Light at the End of the Tunnel

There's a light at the end of the tunnel. It's week 36. Granted, it's day two of week 36, but nonetheless, it's week 36. Little Man is still partying in there...I guess he still has some room to get his workout on, which is stunning as I feel as though I could sub in for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at this point.

Miranda made another good blog idea suggestion as I've hit another dry spell. Things I will do when I'm able to do them once LM is out and about.

Well first of all, with my due date being May 4 and all, many of my friends and coworkers are holding out hope for a Cinco de Mayo birthday so that margaritas will not only be tolerated by hospital staff, but perhaps required. Um, I don't need a holiday that I don't even celebrate to have an excuse to throw one down. I will have just completed +/- 40 weeks of pregnancy...and will have an awesome little man to show for it. If that's not an excuse to imbibe a celebratory cocktail then I don't know what is.

So the laundry list of things I have missed doing and therefore am looking forward to doing once my pregnancy is complete: lay flat on my back for as long as my infant son will allow me to during one stretch of time, have a cocktail (specifically either a bloody mary, mojito or margarita), jump in the air or do anything remotely athletic, fall down without panicking about repercussions for anyone other than myself, have a turkey sandwich from a deli, and the highlight: PLAY SPORTS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (to include soccer, softball, dodgeball and anything else anyone wants me to play).

"This is your third test today, Mama Bear. Your eggo is preggo, no doubt about it."

I Think I See My Dad

So we've been on a brief hiatus due to nothing really interesting to write about and prego having to do some work related to the WNIT (Go Buffs!). I still haven't come up with compelling blather from our final childbirth class. I'm still absorbing that one.

Ferris Bueller was on tonight before the Cubs game on WGN. That movie has a special place in the hearts of prego and Big Man for a number of reasons, one of which was some quoting that took place on our first date. Movie quotes are ever-present in our marriage and we often forget that people that don't live in our house don't have the same database of useless humor that we do...but that just makes it that much funnier to us. If Little Man doesn't start quoting Caddyshack when he emerges from my belly I might be stunned.

Anyways, when Big Man came home from work today, I was laying on the bed in Little Man's room snoozing. He came in to say hi to us, and somehow I convinced him to say a few words to his boy to try to see if anything would happen. I have believed for several weeks that LM responds to him but Big Man has previously not bought that. He's a believer now. He laid down on the bed and was talking to LM and listening to the belly for some type of response. Instead he got a swift kick in the face. LM totally booted him right in the cheek and he sat up immediately
and said some surprised and happy unmentionables. I think it's the closest he'll get to realizing what it feels like to have LM messing around in there all the time.

Shortly thereafter, I flipped on Ferris just in time to hear Cameron utter, "I think I see my dad..." and because of my movie quote fondness I found that quite funny. LM didn't see him, but he for sure heard him and felt him too.

"You should try talking to it. 'Cause, like, supposedly they can hear you even though it's all, like, ten-thousand leagues under the sea."

I Need a Coke

No cutesy titles today. I need a Coke, and since a Coke would require me to travel far away I'm going to write a brief blog entry to try and reenergize. But it's been a productive day. We saw the Lovely Ladies of Boulder Women's Care this morning. Again all things were perfect in blood pressure, measurements (give it up for 35 centimeters of extra belly) and heart rate. Little Man's head is pointing down, where I'm guessing it is going to stay.

His new trick: he likes to take his feet and push on my ribs like he's stretching. He pushes until his feet slide off and land in the middle of my liver or whatever organ is pushed up into my sternum area right now. It was amusing the first time....my amusement level with this game is waning.

We also visited a child care place today and I think we're good to go there. I'll go into detail on that another time when I don't require a Coke. I'm too tired to be witty. However you can all look forward to tomorrow since tonight we have our last childbirth class. That is SURE to provide me with blog fodder.

Vitameatavegamin

The title refers to the alleged health drink that Lucy does a commercial for on I Love Lucy that contains 23% alcohol.

I wonder if the beverage contained all the vitamins I am supposed to take if that would cancel out the booze factor and therefore be totally worth it. I take 8 pills a day: two prenatal vitamins (1 vitamin tablet plus and 1 softgel with 275 mg of DHA), two pills with 500 mg of calcium apiece, three fibertabs, and the most recent addition, one Ferrosequel. Ferrosequel is code for evil iron pill which contains 277% of the RDA of iron.

So just to review the final tally of what the nutritional count of my eight pills a day is (which doesn't even count the occasional, very necessary Zantac 75, thank you very much Boehringer Ingelheim. Whoever invented that stuff deserves a freakin Nobel Prize):

Vitamin A: 3,000 IU, Vitamin C: 120 mg, Vitamin D: 400 IU, E: 30 mg, B1: 1.8 mg, B2: 4 mg, Niacinamide: 20 mg, B6: 25 mg, Folic Acid: 1 mg, B12: 12 mcg, Calcium: 1620 mg, Iron: 79 mg, Magnesium: 55 mg, Zinc: 25 mg, Copper: 2 mg and a partridge in a pear tree. And an IU measures the potency of a drug, not its mass or weight, which is not helpful.

Coincidence, or Something Else?

First and foremost, Happy Easter. It's allegedly the earliest Easter "ever" and it will not be this early again for 60 years.

So today at Easter I learned the second troubling thing I have in common with Grandma Jane in my pregnancy with the Little Man. The first thing is that I had to have a root canal, and she did too when Uncle Eric was upon us. That would have been good information to have when we decided to virtually rid ourselves of dental insurance in December (I decision we will rectify during our "life changing event" in May) because "my mouth feels fine, how is yours?" was not a good decision making process.

The second thing is kind of funny actually. I don't know how many of you readers are familiar with the Linea Nigra, which is this line that runs from the sternum all the way down to....and actually everyone has but when you are pregnant there is some pigmenting or something that goes on that makes it show up. Usually it's just white and blends in on those of us who are super fair skinned. Anyways, as that emerged on my belly as it grew, I started to notice that my belly button seemed to be shifting to the right ever so slightly. As the weeks have continued to add up (this is day one of week 35 for those of you keeping score at home) I've noticed that it wasn't that it seemed to be shifting. It flat out moved. In fact it's relocated like a full half inch to the right.

Well today future Aunt in Law Jennie was admiring my girth and I think GJ might have caught a glimpse and I heard her mutter something about her belly button having moved and it never went back. I was stunned. I had mentioned this to childbirth class when we split up into mom and dad groups, and I was the only one who was having this happen. I mentioned the root canal thing and again, I was the only who who was having this happen. Apparently the Zundel/Anhold female gene leads to bad teeth and mobile belly buttons during pregnancy. What next I wonder...

"Yeah, I'm a legend. You know, they call me the cautionary whale."

You Seem to Be Getting Pregnanter These Days

So I'm having some writer's block. My friend "Miranda" suggested about 25 topics I could attempt to write about but each of them would vastly exceed the already stated "nothing is sacred" comment that Grandma Jane threw out at the baby shower on March 1.

Her name is "Miranda" because, "She is the no-nonsense mom of a toddler like Miranda from Sex and the City." Miranda and "Miranda" are also both lawyers. But "Miranda" does not have red hair, although she is married to an Irish Catholic like Miranda. She wanted a code name given the topics she nominated for discussion and she doesn't want anyone to think less of her. Which is hilarious as she's so kickass it's simply not possible. She's like my Yoda. Thanks Yoda.

In any case, among those topics I deemed inappropriate for sharing: rashes (I haven't had any but still), physical symptoms, horror stories, breastfeeding, physical symptoms, sex in pregnancy and physical symptoms. I mentioned physical symptoms three times because I have many, many of those that I could share, but I will leave those to one-on-one conversations with people who are foolish enough to ask. I mean my stomach is swollen approximately 34 centimeters and honestly that's just one of about 57 physical symptoms. So yeah, I seem to be getting pregnanter these days.

Shout outs: Jason's friend David Thompson and his wife Juli who gave birth to a as-yet-unnamed baby girl yesterday morning in Ohio. Congrats! Well done Juli!

Fair and Balanced? I Think Not.

So we are 75% through with our childbirth class and I'm kind of happy about that. It's actually been an interesting experience and yes, we got to watch more TMI-style videos. That's TMI as in Too Much Information, not TMZ, home of Britney Spears Watch.

We finally reached the point in class where we review epidurals. I've been looking forward to this given my aforementioned commitment to a narcotic-aided birth experience. Our instructor goes out of her way to tell us that, essentially, she couldn't care less if we use "medication" or not and has no opinion whatsoever, blah blah blah. This is her approach to a Fair and Balanced and Fox News style presentation, so I beg to differ. If that were actually true then we wouldn't have spent the first seven hours of class to date discussing hard core labor and delivery with the word pain really never getting mentioned. We are given various squats and hanging positions and 19 breathing patterns to address the contractions, but again, the word pain is conspicuously absent from the discussion, let alone any adjectives to describe the level of pain...such as excruciating, train wreck, vomit-inducing, etc.

So when talk turned to medication we got the "I don't care" schpiel, and then spent 5 minutes discussing the benefits and 45 minutes discussing the risks, some factual, some "anecdotal" (her word, not mine) of epidural. The risk she reflected on most was that I'll have approximately four different things strapped to me and I won't be able to get up and go to the bathroom. Is that supposed to make me not want to do it? So let's see, have four things strapped to me or experience a level of pain that cannot be adequately described using the English language as we know it? That's not really a hard choice for prego. We then watched a video that contradicted a portion of the risk discussion. I knew going into this class that there would be an attempt to steer me away from my epidural, but it did not work. I'm having one. Deal with it.

"I'll have a Maker's Mark, please. Up."

He's Already Kind of Spoiled

So obviously we have no plans to spoil our child. However when he is a teenager or young adult, I wonder if he'll be jealous to know that while he was in utero, he was able to attend:

September 29 - Colorado 27, No. 3 Oklahoma 24. Though we did have to leave at halftime due to his mother's at that time "mystery illness." It wasn't a mystery to me or the Big Man, but it was to everyone else we know besides our parents and siblings. Uncle Eric went out of his way to make a scene of asking me if I needed anything, secretly hoping to reveal our secret. I didn't really find it that funny, but he and future Aunt Jennie did. In any case, at least Big Man and I got to see the ending at home, which was better than nothing I guess.
October 15 - Game 4 of the 2007 NLCS at which we saw the Colorado Rockies win the pennant. I'll be honest...I bought these hoping that the Rox would be playing the Cubs, but it became clear around October 7 that this could possibly be the clinching game to send the Rockies to the series. We were in the very last row at Coors Field in deep center, but Holliday's home run landed right near us. It was sweet. Even sweeter was pulling over on the Diagonal Highway at 12:30 am on the way home. Not.
October 27 - Game 3 of the 2007 World Series. Colorado lost but who cares. He went to the World Series.

And now, on March 20, he gets to attend the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament. I think those are pretty cool things. Maybe when he's bigger he'll get to actually go and watch these events as opposed to just feeling it via prego's hysteria.

"You should've gone to China, you know, 'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events."

Why Bobby, Why?

This is not a Little Man related entry, and for that I apologize but it needed to be said.

I'm sorry I have to comment on Bobby Knight's choices in attire for a second consecutive day.

Why is he wearing an orange collared shirt under his green ESPN sweater? Who dresses him? Does he have a mirror in his hotel room in Bristol? Big Man says, "You can take him out of southern Indiana but you can't take the southern Indiana out of him." Is this how people dress there? I find that hard to believe.

Big Man finds it hilarious that everyone else at the desk has on a suit and he is there in his badly combined shirt and sweater outfit. Awful.

Low VOC Paint? How Bad Would the Real Stuff Be Geez!

So future Aunt-in-Law Jennie helped us pick out some fabulous colors for Little Man's room last weekend during turkey fest. Prego bought the paint this week, and Big Man undertook the task of applying said paint to the walls solo. :( Prego feels bad about that. I was hoping to help out, but it turns out that even VOC Paint reeks and gave me a headache almost instantaneously when I entered the room.

Not to mention I'm totally useless at moving large furniture items as well. Such as dresser, changing table, bed, shelves and crib. So Big Man did it all alone while I went to the mall to get replacement bedding for the aforementioned bed. It was 10 years old. It was time.

Anyways, Big Man did a bang up job painting the room and then moving back the furniture. My contribution was washing the new bedding and putting it on the bed. Yay me. I also wrote down Powerball numbers...sadly we didn't win. My next contribution will be putting away LM's new crap in drawers and if we finish touching up paint tomorrow, taking photos to share with you since you are all dying to see our Latte and Distance (variation of Navy blue) colored room.

Sidenote: it's conference tournament time and Bobby Knight got hired as an analyst after he weirdly quit at Texas Tech. Bobby Knight has on a purple paisley shirt under his tan sweater right now on ESPN. He's been wearing red or black collared golf shirts for like 50 years so he clearly dug this one out from deep.

BWC Week 32

So now I go see the Lovely Ladies of Boulder Women's Care every other week. We check on Little Man's heartbeat and on prego's blood pressure and weight and sugar and apparently next appointment we check iron (yippee). This week I went on Wednesday. I haven't ever reported on any of the above deets in the Countdown, but today I will reveal one detail. For the first time in this process, I failed to gain weight. Don't get any ideas about me publicizing actual NUMBERS because that's just not going to happen. But I was glad to at least forgo one cycle of weigh-ins that resulted in extra lbs.

I finally met the final doc at BWC as well so now I've met them all. Whoever draws the short straw to be on call when LM makes his entrance will be the lucky one. Also on Wednesday we had childbirth class part deux. The video wasn't nearly as graphic this time, which was nice. Sometimes I think they are kind of a waste of time given my decision to get my epidural on, particularly when they show these women wandering around the hospital in robes bent over laboring. That will so NOT be me. I will add this...the Labor and Delivery Suites at BCH are big pimpin. Jacuzzi, rocking chair, desk, tv, dvd player, etc. Big Man can nap on the couch if the process gets long. We're sure lucky to have such a nice hospital for LM to make his entrance.

That's all I've got today...third tri fatigue is setting in. It's also Friday and the Buffs are on the tube in about four minutes vs. OU. Boilers on tonight vs. Illinois. We may or may not paint LM's room.

"No, this is not a food baby all right? I've taken like three pregnancy tests, and I'm forshizz up the spout."

Baby Shower, Part Deux, Etc.

So unlike the friends of Agent Sydney Bristow, people do know how to celebrate our new Little Man's impending arrival Baby Shower style. The Lovely Ladies of CU Athletics threw it down last night at Coach Kenneally's clubhouse and it was very entertaining. Again the generosity of our friends continues to amaze me and I can't thank everyone enough for the schwag for LM. Yep that's me pregnant at right. That's all I can promise for now.

Some other housekeeping details: the turkey on Saturday ended up fabulous for those of you who were wondering. Big Man had to do much of the work thanks to the first appearance of Braxton Hicks, who has not made a return engagement thank goodness. Not painful, just annoying. You never think you can down five liters of water a day until you have to do it.

The root canal I mentioned in the prior post was an intentional reference, since I'm still in the middle of getting one completed. You have a whole new appreciation for how your internal anatomy changes to accommodate a growing fetus and his uterine household when you suffer from a severe gag reflex during certain aspects of dental work. Without going into much detail, I was reminded today that my stomach is like four inches from my mouth during an incident at Dental Health of Boulder. I won't be going back. I'm too ashamed.

"I'm a blessed vessel. The only thing interesting in YOUR stomach is Taco Bell."

Doctors Are Sadists Who Like to Play God and Watch Lesser People Scream.

Part of my enjoyment of Juno was obviously the inclusion of Allison Janney as Bren the stepmother. She was decidedly un-CJ of West Wing until the she uttered the line above. She may as well have been on the faux-West Wing set for that line.

Which brings me to the subject of today's sharing...drugs. People's new favorite question (since they know when it's due, they know it is in fact he, they know Little Man has a name, and really they are tired of asking me how I am feeling because they know that I will not sugarcoat my answer) is "So are you going to use drugs in delivery?"

Obviously for millions of years women have been doing this. And only in the last 30 or so has a way for childbirth to be relatively pain-free become available. So kudos to the millions of years of women, which includes my mother who informed me last night that forceps were required to pull my fat head from her lady business, who went ahead and did this anyways sans painkillers. Even more kudos to those who repeated the process again later.Honestly, I think this question is nonsense. Here's why.

Someone quite obviously saw a need to create a way for this experience to become decidedly less unpleasant. Much like the invention of local injections for root canals and other dental work, the creation of Advil and other medicine to make certain experiences, voluntary or otherwise, less unpleasant for the participants, the question is, why would you NOT take advantage? Seriously. I hear all the 1,000 arguments that are being presented to me by various women who are clearly better people than me in addition to Lamaze instructors, etc., but you know something?

So WHAT if that means I spend labor in bed? So WHAT if there is a thing stuck in my back? I DON'T CARE. If this process of squeezing a watermelon out of an opening that is basically the size of a lemon can be less excruciating, then BRING IT ON. In the words of Juno, "When do I get that spinal tap thing?" The answer to your question is yes. Bring on the spinal tap thing.

I'm Already Pregnant, So What Other Kind of Shenanigans Could I Get Into?

So after many weeks of waiting around for someone to go see it with, I saw Juno this morning. I always thought Ellen Page was clever anyways because she has the best lines in X Men 3 (yeah that was her that said that to the Juggernaut) and being in my particular state of being, obviously the movie appealed to me.

Overall, it's a pretty good movie I think. The things she describes to her parents when she reveals that she is knocked up about how she feels are hilarious and hit very close to home. Then when she goes to meet with Derek from Silver Spoons and Agent Sydney Bristow about giving them her kid for private adoption and she reveals that her due date is MAY 4! My friend Sally O'Malley and I literally leapt from our seats in uncontrolled fits of laughter and disbelief that I share my due date with the fictional 16 year old Juno. I'm kind of pissed that the scores of people who already saw the film without me didn't pick up on that and share it with me. Thanks friends for not having my due date tattooed on your brain. 'Preciate it.

Anyways, good movie. Good one-liners...I leave you with this one because Big Man and I are attempting to prepare a turkey for the first time EVER today and it's just not going well. So here is my line of the day from Juno. It might be a re-occurring feature here at the CTC blog.

Juno: "I could so go for like a huge cookie right now, with like, a lamb kabob simultaneously."
Amen sister. Amen.

Babies Eat Brain Cells

I was reviewing my childbirth post from yesterday and saw something that made me gasp in horror. I used the word "are" instead of "our" for the first time. Ever. There are not words to express my disappointment at this development. I tried to explain to my friend Dr. Stacy how my Little Man is slowly eating my brain but I had no real tangible example. Well, there it is. I said are not our. I don't know if I will be able to look in the mirror today.

Just So We're Clear

Don't expect to see any photos of me on here anytime soon. Unless I can find a photograph of myself pregnant that doesn't make me look like I should be playing offensive line for the Denver Broncos, there will be no sharing of photographs of Pregnant Lew at anytime. And since I can't imagine (even with the gift that is Photoshop) such a photo will ever exist, don't hold your breath. The photo at left accurately depicts my current look (except my legs are way more tan and I'm seven years younger then).

Instead I will post photos of Big Man. They're nice to look at.

Childbirth Class

So last night we attended our first childbirth class. I have been dreading this since the moment we signed up, all in anticipation of being forced to watch the very graphic birthing video. To preface, first of all my doctor said that we didn't even HAVE to go to class that the nurses at BCH are so badass that it would go very smoothly with or without class. So I of course was hoping to get out of it, but Big Man talked me into it.

So I'm the door of Gate 2 and heading to class when Big Man calls and tells me that there is an emergency at work and he may not be able to make it. How convenient. Just kidding he wanted to be there and did actually eventually make it close to on time, but for a minute there I felt like a character in some Lifetime movie about single teenage mothers.

Class begins and we all go around and introduce ourselves and share how far along we are (31.5 weeks), our due date (May 4), our name, what we do, and who our doctor(s) is (the lovely ladies of Boulder Women's Care). Then we talk about what we want to learn in class, the stages of labor, yada yada yada. Then it's video time.

It starts out innocent enough and then it becomes apparent that a lot of this is home movies. The amount of grossness is minimal. Then the story turns towards pushing and delivery. After one shot of this woman's lady business in the throes of pushing and I'm done. I am now counting ceiling tiles and occasionally glancing at the Big Man for the reaction...and I know exactly when this chick has pushed out her kid when the entire class gasps. I wouldn't say it was in horror so much as in disbelief with a dash of horror. Then my favorite part of the video was when she delivered her placenta and someone (I don't know who, doctor or partner, as I was still counting ceiling tiles at this point) was holding it and described for the viewing audience which part of it was attached to mom and which part was not. Big Man's face was PRICELESS.

And thus ended the video portion of class. The lights came on and all the couples (there are 10 in our class) just sort of stared at each other and at other couples like "I can't believe we just watched that." I apparently had quite a look on my face (to be honest I was laughing at Big Man still) because the instructor asked me if i was alright. Classic. I didn't even see the brutal part.

Second Baby Shower Ever

So Saturday I attended just the second baby shower that I've ever been to. It happened to be mine. First of all, holy crap. What an overwhelming amount of stuff! I mean registering was intense to begin with...when you don't have kids, you really don't have any concept of the volume of crap needed to do this kid thing. Not to mention all the crap they try and get you to buy that you don't actually need. It took like four hours to open all the gifts and people were starting to fall asleep from boredom I think. I learned how much I really DON'T actually like being the center of attention...contrary to popular opinion amongst my immediate family members :)

I will say this: Me and Big Man and Little Man sure do appreciate all the stuff that our friends and family got for us...well for Little Man really. He's going to have lots of fun in his outfits and with his fun new toys. So thanks! This is a photo of the Big Man holding a very cute Cubs outfit for the Little Man from Great Grandma Zundel...how about that hat?