shower for us on Saturday - here's a posterity shot. More are on flickr.
I don't think it was Thanksgiving that did it, but I've finally felt like my belly is big again - I already felt that earlier but then after a while at each size I started to feel it was small and roomy again. Not now! My fundal height (pubic bone to top of uterus, measured circumferencially) went up 4 cm in the last 2 weeks. I was measured at 2 midwife appointments at Magee because I failed the glucose screen the first time and they were concerned I might have gestational diabetes. For the screen, they give you a sweet carbonated beverage and then test your blood sugar an hour later. They told me I could eat before it so I had fruit for breakfast, and then my blood sugar measured at 136 after the test - a point higher than the 135 cut off. Then for those 2 intervening weeks there was a bit of worry, diet altering (or at least monitoring) just in case, and speculating as to whether it was the fruit or diabetes that caused that result. Instead of requiring me to do the 3 hr diagnostic test where they take blood every hr in a similar setup, they said I could do the screen again so I went back on Tuesday and didn't eat anything before. My blood sugar this time was 96 - as the midwife said, I passed with flying colors! Big relief, as my grandmother is diabetic and my very very healthy aunt apparently had gestational diabetes during at least one of her pregnancies, and I tend to think I eat a fair amount of crap so I was almost prepared to think I could have it. It's the 3rd time I've had blood drawn for pregnancy-related tests and it's gotten better each time. The first time I could barely think for 3 hours afterwards, that's how much it affected my psychologically and physiologically. The second time they took less blood and I ate right after and the previous experience was still recent enough to refer back to and hold on to the fact that as an experience, it really wasn't as bas as I'd built it up to be in my mind. This last time I had all of that, but she used a butterfly needle and I DIDN'T EVEN FEEL IT!! It was the best thing I can imagine - if you ever have the option I recommend requesting a butterfly needle whenever you have blood drawn - I don't know why they would use anything else!
The baby shower was so nice - baby things are so adorable! It was kind of funny because I felt like the presents were for me, but of course they're all for the baby. I can tell the baby is considerably bigger now not just from my tummy but from the quality of the movements - my tummy moves a lot when the baby touches it and although the impacts feel less like kicks or blows and more like wiggles or snuggles now, they feel like they're the movements of a baby! instead of a less identifiable, more unknown entity.
Over the weekend there were lots of questions about names so I read some of the lists again and got some feedback. Here are some of the favorites for anyone interested:
Girls - Kaelin, Ariel, Kira, Alena, Ariana
Boys - Jayden, Kieran, Tristan, Galen, Kyler
Last night I read the baby "Hope for the Flowers," but got a *much* more active response from putting the cell on speakerphone down near my belly while talking to a friend. It was really funny, and made me start to rethink my stance on getting belly headphones to play the baby music. I'd been assuming the baby was hearing everything anyway, so just listening to classical music myself would entail playing it for the baby, but that reaction last night makes it seem the headphones might make a big difference. I had no idea what "Hope for the Flowers" was about the last time I read it, I guess 15 years ago. Turns out it's a really cool book, and I am really literal-minded.
This baby is changing everything about me and my life.. and not just once but continually. I find myself feeling very sorry for people who can't have this experience of being pregnant - for me it's so much more mind-blowing and more effective at accomplishing what I've used them for than any drug I've tried. I feel my mind and my ego levelled by awe in a new way and to a new degree on a daily basis. I have never felt so much gratitude in my life - for this opportunity, for this blessing, for this relationship, and for the other opportunities, blessings, and relationships in my life. My mind and heart expand and open and grow and learn at such a rate during this period that I can only try to allow the changes as they come, and not to let my old habits, my daily concerns, or my fears get too much in the way as I observe and feel and surrender.
The fear that gnaws in the back of my mind is that of losing this openness and optimism and alertness and gratitude, of regressing or continuing in other unrewarding directions once I lose the aid and facilitation of the hormones and the unavoidable identifications of myself with this other person, of my self and my baby with all possibilities, all beauty and greatness, of my self with all other mothers, of all other mothers with God and with all other souls..
This is, to me, what life is about. This is the great thing I have felt called to all my life. And yet with all the joy these thoughts bring me, I am afraid of moving past this as an experience - as a past - rather than adopting it as a way to see, to look at, to approach, all of life, my own life and all other life, at all times. I am afraid of forgetting.
With that in mind, I set my intention, without fear or self-doubt, to myself, to the universe, and to anyone who reads this and anyone who knows and supports me, to cultivate and internalize, to live and to demonstrate, the lessons of this experience as my ongoing attitude towards myself and others; as my approach to life, love, and learning; as the belief-set by which my reality will continue to be determined.
So be it, and so it is. WAHE GURU!
All my love.
As I sign this, my baby is either gettin funkay to Art of Tones - Catch the Pig (happens to be playing right now), supporting my intention, or exercising purely coincidentally. Whatever the case, I love you, my Angel!