Expecting our Little Brother in November!

pregnancy calendar

Sunday, October 17, 2010

One Month to Go: Back Pain and Nesting

My ticker is in the last box and tells me I only have 30 days until my due date! Shall we crunch the numbers?

2 is the number of days until I can go into labor and still have my home-birth (36 weeks)
9 is the number of days until I am full term (37 weeks)
30 is the number of days until my meaningless due date (40 weeks)
44 is the absolute maximum number of days that I could be pregnant (42 weeks)

12 is the number of things on our "to do before the baby comes" list (which is actually going to be updated now, and get a lot longer again, but we definitely making progress).

Anyway, needless to say, we are in the home stretch! As I enter the ninth and final month of pregnancy, I am forced to conclude that this might be the worst month of all for me.

I was very lucky to have little to no morning sickness, to find my emotions and health stabilized by pregnancy, rather than disrupted, and generally to be a pretty happy and care-free pregnant lady. In retrospect the second trimester was such a godsend! Even my issues of heartburn and being uncomfortable tend to go in waves, where it will be bad for a few days, and then I'll feel better again.

But now, for over a week (maybe even two), I have had persistent and killer back pain. Whenever I have to sit or lay down, I have to arrange a million pillows around me so that I'm not horribly uncomfortable, and even then, it is pretty bad. I am still getting regular adjustments from the chiropractor, but it seems to make no difference. Basically, I have a 20 pound uterus (baby, uterus, placenta, and fluid) pulling on my weak back muscles. The fact that the same area is always in pain seems a testament to this theory. I can practically feel it happening as I type.

Several times a day I beg James to rub it--I get down on my hands and knees to relieve the pressure--I bounce on my birth ball hoping for a miracle. But it only seems to get worse. The only time I feel relatively okay is for a few hours in the morning. :-/

A few days ago I remembered with a cry of joy that I am able to take tylenol. Now I'm struggling not to take it around the clock. I take some and then a few hours later I start wondering when I can take more again. It is fairly miserable.

And yet despite my complaining, I'm still grateful for the fact that this is the worst part of the pregnancy for me so far. At least there is an end in sight!


Okay, moving on.


We had/are having another productive weekend. As I reported earlier, we finished installing our changing area and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! James loves it, too, and keeps saying how nice it is and how glad he is that I envisioned it. :-)

Today we also gathered up the blankets, pillows, and couch cushions from the living room and are doing a flea "fogger" in one of the upstairs rooms. We don't have a serious flea problem at this point, but I have had several itchy episodes and I think there were/are a few living in our couch area. So the fogger is supposed to work for seven months, and I love that I won't have to worry about fleas for all that time. So that is happening today.

We also moved the rug in the living room back a bit, which is part of getting the woodstove ready for inspection. As part of this, we got into dusting and vacuuming some of the surfaces in the living room--the old-fashioned radio and the lamps. I was recalled back to this post as I watched James vacuum off the lampshades, but they WERE super dusty so I'm glad he thought to do it!

Hopefully the rest of the day will be equally productive. We have to wash all the blankets and pillows that just got "fogged", and I need to switch out the summer and winter clothes. (You may be thinking that you are SURE this has been on my "to-do today" list before. You would be right, readers, and yet it is still undone.) :-/

James is studying for his big exam right now, so it would be an ideal time for me to start dealing with the clothes. Will she do it, folks? WILL SHE DO IT?

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