33 Weeks

A new month is here and another week of pregnancy down! From the online updates I read Nugget is at least 16 or 17 inches and around 4 1/2 lbs at this point. Apparently I look way bigger and further along than what I am, as I so nicely had another customer at work tell me yesterday. I did a good job not crying this time as she exclaimed, "Wow, 7 weeks left to go? That's must be a big baby."  but it still stung and I will never understand how people are so rude and/or stupid.

Nugget is growing along and it makes me happy. She gets the hiccups a lot now, sometimes several times a day and that means her body is working the way it should be and she's practicing breathing and swallowing. That's the only thing I can feel going on with her, other than the kicks and rolls and bladder jabs. I look forward to finding out if she is in the head down position yet at my next checkup on Tuesday.

Minus the back pain I am pretty comfortable and feeling good. The heartburn I would get seems to have almost completely gone away. I remember with Natalie at the end of my pregnancy I had to prop myself up at night with pillows to sleep because I was getting heartburn pretty bad, so there's still time for it to reappear this go around.

My energy is decent, though it definitely fluctuates. I was feeling pretty worn out the last several days because I had to fill in at work for my sister because she was sick but today I am home relaxing. Natalie can be a big contributor to me feeling drained too, as she has been struggling with a grumpy mood and attitude for awhile now. It's exhausting reprimanding her and dealing with the fits and crying and punishments. Being a parent can be tiresome and challenging but I really love it and I hate when people take it for granted or act like their kids are the biggest nuisance. Kids can be annoying and a huge pain in the ass but having them makes you very lucky and I am still in aw of how lucky I am to be getting a second child.

Sometimes life does feel too good to be true and then anxiety sets in about what could go wrong. I am certainly nervous to give birth again for a string of reasons. My first reason is that there will be a complication during delivery and something will happen to me or the baby, like death. I know in the western world with modern medicine it isn't very likely but it still happens. There's nothing (yet) to indicate a problem will occur (though it's better to be prepared and forewarned if there will be one), it's just a fear I have.

My second concern, one that is more reasonable I suppose, is that I won't make it to the hospital in time, or that even if I do I won't have time for an epidural. I know, I know, our bodies are made to do this, it's been done since the beginning of time and all that good stuff, but I am not going to pretend I am not a huge wuss when it comes to pain. Childbirth is the second most painful thing a human can experience next to being burned alive (I'm not making this up). My labor with Natalie was 6 hours from start to finish and rumor has it the second time you give birth the timing is cut in half. I labored at home with her for 3 hours before it really got bad and I knew I was probably in labor. If labor is only 3 hours this time I will possibly be having an unplanned home birth, which is not what I want at all. The contractions alone were the worst pain I've ever felt in my life and I was so thankful to not feel the pain of her exiting my body.

My last even most justified worry is the toll the stress of a new baby will take on me and my family and our relationships. Being sleep deprived really can make a person on edge, and if Natalie is still having a hard time (or an even harder time) with being cranky then I imagine my patience will be almost nil. I don't want to be a stressed out, frazzled, hot mess who snaps over the smallest things. I worry how Matt and I will get along too and when the hell we're going to have time to be a couple.

Overall my concerns are pretty minor (besides, you know, dying) and my life is really great so I try to keep it all in perspective.