More photos of the burgeoning belly

These were taken during a brief excursion into the mountains this past Sunday (26 weeks, 3 days -- you're damn right I'm still counting!).





Here's my impression of a hippy chick giving whole-wheat dolphin-safe birth to a mystic granola baby. Behold, the miracle of life...



And because I didn't want to hog the spotlight, here's my handsome spouse modeling his own "sympathy belly" (yeah, right):

Just because I feel like some chair-skankin'...

Turn up the volume and skank along with me, Busta!

Mo' betta belly

At long last, here are the promised recent belly pics. They didn't come out that great (camera issues), and so I had to play with them in Photoshop a bit to get something workable. Nonetheless, I guarantee that my belly is unretouched.

Here's a shot from a couple of weeks ago (19 weeks):



Here are two shots taken yesterday (21 weeks) by Ben, my co-worker:

Preggo report, April '07

So, here I am…slightly more than halfway into my pregnancy; tomorrow marks week 21. For an in-depth (*ahem*) look at what’s happening inside of my uterine cavity (and every other pregnant womans' cavity at this stage), go here (or see the floating blob-in-the-orb widget at the top of this page).

I suppose it may seem odd that I’ve blogged so little about being up the pole…I guess I figured that the subject wouldn’t be all that interesting to my teeming masses of devoted readers. Heh. Perhaps more accurately, it’s not as though there’s any shortage of “mommy blogs” out there in the ether (I ought to know -- I’ve been skimming quite a few of them lately) -- but then there’s only one ME blog. Ok -- actually I have three of them, but who’s counting? It’s my party, and I’ll bore you to tears if I wanna. And in triplicate.

Pregnancy continues to be easier than I imagined it would be (so far). The legion complications, discomforts, humiliations and uncertainties I was expecting have amounted to minor inconveniences, and in some cases there have even been (snicker) “perks”, such as my fitting into a C-cup bra for the first time in my life, woo!

The back catalog of momma-to-be publications which I have perused are full of advice for “today’s active woman” – tips on modifying her exercise schedule, working “pregnancy breaks” into her daily activities, emphasizing the need to get enough rest and relaxation and not try to do too much, etc. But being the slacker that I am, “slowing down and backing off” is essentially my M.O., so I guess I’m hunky-dory on that point at least.

Mind you, this isn’t to say that I’ve been completely idle; I have, in my half-assed way, been trying to streamline my life in preparation for this grand event, but I think of it more in terms of “cleaning house” than “training for a marathon”.

**On that note: I am sick to death of the prevalence of competitive “Type-A” management-speak terminology found in most baby-related websites – does everything in life have to be turned into a (pun intended) motherfucking competition?! Enough already!

Anyway, lately I’ve been trying to put together a baby registry gift list, and for someone like myself (relatively ignorant of such pregnancy traditions until now), it’s an educational but daunting process. While I may have been aware of the vast infant and child marketing demographic before, it was usually within the context of my scorn and outrage against rampant consumerism (“JESUS CHRIST, how in the hell can people need all of that silly plastic crap??”).

Now that I am “in the foxholes” (so to speak) I proudly remain an atheist, but my outrage has been tempered a by a desire to “do this right” (whatever that means). For the time being, this desire seems to be manifesting in what kind of supplies I choose for my baby, but I’ll give myself credit for at least trying to do some research before I grab. Consumer Reports has been very helpful with some of the big-ticket items, and the advice of other mothers I know has been of great assistance (and sometimes confusion) as well.

That being said, I’ll add that I stay away from the pregnant lady forums for such information – a flood of enthusiastic but highly biased opinions usually leaves me feeling more perplexed than reassured, go figure. Furthermore, some of these women can be damned nasty…the view of the American cross-section via the internet is usually enlightening (and amusing), but when said cross-section is comprised entirely of hormonally-propelled women, well, let’s just say that the ground of rationality and logic can slope away pretty quickly. I’ve got enough of a hard time keeping my own emotional feet on the ground these days without a horde of spastic brood hens shrieking at my godless self via ASCII, thanks very much.

And how am I handling this physically, you may wonder? Well, just fine (according to my OB), although I’m far heavier than I’ve ever been before. Given that I was hardly a dainty petite flower even before I got knocked up, I seem to be handling the extra sixteen lbs or so that I’ve gained so far without too much difficulty, but some days are easier than others. Today I feel normal and springy, but yesterday every movement was like swimming through blackstrap molasses; I felt like a ton of poorly stacked bricks. Given that I’m likely to gain another 15 to 20 lbs (at least), it should be interesting to see how I cope…my back gets sore now just from sitting on my couch, and it’s getting harder for me to rise from a seated or laying down position without making terrific groaning and grunting noises (a source of much amusement to Matt, but I won’t deny him his laughs because he changes the cat boxes). Momentum seems to help me “launch”, but the time may come when the sudden motion combined with the gravitational pull of my huge belly could become downright dangerous. Yet another reason for me to stay the hell out of those tempting Franklin Mint outlet stores, eh?

On the lighter side (*rimshot*), I’ve discovered that pregnancy makes me horny -- very horny. Whether Matt is delighted or intimidated by this development varies from day to day (poor guy), but I’m trying to enjoy it while I can. Something tells me that in a couple of months the idea of having sex will seem about as appealing as riding a mechanical bull while naked, and after consuming several pounds of mashed potatoes (also while naked…?). Hell of an image, I know, but here’s hoping my libido sticks around for a while. I’m having more fun surfing internet porn these days than most fourteen year-old boys, and I don’t even have to steal my mother’s credit card to do it!

I’ve been promising new belly pics for some time now, and I plan to have Matt take some more of them tonight. Stay tuned for greater (MUCH greater) things to come.

By the way, in case any of the three people who read this blog don’t already know, Matt and I are expecting a son – for recent ultrasound images, go here.

Happy Easter!

Car!

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back into car-loan debt we go. Ach, to hell with it...we needed a car and we got one, and with a reasonably good deal. I must say that it's nice to come out of a car-buying experience without finding yourself with the psychological equivalent of a bleeding rectum stretched to the size of the
Eisenhower tunnel.

Anyway, behold our nifty new ride -- the 2007 Hyundai Elantra. A sensible little family truckster, wouldn't you say?


(ours is dark grey, and as such I have named it "Spalding". I miss that guy.)

Pre-parental tension

The pregnancy continues on it's life-altering course. Physically I'm doing just fine -- according to my OB I've gained about 9-10 lbs so far, which is well within an acceptable range for my gestation (currently 18 weeks). Not that you'd guess this to look at me; my belly is huge and I feel like a moose. I know, I know -- "shut up and be pregnant". I am, and all things considered it's not really bothering me all that much, even though I am as big as I've ever been in my life (soon to get even bigger, muah-ah-ahhhh!). I'm not looking forward to having to lose the weight, but what the hell...every pregnant woman in the world goes through this.

Matt and I have been having a rough time of it lately...things are OK now, but the past couple of weeks have been tense (to put it mildly). I attribute this to a combination of factors: I'm pregnant, hormonal and being weaned off anti-depressants; Matt's having major father-to-be anxiety and a stressful time at his job, and we're in a fairly dismal financial situation. Oh, and we're both trying to minimalize the booze intake while negotiating the huge amount of life tweaking / streamlining necessitated by the pending arrival of a screaming newborn. Furthermore, we have a history of going Klingon when trying to solve problems together...definitely candidates for Parents of the Century, eh folks? *rolling eyes*

Anyway, after I realized that acting like a hystrionic bitch wasn't helping anything, I decided to try and ease back on the chicken-little routine while somehow remaining focused on what needs to be done before the baby arrives. I can't say that I'm feeling very sure of myself right now...I'm as daunted by parenthood as Matt, and as I've mentioned our lives are hardly in that "Okay! NOW we're ready to have kids!" strata that the media would have me believe actually exists.

But instead of beating myself up for my perceptions of inferiority and buying into all of the gloomy predictions given to me by my own family ("Your life is a MESS!"), I'm making an effort to remain positive and proactive. I'm trying to find strength to convince my husband that everything will ultimately be alright, and maybe even BETTER than alright...I guess by doing that I'm trying to convince myself as well. Hopefully he and I can get in a situation where we're pulling together...I think it's possible, and am trying like hell to not let these hopes become buried under my fears.

Silly vamping belly shots @ 16 wks & 3 days

"Mammon is Queen"

Okay, like some other poseur faux-intellectual-walking-stereotype-of-the-left snobs you may know, I rarely watch network television. However, during a recent visit with my mother and sister in North Carolina, I found myself parked in front of an idiot box pretty much constantly, as it seemed to be the easiest way to avoid the pitfall of conversing with my relations. Yeah, I know -- "ask me about my dysfunctional family". Or better yet, don't.

At any rate, by the insistence of my sister and my own tendency toward cowardly avoidance of conflict, I sat through a portion of Oprah that may as well have been an infomercial for the latest self-help craze known as "The Secret". I choked down about ten minutes of bromidic viewer testimony and smugly authoritative commentary from Oprah's "expert panel" before (by way of preventing myself from asphyxiating on my own righteous indignation) needing to leave the room.

My husband -- who clearly has a higher outrage threshold than I, or at least is a lot more mean-spirited -- viewed the entire show, and highlighted it for me afterwards despite my clapping my hands over my ears and rolling around on the floor screaming "NONONONONONONO!!". And because I think he truly enjoys seeing me get pissed off (so long as it's not at him), he recently forwarded this Slate.com piece to me (quoted below). Which, in turn, I am now compelled to share with the three individuals who might actually read this blog. Vive le spleen!

"And at what point do we stop feeling like we have to take the good with the craven when it comes to Oprah, and the culture she's helped to create? I get nauseated when I think of people in South Africa being taught they don't have enough money because they're "blocking it with their thoughts." I'm already sickened by an American culture that teaches people, as "The Secret" does, that they "create the circumstances of their lives with the choices they make every day," a culture that elected a president who cried tears of self-congratulation at his inauguration, rejects intellectualism, and believes he can intuit the trustworthiness of world leaders by looking into their eyes. I'm sickened by a culture in which the tenets of the Oprah philosophy have become conventional wisdom, in which genuine self-actualization has been confused with self-aggrandizement, reality is whatever you want it to be, and mammon is queen."

~Peter Birkenhead