Waiting

I'm officially in the waiting period now and I have to admit, it's a little boring.

My due date is now three days away. No signs of labor yet and based on my last appointment and the fact that statistically first babies are often late there's a good chance I'm going to see my due date still pregnant, though I'm still hoping I won't. The reason is we were told a while ago that due to my "advanced maternal age" (their term, not mine!) there's a higher risk of the placenta deteriorating and becoming less efficient faster once the due date passes, so they probably won't let me go more than a few days past my due date before inducing me. At first I thought this was a fine idea, but now I've become a little less enthused with the idea of being induced—especially if it's starting out cold turkey with no natural signs of labor at all—and I'd much rather start things out naturally if I possibly can. As always no one has asked me, though, and there's not much I can do other than my main conversation with kidlet now being, "Out, out, out!"

On the bright side I am very glad to have been able to do things on my terms up until now. I stopped working two weeks before my due date and was able to complete things at work on my schedule without any complications (pregnancy-related or otherwise), which besides making things easier on me made things much easier on the people taking over for me as well. And while it doesn't always feel like it, I know overall I've had a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy compared to some, and I'm very thankful for that. (Dealing with acid reflux every night and having hugely swollen legs and feet for the past four months doesn't always feel particularly uncomplicated—nor did getting sick every two months for the first six months of the pregnancy—but so far everything I've dealt with has only affected me, not kidlet, which I guess is relatively uncomplicated in pregnancy terms.)

So, I wait. I know it's getting closer with every passing day by definition; I'm trying to find comfort in that. I'm definitely enjoying having an empty calendar right now, being able to rest and take naps and watch TV whenever I want to (mainly a few afternoon Food Network programs I like), and not having any schedule or real responsibilities right now. I had a lot I wanted to get done last week and since kidlet didn't come then I had time to do it, so now I really have nothing pressing on my plate that I feel I have to do; not a bad place to be in when I do eventually get to this labor/delivery thing. I hear it can start suddenly on its own at any time... I'm waiting!

A Pre-Existing Condition

I hate medical insurance.

Don't get me wrong, I like having medical insurance, I just hate dealing with it. Recently I had to change insurance plans and switch to my hubby's plan. This happened to coincide with my last day of work though it didn't actually have anything to do with my job (other than my not having an employer's plan to switch to), it had to do with my extended student benefits ending. Since I'm getting ready to pop a kid out any day now it's kind of important that I have medical insurance when that happens. I've dealt with changing plans before so I worked with hubby and got him (and his HR person) the necessary paperwork to prove I was losing coverage on my existing plan, otherwise known in the medical insurance world as a qualifying event. In another twist of coincidence the timing coincided with hubby's plan's open enrollment period, but the qualifying event ensured that didn't matter and I could go on it regardless of the plan's regularly scheduled enrollment period.

The other thing tied to a qualifying event is continuous coverage, which is required to keep new insurance plans from slapping a "pre-existing condition waiting period" on you. In case you hadn't heard pregnancy is a pre-existing condition from an insurance company's point-of-view, and taking on a new member and immediately having to pay for a delivery isn't something insurance companies particularly want to do. I knew this and tried VERY HARD to supply the paperwork to hubby's HR person to make sure the pre-existing condition period would get waived... And sure enough today we received a letter from the insurance company saying based on their records I have a one-year waiting period for pre-existing conditions. SIGH. Hubby talked to his HR person and it appears somehow somewhere lines got crossed and the paperwork he gave her was just to get me on the plan, now we have to submit separate paperwork to the insurance company to deal with the pre-existing condition mess. Thankfully I know enough about medical insurance to keep any piece of paper I ever receive that says "Certificate of Insurance" on it, so I put everything together and tomorrow proof that I've had continuous coverage for the past 3 years will be going out in the mail. (Technically I only need to prove continuous coverage for 1 year but I'm going for overkill just because.) Even though we're dealing with it, based on the timing of everything I'd bet you real money that the paperwork won't be processed in time (since insurance companies aren't exactly known for lightning fast reflexes when it comes to processing paperwork), claims will be denied and we'll have to call everyone everywhere and tell them to resubmit claims and process everything again. I can't wait.

Oh, Come On!

Hubby and I started our day at 7:00 this morning visiting a couple of garage sales in our neighborhood. I got an email on our neighborhood list yesterday about some multi-family sales with baby stuff going on today around the corner from us, and since hubby had to leave before 7:30 for a work-related training thing today that meant hitting them when they started, which isn't a bad thing for garage sales, anyway. The last time there were garage sales hubby ended up bringing home a bunch of great stuff for only a few dollars (things like toys and a diaper pail and a toilet trainer, which we'll need eventually), so we wanted to take the opportunity to try again. We got some more toys, a grocery cart cover for Kidlet to sit in, and a couple books, which the woman said to just take. When we thanked her I pointed to my stomach and said, "He thanks you, too." She said, "Oh, I hadn't noticed!" I'm 3 weeks away from my due date now so her comment elicited the title of this post from me: "Oh, come on!" I know I haven't shown much through the entire pregnancy—at 7 months I was standing in front of someone at work and mentioned something about being pregnant and he said, "What, you're pregnant?"—but come on, surely I look pregnant and not just fat by now! Sigh.

For those of you who aren't aware being 3 weeks from my due date means I am now considered full-term—or will be as of tomorrow, to be exact. That's a HUGE milestone and a huge relief: It means if anything happened now I could be induced without having to worry about having a preterm baby, and it means I could safely go into labor naturally myself at any time. Not that anyone has asked me and I know I have no control over it whatsoever, but it'd be really nice if Kidlet decided to be born naturally between 39 and 40 weeks, that'd be perfect. Again, not that anyone is asking me, but his coming before 38 weeks would be very inconvenient: That'd be next week, which is my last week of work (yay!) and hubby is on closing shift through the July 4th weekend at the park so he could be a little harder to reach if I really need him. (I plan to have the park superintendent's home phone number with me over the holiday weekend in case I can't reach him, just in case anyone is wondering.) It'd also be nice to have a real week off from everything after I'm done with work, so if Kidlet waits until a little closer to my due date that'd be nice. As the doctor we saw yesterday said, at this point everything is going well so we'll just see what happens.

Hose

I know, I've done a horrible job of keeping up with this blog lately. Oh well. To summarize: I'm 8-months pregnant now (35 weeks) and doing fine, heading down the home stretch and looking forward to having kidlet on the outside rather than on the inside. I have three weeks of work left and then I'll be on maternity leave. That about sums it up.

So let's talk about hose. No, not the garden variety, I'm talking about maternity support hose—you haven't lived until you've worn them. One thing I've dealt with for about half the pregnancy is very swollen ankles and feet. The technical term is edema, otherwise known that-which-makes-your-feet-look-like-tubers. I was advised by my doctor a while ago to start wearing support hose to help with it, and she suggested I just wear knee-highs since that's all I really needed. Unfortunately, the knee-highs made my knees look like grapefruits because they were tight right below my knees. At my appointment today the doctor suggested I switch to full maternity support hose since the knee-highs may have been doing more bad than good. Support hose are actually a medical item worthy of a prescription, which is a good thing since maternity support hose in particular cost a small fortune. ($92 per pair, if anyone is interested.) Thankfully, my insurance covers them so we paid much less than that at the medical supply store where we got them.

I'm not a huge fan of pantyhose, anyway, and rarely wear them except occasionally in the winter with a nice dress for church. Support hose are a whole different matter: Regular pantyhose stretch; support hose don't. I'd been having a hard time getting the knee-highs on lately but I usually managed on my own. When we got home with the full maternity hose today there was no way I could get them on by myself, and it still took 20 minutes with hubby's help. Not fun at all. I don't know if I'd be able to get them on by myself without being 8-months pregnant and now I'm thinking it's probably never going to be an option. I'm supposed to wear them all day every day until delivery, so that means on days hubby works opening shift we may both have to get up extra early so he can help me get them on. (I don't have to sleep in them, thankfully.) And did I mention they itch? Yeah, not surprisingly they itch some.

I'm thankful I only have to wear them for a few weeks at this point and not a few months, but that's as close to the bright side of things I'm gonna get. And, in reality, I am thankful that this is really just another pregnancy annoyance I have to deal with and not something ultimately significant that affects the baby. God willing it'll stay that way for the remainder of the pregnancy and we'll have a healthy baby boy in due time.

Pregnancy

Okay, let's talk about pregnancy.

I know there are some women out there who love being pregnant. They'd be pregnant all the time if they could. I knew about two weeks into it that I was not one of those women. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful to be pregnant and it's definitely better than the alternative (i.e. not being pregnant), but it hasn't exactly been a bed of roses for me (unless you count the thorns—who came up with that phrase, anyway?) and I imagine once will be enough for me.

I'm 24 weeks along now (about 5.5 months) and we found out we're having a boy. So we've started gathering cute boy stuff together. I admit I'm going to miss dressing up a little girl in frilly dresses and all the other cute girl stuff out there, but God is giving us a boy so I'm learning to turn away from the girl stuff. Hubby is still a bit worried when we're around a baby stuff in a store and I oooh and ahhh at all the little girl stuff, but I'll manage.

Here are a few random thoughts I have about this pregnancy thing:

Morning sickness. I'd really like to meet whoever came up with this term—and have a stern talking with them. There is nothing exclusively "morning" about it, it's all-day sickness, period. I spent the first 14 weeks nauseous most of the time, it wasn't fun. (I didn't throw up all the time, thankfully, but I was almost always nauseous.) Thankfully, my OB believes in drugs (medicine, that is) and I've been on anti-nausea medicine since week 7, which helped me at least get through the day. (Kind of important when I was trying to start a new job and finish up school while dealing with this pregnancy thing.) I'm happy to report I'm much better now and get sick much less often, though I still have the medicine and take it occasionally to ward off nausea. Apparently I'm going to be one of those people who deals with being sick off and on throughout the pregnancy—another reason I'm thinking once will be enough.

Maternity clothes. Ugh. I know, they're so much better and more stylish than they used to be, but they're so expensive and it takes so long to find things that fit. I managed to find a few pairs of pants that fit early on, thankfully (or they fit once my mother shortened them for me), but tops are still a struggle. Even at 24 weeks I'm still not showing a whole lot, so while my regular tops are too small I don't fill out maternity tops yet and they look ridiculous. For now I've gotten a few shirts that are a size larger than I normally wear and that seems to be working, particularly as the weather gets warmer so I don't have to wear sweaters and turtlenecks all the time anymore. Some days it's quite a challenge getting dressed and finding clothes that are comfortable and work.

Seatbelts. Not designed for pregnant women. Yes, you wear them anyway. 'Nuff said.

Sleeping. How do pregnant women sleep? I did okay the first trimester (I slept a lot more due to that first-trimester-always-exhausted thing), but now I never sleep very well. I am feeling kidlet moving during the day but not particularly at night (he's not big enough yet to do the jabbing and kicking I've heard about), but I am dealing with heartburn or acid reflux or whatever it is like there's no tomorrow, and it isn't fun. Taking antacids before I go to bed seems to help (yes, approved by the doctor), but I still only sleep for a few hours at a time, it seems, and I wake up a lot during the night and always wake up early in the morning. As long as I go to bed early enough I seem to be mostly okay and can manage my days, but never feeling like I sleep very well is really annoying.

Swelling. I may not be looking very pregnant yet but my ankles are HUGE! Hubby has noticed, too. I know it's normal and all, it's just weird. I can still get my shoes on (my feet are swollen some, too) but I'm definitely looking forward to summer when I can live in flip-flops. Closely related to swelling is also leg cramps, including painful charley horse cramps in your calves. I have to be very careful how I turn and stretch in bed to avoid getting those. Ouch.

Heat. This one is just speculation on my part. From what I've read pregnant women are hot all the time and can't cool down, even in the winter. I'm still waiting on this one so I'm still cold all the time, like always.

Bathroom. No discussion on pregnancy would be complete without a word on how often pregnant women have to go to the bathroom. Even at this early stage, before kidlet is huge and hitting your bladder (and squashing all your other organs, too, from what I've read). You always hear about how you're eating for two, but it doesn't come up as often that you're peeing (eliminating wastes) for two, too!

Those are my thoughts. For those of you who have been pregnant before, what are yours?