Mamakaze

While pregnancy is divided into three equal units of time called trimesters, this particular pregnancy can also be divided into three periods of time that aren’t so equal.

In the first trimester and early second trimester, when my days were spent sleeping, forcing down food and barfing, each of those days felt like an eternity. The weeks dragged by so slowly at the beginning. And each of those weeks meant exciting developments for our little fetus — first a heartbeat, then fingers and toes, and later on, the development of taste buds and hair follicles. Then, finally, I felt those first little tickles of movement.

After I felt the baby move, we entered the second period of time — the one I barely remember because it flew by. No longer sick and now able to monitor our wee one’s well-being simply by lying down and waiting for her flutters, I had boundless energy, a great appetite and a perennial good mood. The baby’s organs all were formed and really all that was left was growth and development, so each week was a little less exciting.

Suddenly, weeks were over before they began. Sure, I got bigger and bigger — as did our little daughter — but with few big physical milestones or major discomforts, it was much like not being pregnant at all (except, of course, for a little frantic nesting behavior).

Even as the baby became viable and turned head-down and I became more enormous and uncomfortable with each passing day, the weeks flew by. Mostly, I think, because the baby had nowhere to sleep.

Then, around Week 31, the third time period began. As happened during the first several months, the weeks in these last months have been dragging by.

With the room furnished and the baby big enough to survive outside the uterus, it’s now just a matter of weight — and waiting.

Each week is spent ticking off days — not toward delivery, which I view with a mixture of anticipation and dread, but toward the next chiropractic appointment.

Each day is spent ticking off hours. How many hours before my indigestion is gone and I can eat again? How many hours can it possibly take to pack a simple labor bag? (Lots, when it takes you five minutes to haul yourself up and waddle from one room to the next!) When I’m up and around, I want to be in bed where my belly is free from the pull of gravity. When I’m in bed, I can’t wait to get out so my arms will stop tingling.

Each of those long hours is spent ticking off minutes (which, these days, are about as long as hours used to be). Minutes it takes for my swollen feet and aching hips to carry my giant, heavy body to the bathroom. Minutes it takes to lift myself from lying down to a semi-sitting position and catapult my enormous girth out of bed. Minutes between Braxton-Hicks contractions. Minutes for the Gaviscon to start working. When I’m in the car, I count the minutes until I can get out and stretch those screaming back muscles. When I’m shopping, I count the minutes until I can get back in the car and rest my throbbing, sausagelike feet and support the leaden beach ball that is my belly.

Needless to say, while I am happy there are only three weeks left, I am worried about how long those weeks will feel. Can three weeks seem longer than an entire trimester? I worry that they will.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In other, less depressing news, the baby is now considered “term” and my labor bag is almost completely packed. To those relatives who received emails informing you that I had gone into labor, sorry about that! Chris was writing a little application that would automatically send out emails and while testing it, he accidentally hit the wrong key. Oops! Wishful thinking!

And here are the Week 37 belly pics, which, according to my doctor, may or may not be the last shots of my expansive, baby-filled midsection.

Here they are at last: The long-anticipated Week 36 belly shots! I promise that they were shot at the very beginning of Week 36. If you don’t believe me, check out Week 37’s pictures and tell me my butt hasn’t gotten bigger. You can’t, can you?

Hey, I’m just glad the pictures don’t include my ankles. How fat are they, you ask? Well, if this were the ’80s, there’d be no way I’d fit any of my jeans.

(And yes, this was not really posted two days ago. I just didn’t want my belly-pic posts to be out of order, so I “cooked” the date.)

During these last several weeks of pregnancy — even as I’ve yearned for the glorious day when my water breaks in the middle of a crowded Wal-Mart, signaling the end of months of back spasms, pelvic pain, ugly fat feet and heartburn — it hasn’t really occurred to me how very close the baby’s arrival is. When I look at the little ticker Chris created for the top of Pele’s website to tell us how many days are left before the wee one’s grand debut, the words “only 23 more days” just don’t really sink in.

As I began packing my labor bag a few days ago, only in the back of my head did the thought lurk that not only was I preparing in case I went into labor early, but that — with just more than three weeks left before my due date — this was something I really did need to get done, and soon!

In fact, as much as I’ve pined for my old flat and nonviolent tummy, painless pelvis and visible feet, until yesterday those dreams of mobility and comfort have seemed like some faraway, fuzzy mirage.

Then I went to my 36-and-a-half-week appointment with Dr. Goncalves.

After he finished the exam (the baby is fabulous as usual, of course), he told me that he’d be out of town for a week and I’d be seeing one of his associates at my next visit.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” he said as I headed for the door.

“If you’re still pregnant.”

My jaw dropped wide enough to expel a fat, full-term baby.

Of course I know that 37 weeks is considered “term.” But it hadn’t really occurred to me (as much as I’ve wished it to be so) that our little bundle might actually arrive before the 40-week mark. In fact, I’ve been pretty prepared for a 48-hour labor on May 22, when I will be induced because it’s two weeks past the wee one’s due date.

Now that I am beginning to realize that the baby could come, in Dr. G’s words, “any day,” I am feeling just a wee bit panicky.

Will the baby wait until tomorrow’s trip to pick up a hot water bottle, massage oil and daddy’s snacks? Will her arrival precede that of her changing table? Can we hold labor off until our carseat-installation appointment next Wednesday?

In all likelihood, when you consider my family history and general bad luck, we will have had everything ready for a month and I will be suffering from multiple cracked ribs before a big dose of Pitocin and an amniohook collaborate to bring our reluctant, nine-pound offspring into the world.

Hmm. On second thought, if my water should break in Wal-Mart tomorrow, maybe that wouldn’t be so very scary.

As any natural-childbirth person will tell you (while they’re kindly informing you that accepting pain relief will surely leave you an incontinent paraplegic), pregnancy is not an illness. However, what nobody will tell you before you get pregnant is that it is a disability.

Because of my disability, my birthday wish list is drastically different from those of previous, carefree years.

You may recall that, since Week 26 when the baby turned head-down, I have been coveting the Hoverounds often sported by elderly folk. Now that she has gained about four pounds and dropped, it is even more clear to me that I should have some sort of special placard on my car.

Let’s count the ways pregnant women resemble people with officially recognized disabilities.

1. The elderly and the physically challenged are slow-moving. Well, let me just say that when I was swimming laps at the aquatic center last week, the 92-pound grannies were swimming circles around me, their gnarled talons flailing past like (relatively) crazy windmills as I struggled with each laborious stroke to move forward instead of sink like a rock. As for getting out of the pool, I can only say that I’m really lucky it’s a graduated pool and you can literally walk out of the shallow end. Getting out of a normal pool would have been impossible without a chairlift.

My lack of mobility also manifests itself when I arise from my bed or a chair, both of which take 5 minutes if no one is there to help, and when I am shopping. It is not a pretty thing when arthritic nonagenarians glare contemptuously at you in the mall because you are walking too slowly and holding them up.

2. It’s not just a matter of speed for the elderly and physically challenged, though; every movement is excruciatingly painful. Apparently, this is true in the last weeks of the third trimester as well, although everyone I know who has given birth conveniently forgot to tell me this until after Chris and I conceived our little pelvis-cracker.

One would think that the back and rib pain would be bad enough, but Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, decided that rather than equipping women to pop out babies without our hips having to loosen up, it would be amusing if our pelvises were to spend the last month or two of pregnancy slowly disintegrating. Thus, each step threatens to pull our hips out of our sockets, and the baby feels like it’s going to crack through the pubic bone at any second.

Fortunately, the people who design parking lots realize that pregnancy can be as crippling as arthritis and have come up with an excellent invention called “Stork Parking.” Situated right near the handicapped parking spots, new- and expectant-mother parking spots allow giant, uncomfortable women to cut hours off the time it takes them to make the painful waddle from their car to the much-needed food inside the grocery store. I love you, person who invented Stork Parking!

3. Now, if only they would designate Stork Bathroom Stalls! I have found myself using handicapped stalls simply because:
a) My bladder sometimes just cannot wait for a regular toilet to open up (which very nearly necessitates another old-folk and disability hallmark, the adult diaper) and
b) when I turn to grab some toilet paper, my belly turns with me and smacks the T.P. holder. Then the baby gives my bladder a retaliatory jab and I have to pee some more. Clearly I have grown too big to fit in a normal stall!

4. Not only do I covet old and disabled folks’ large, usually unoccupied toilets, along with Hoverounds and chair lifts. I also have finally figured out why they buy those silly reacher/grabber things — it’s HARD to bend over when you’re painfully creaky. Even more so when there is a giant beach ball to bend around. Every time I drop something — which is often, because pregnant people are clumsy — I wish I had one of these handy (if dorky and unsightly) contraptions.

And just yesterday, as I was painstakingly creeping up the stairs, trying desperately to inflict minimal misery upon my back and at the same time trying not to hurt my hips, I realized I had either dropped to a new low in assistive-technology envy or just been hit by a stroke of genius.

The latest third-trimester accessory I crave? The ultimate in arthritic-granny comforts — my very own stair lift!

Yeah, I may not need an epidural, but I definitely need something to help me get around, retrieve the things I drop, and ascend the stairs. (Right now, that something is named Chris and is probably tired of lugging around a massive, practically paraplegic preggie.) If anyone has a spare stair lift or Hoveround they’d like to donate, my birthday is April 29. Although believe you me, at this stage in the pregnancy it is not my birthday I’m looking forward to!

Coming soon: Week 36 belly shots. Only four weeks to go! (Or one, if I go just barely to term, or six, if Dr. Goncalves has to induce.)

With parents like Chris and me, no wonder our baby is a little mischief-maker. It’s in her genetic code.

Friday morning, Chris came up to check his email, so I got off the laptop and stood nearby, patiently waiting for him to finish his business. Suddenly, fluid started dripping rapidly onto the kitchen floor. Chris, in the thrall of the silicon gods, did not appear to notice. In a voice tinged with panic, I prodded, “Honey, I’m leaking!”

“Did your water break?” he asked.

“No, it was just this Ziploc bag I’ve had down my pants for the last hour,” I said. “April Fool!”

But Chris got me back 10 times better yesterday.

All week long, I’d been looking forward to Sunday lunch with his parents. Chris’ friend John and his girlfriend Rose were coming up to visit, and we were going to have crepes at the parents’. Jan makes the world’s best crepes, so I was disappointed for multiple reasons later in the week when Chris told me John and Rose would not be able to make it.

But when Chris informed me that we would still be having crepes, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Only fools dare to separate a pregnant woman from promised breakfast confections!

Yesterday, Chris woke me up with McDonald’s pancakes and then drove me to his parents’ for crepes. I should have been suspicious, but then Chris is a man who can (if necessary) eat two full meals in three hours. I should also have been suspicious when he was acting all time-conscious, since, if being late made one fashionable, Chris would be Karl Lagerfeld. But since he’d told me the Yankees-Red Sox season opener was scheduled for 5 Eastern time, I thought nothing of it.

I should have been even more suspicious when he followed a painfully slow pickup to his parents’ house instead of zipping around it. When we pulled into the driveway and it was filled with cars, red flags definitely should have been raised. But then again, Chris’ mom makes excellent crepes. Why wouldn’t the whole town show up?

“I think your mom must have been messing with us when she told us she’d just woken up and hadn’t started the crepes,” I remarked idiotically.

“Maybe everybody’s messing with you” was Chris’ cryptic reply.

I walked into the kitchen and when I saw a table full of desserts and NO CREPES, I suddenly realized what Chris had meant.

Chris and his mom had somehow managed to throw me a huge surprise baby shower, and I had somehow managed — for weeks — to be completely oblivious to all the big neon signs saying “You are being fooled with.”

So our little girl has two incredibly sneaky parents (and one sneaky Nana, too!) and now, thanks to the Wild Women of Oliver and some sweet people from prenatal class, she is also spoiled absolutely rotten.

The wee rib-kicker is now 35 weeks plus one day along, which means that in 13 days, she will be considered term, and five weeks from now she will be overdue. With my giant belly and our now-full nursery, there’s no getting around the fact that we are going to be doing nighttime feedings very soon!

And here’s what you’ve been waiting for — the Week 35 belly shots:

PEACHLAND, B.C. — As people in this sun-drenched Canadian valley know all too well, Lake Okanagan is host to an ancient sea monster the locals call Ogopogo. While some folks think this elusive creature is a figment of overactive minds, the prevailing theory is that Ogopogo is some sort of primitive deep-sea creature left over from a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Like its more famous (but less-often sighted) counterpart, the Loch Ness monster, Ogopogo is believed by many to be an Elasmosaurus. But Ogopogo is not the only huge, fearsome beast in the region.

As many Okanagan denizens can attest, another possible prehistoric remnant, the voracious Pregosaurus, roams the valley in search of food, her thunderous footsteps echoing through grocery stores and baby boutiques from Kelowna to Penticton. Occasionally, her unremitting hunt for prey takes her as far as Oliver, where only yesterday this ravenous beast is reported to have devoured — in the course of 90 minutes — an estimated 40 chocolate eggs, heaps of pototoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, turkey, an entire plateful of stuffing, and a slice of pumpkin pie.

The Pregosaurus belongs to the order Primates, is omnivorous, and bears a strong resemblance to Homo sapiens, the main difference being an abdomen roughly 10 times larger. Unlike her human counterparts, which move with relative ease, the Pregosaurus has adapted to her unusual abdominal shape by walking more like a penguin.

While she may be clumsy, the Pregosaurus packs quite a bit of physical clout. Aside from her formidable appetite for anything carbon-based, this dinosaur’s volatile cocktail of hormones spells death to those who disturb her slumber or her many daily eating periods. When subjected to discomforts — such as day-to-day existence — the Pregosaurus emits a shrill whining sound, which has been known incapacitate those nearby. Additionally, her massive belly can cause significant damage to unfortunate animals who stumble across the Pregosaurus, even when the abdomen is moved inadvertently as the creature turns to eye nearby sustenance or baby clothes.

A special acid pouch in her esophagus allows her to breathe fire upon those who venture too close, along with aiding in digestion of food (as her stomach is situated in her neck rather than, as logic would suggest, in her enormous abdomen).

However, the Pregosaurus has one great weakness. While she can waddle quite rapidly when the dairy aisle is in sight, the dinosaur does not have the ability to run from predators. Scientists theorize, based on the skeletal structure of the Pregosaurus, that the animal has actually de-volved. While the legs of this dinosaur are built for running, jumping and climbing, the Pregosaurus has not been witnessed doing anything more physical than swimming, stretching, and a rapid, awkward waddle. It is believed that while her legs could run, were they on another animal such as H. sapiens, the sheer size of the Pregosaurus’ gigantic belly limits her speed and mobility. Scientists suspect that the parts of her legs that suggest running ability are vestigial in nature and not indicative of the dinosaur’s actual abilities.

While she is limited in mobility, some researchers believe the Pregosaurus has a level of intelligence similar to higher primates and dolphins. However, conflicting information on her intellect has split the scientific community.

While records indicate she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and completed some pre-med coursework, suggesting that she has sophisticated communication skills and a basic grasp on following instructions and memorizing information, those who claim to have encountered the Pregosaurus say her vocabulary is limited to things pertaining to gestation and caring for young, and that she cannot retain information for more than three minutes. Citing this evidence, some scientists assert that while the Pregosaurus may indeed have attended university, she forced members of H. sapiens to complete her coursework — perhaps by threatening to devour them — or that some cataclysmic event, such as a meteorite, destroyed what intelligence she may have had.

Some archaeologists maintain that the I.Q. of the Pregosaurus is similar to that of H. sapiens and that she simply chooses to have only one topic of conversation, but those in the first group contend that her fixation on bearing and raising young has overtaken areas of her brain that in other species are used for memory and communication, making her somewhat inferior intellectually to other advanced primates, including chimpanzees, as they have found uses for sign language other than as a means to ask preverbal infants “More bottle?” or “Need diaper change?”. These findings seem to be borne out by materials posted by the Pregosaurus on her Web site, which predictably deals with offspring to the exclusion of all other topics.

However, new data suggest that the Pregosaurus is more sophisticated than the chimpanzee in some ways, and may be related more closely to H. sapiens. In a recent dig in Peachland, a photographer unearthed what is believed to be the nest of the Pregosaurus, who scientists believe has been frantically preparing for the hatching of her young.

Researchers who had a chance to look over the photographs marveled at the complexity of the nest, which has been feathered with pink gingham, purple satin, and a butterfly motif. While it has not been determined whether, like H. sapiens, the Pregosaurus associates butterflies with female young, or whether her insatiable appetite extends to winged insects, those who have inspected the nest noticed that the motif is carried through the room quite strongly. Some of the items lining the nest appear to have been handmade, and the bedding and clothing laid out for her young have been laundered, suggesting the Pregosaurus has incorporated tools into her lifestyle, contradicting other research conducted in her lair that indicates she has not mastered the vacuum or the dishwasher. The absence of eggs in a padded, boxlike structure deep in her nest would suggest she has hidden the eggs and is waiting for her young to hatch before placing them in the nest.

Some who have had close encounters with the Pregosaurus assert that she may actually be a member of H. sapiens. Chris Phillips, a Peachland resident who has encountered the Pregosaurus almost daily for the past seven-and-a-half months, has postulated that she is exactly like a human, only with a baby inside. Ultrasonography results funded by that curious Pregosaurus-sighter and obtained by researchers confirm that inside her belly is what looks like a tiny H. sapiens, and local physicians who have examined the beast theorize that once she has somehow expelled her offspring, she will have all the characteristics associated with humans.

How exactly the Pregosaurus’ young, if it is indeed inside her abdominal cavity, will exit her body is up for debate. A local prenatal instructor suggests that live offspring will be pushed through a “birth canal,” but yesterday, Phillips can confirm, the Pregosaurus insisted that her young should be extracted surgically within days or her abdomen would rupture. However, given the prevailing assumption that her mind works differently from those of humans, it could not be determined immediately whether this would be an appropriate course of action.

Until the offspring of Pregosaurus have made their exit, one way or another, from her belly or wherever she has hidden the eggs, the mystery continues to puzzle scientists. Is the Pregosaurus actually a human? Or, is she, like Ogopogo, one of the great beasts left over from the prehistoric days when dinosaurs ruled the earth?

Below are photographs of the Pregosaurus’ elaborate nest, along with photographs of the behemoth herself, in what Phillips says is the 34th week of her young’s gestation:

What is the significance of the butterflies in the Pregosaurus’ nest?

A handmade object researchers believe was crafted
by the Pregosaurus for her young using sophisticated
tools such as a needle, thread, buttons and a staple gun.

One day recently, Chris pointed out to me that my entries haven’t been as funny lately as they were back in the halcyon early days of nausea, vomiting and debilitating fatigue. On looking at my recent posts, they do seem a bit neurotic, and while some people can be funny when they’re neurotic, like Valerie Harper on “Rhoda,” I’m just incredibly spazzy and annoying, like Calista Flockhart on “Ally McBeal.”

I chalk up this blog’s boringness to two factors. First, humor is usually born of adversity. Look at the lives of our most beloved comedians and you will find poverty, parental abandonment and abuse. (This is why they all die of drug overdoses before their time.) While I was experiencing the miseries of the first trimester, the only way to cope was to laugh about the horrors of being nauseated by ginger, nearly peeing during that first miserable ultrasound, and barfing up painful giant chunks of apple.

Now that I am back to normal again (aside from the occasional feeling that an alien is going to burst through my abdomen), I am much like the comedians who don’t die young. Like Robin Williams, Steve Martin and Jim Carrey, the absence of personal torment has ruined me. I have moved on to “more serious material,” such as kvetching about all the things I need to finish before baby’s arrival.

You know how some comedians really should have died young before they made that really awful stinker of a movie? Well, let’s just say the third trimester is my “Patch Adams.”

The second factor is motherhood itself. You see, mothers are not supposed to be funny. Who among us, as a 12-year-old, did not roll our eyes and try to shrink into the floor when our parents tried to say something humorous? It is, quite simply, unnatural for mothers to be amusing in their own right.

Even as an infant, Pele will know that my attempts to be funny are lame, whereas it will be hilarious when I slip on the freshly-washed kitchen floor and spill boiling water over 60 percent of my body. Daddy gets bonus points for the same, because every baby knows that painful accidents are 10 times funnier when they happen to big, strong men.

However, for me to use my own sense of humor goes against all the tenets of motherhood. As I write this, my body is already releasing chemicals that are rapidly destroying my sense of comedy in preparation for parenthood. Pretty soon, the only things that can draw a laugh from me will be Bill Cosby jokes involving a child, a cardboard box, and how much money is wasted on real toys at Christmastime. And let’s not forget the “hilarious” gab sessions I’ll have with other moms about how kids say the darnedest things.

Besides making me laugh at the world’s most unfunny comedic material, the destruction of my brain’s humor center will make it possible for me to utter, with no sense of irony whatsoever, such grim, well-worn gems as “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,” and “One more peep out of you, missy, and I’m turning this car around.”

My lack of humor will come in handy when the children act up in public. Once upon a time, it was hilarious when everyone in church would fall silent for prayer, only for that void to be broken by a two-year-old saying loudly, “Mommy, I pooped.” Since it was not my toddler, I would turn red trying to rein in the urge to laugh uproariously at the inappropriate (but predictable) timing. However, thanks to the chemicals that are destroying the sector of my brain that processes humorous situations, when Pele does this I will feel only one impulse — the urge to find a new church where nobody knows us.

Fortunately, these chemicals also do a little bit of building, so that part of my brain will be replaced. Unfortunately, it will be replaced with a new part of my brain that causes me to worry about my little one incessantly.

Not only do I worry about providing her with a bottle that won’t cause nipple confusion and toys that don’t damage her hearing, I worry about her future. Will she inherit any medical problems from her dad or me? If Chris speaks French to her, will it give her an edge later or just delay her English? What kind of TV will she be watching when she’s at her friends’ homes?

And it’s not just the near future over which I have found myself fretting. Already, I have begun to worry about whether she will wind up getting her nail-tech certificate at the local strip-mall college instead of attending an Ivy on full scholarship as her dad and I intend. I worry that she’ll get a tattoo. I worry that she’ll smoke. I even worry about pointless issues of personal taste — that she won’t appreciate good design, will listen to really bad pop music (or, since we are in Canada, we may as well face it — even Celine Dion!), and that she might, at sixteen, ask us to buy her an American car. Heaven forbid it is a Chevy.

Of course, morphing from a funny, carefree individual into a humorless neurotic has its upsides. For instance, everyone else is much funnier now. And our children will not be scarred by the humiliating memory of Mom trying to be amusing.

Plus, I like the fact that, like Chris Farley (except with pregancy chemicals instead of a speedball), I’m leaving at the top of my game.

I’m sure that anyone who sat through “Bringing Down the House” will appreciate it.

And without further ado, the Week 33 belly shots, which prove that not only am I quitting while I’m ahead like Chris Farley, I am also as big around as Chris Farley.

It’s high noon here at the O.B. Corral. Thar’s been a stranger a-trespassin’ on my property. I tried to live alongside the new gal in peace, but lately she’s been stirrin’ up quite a ruckus and one thing is clear: Thar ain’t enough room in my ribs fer the two of us. I give her until May 22. After that, this matter won’t be settled in a gentlewomanly manner. I’m gonna smoke her out of her hidey-hole with the biggest shot of Pitocin in the West.

Yes, folks, the time has come. For months, despite bouts of vomiting, bladder kicks and back pain, my overall feelings about being pregnant have been ones of happiness and joy. But now I am officially ready for the baby to come out. Technically we have another six weeks before Pele is considered full-term, so I will let her stay for the time being. However, I want it on the record that the third trimester is not fun.

Between having all the grace and mobility of a beached whale and enjoying the constant feeling that there is a large shoehorn wedged under my ribs and prying them open like a clam shell, the enjoyment I reap when I feel Pele squirming about is no longer enough to stop me from wishing desperately for a C-section. Right. This. Minute.

You see, our darling baby girl has discovered that if she pushes her wee bum up under my ribcage, her cramped apartment has a bit more room, thanks to the comfy park bench that is my right rib. Put your hand on my belly at almost any time, any day, and you will feel a large, hard bulge right below that rib. That, my friends, would be Pele, with her legs jabbing into my diaphragm and her little butt doing its best to peel my ribs back like a sardine can.

What felt a few months ago like a large goldfish lazily doing laps now feels like a crazed badger tunneling toward freedom via my very tender ribs. Our baby now should weigh about 4 pounds and is likely just shy of 17 inches long. This may not seem like much, but when it’s all applied via a sizable baby bum to a single rib, it’s nothing to sniff at. When I think about twice that much weight being applied to my unfortunate rib in just six or eight weeks, I begin to contemplate having that rib removed pre-emptively.

Or maybe, I think to myself when I have that dream where the kids at the mall are beating me in the torso with baseball bats, the little rib-monkey.

Although we still have to let her incubate a bit, my little pain-in-the-ribs has matured a lot in the last few weeks. If she were born now, she’d almost certainly survive and very likely would avoid many of the medical problems that plague micro-preemies. And in the past fortnight or so, while her lungs and other organs have been maturing, we’ve acquired a car seat, ordered a crib, and managed to start getting her room ready. What just a month or two ago seemed so far away now feels as if it should be a matter of weeks. Oh wait … it is a matter of weeks.

As tempting as an early C-section might seem at times, our little bun is so close to being cooked that we might as well let her stay in the oven a bit longer. Every time I check my bottom right rib to see whether it’s cracked, I tell myself, “Just eight more weeks.”

Now, after 10 weeks, we’ll be renegotiating the terms of her lease.
Wanted posters will go up. I’ll bring in an out-of-town cowboy known by the nickname “Dr. G.” Maybe he’ll rush in with IV bags blazing. Or maybe he’ll take the subtle approach and just divert her water supply. All I know is, after Week 42, that little maverick is never going to set foot in my ribs again.

And without further ado, pictures of my ever-expanding belly as I begin Week 32.

Recently, in my frantic third-trimester compulsion to become Supermom, I purchased a yoga tape. Now, normally I would rather do something invigorating and sporty that would cause me to feel a burn than hold a pose for a minute while breathing deeply and feeling a mind-body connection. But the prenatal workout DVD I really wanted was $40, while this yoga DVD could be had for less than $10.

I popped it in and the room was greeted by relaxing New Age music and the ambient noise of a babbling fountain. The voice of my instructor filled the room. It was clear to me that this woman had just had a three-hour massage, two Valium, and a decade of experience working for a classical-music radio station. I strongly suspected she would not be uttering any perky instructions to “feel the burn.” Confirming my suspicions, the entire 45-minute session was narrated soporifically with her admonitions to her onscreen class to cradle their babies with their abdominal muscles and breathe deeply, bringing life-giving oxygen to their little ones. Her hypnotic — perhaps stoned — voice never caught in her throat, despite the fact she most likely subsists on a diet composed entirely of granola.

After nearly falling asleep during several of the poses and generally failing to follow instructions because her voice was so slumberous, I concluded that yoga was not for me.

Instead, enter the Senility Workout. You see, natural pregnancy hormones help pregnant women get more exercise than they normally might. This is accomplished by these hormones causing the woman to forget virtually everything she tries to commit to memory.

Bills? Late.

Christmas tree? Still up.

Bag for the hospital? Didn’t occur to me until someone on BabyCenter asked what everyone would be packing.

Yes, such are the glories of pregnancy. Just imagine this combined with the neurotic compulsions typical of a raging nesting instinct, and you’ve got someone about half as crazy as I typically appear these days. If I remember something, like the fact that the baby will need wee T-shirts for a few week so her stump doesn’t get chafed by mean old tight-fitting Onesies, I am a madwoman on a holy mission until that’s taken care of. Mainly because I know if I don’t get it done NOW, I will completely forget.

But I digress. Despite the toll this new, near-Alzheimer’s-like senility has taken on my sanity (and that of those around me), it is great for my cardiovascular system. Since I am constantly forgetting things, I am constantly backtracking to get them. And with the level of absentmindedness we’re discussing, this means I burn many, many, many extra calories.

Here is a typical instant-message exchange between Chris and me. (I am sure that no one who knows us would ever believe this, but we are so geeky that we IM each other from computers in different rooms of the house. What? You are not surprised?)

Chris: Coming upstairs soon?
Heather: Yep
Chris: Can you pick out a DVD for us to watch and bring my phone on your way up?
Heather: No prob

Five minutes later

Heather ascends stairs and enters kitchen.
Heather: Crap!
Chris: What?
Heather: I forgot to grab a DVD.

Five minutes later

Heather brings DVD upstairs.
Chris: Did you get my phone?
Heather: Please shoot me and put me out of my misery.

And then there’s the lovely scene (which happens every day, just so you know) in which we plan to go somewhere, so I run downstairs and put on my shoes, then take off my shoes, run upstairs, grab my purse, run downstairs and put on my shoes again. Then I remove my shoes, run upstairs, grab my sunglasses, run downstairs, realize I left my purse in the bedroom when I was getting my glasses, go up again to retrieve it, and finally, after three unnecessary trips upstairs, am actually ready to put my shoes on and get out the door. Provided my hoodie is not upstairs.

Thank you very much, yoga lady, but my life is not choreographed by New Age music, and frankly, all this running around leaves me in a very tired and vulnerable state that should not be exacerbated by DVDs that should have heavy-machinery warnings on their labels.

No, whether I watch that yoga video or not, I am already getting all the stair-stepping exercise my butt needs to look great throughout pregnancy — courtesy of an intensive workout program designed by the very hormones that drove me to buy the yoga DVD in the first place.

Talk about your mind-body connection!

And here they are, just a day late this time: Week 31 belly pics.

Here they are — the long-awaited Week 30 belly shots!

While I have thought for quite some time that I could not possibly get any bigger, these pictures show that, clearly, I was wrong. And also, that I’m carrying the baby in my butt again.