ME:

I feel exceptionally gigantic today. I had a hard time bending over and putting on my socks and felt babymo karate chop me in the bladder when I did bend over and cramp her space. Fun Times.

Fire in the Hole!

Pregnancy has finally reared its ugly head and thy name is Heartburn. After easily breezing through the first and second trimester with no problems whatsoever, my official welcome into the third trimester has been a fanfare of burning pain in my chest, liquid acid burps, and the urge to uncontrollably purse my lips like Shaneyney from that 90’s sketch comedy show, In Living Color. To deal with this “challenge” (as I like to positively address any negative issues), I made a call to my doctor to ask permission to take an over-the-counter antacid like Tums or Pepto Bismol. Rather than a quick yes/no answer, I was told by the kind lady that answered the phone that I would get a call back from a triage nurse in 3-4 hours. WTF…THREE TO FOUR HOURS?! Not to sound like a selfish, egocentric person but WHY in God’s name would it take them three to fours hours to get back to me? Don’t they know that the insane burning inside my chest is taunting me enough to make me want to do very bad things to the people around me at work?! I feel like a spurt of fire will explode from my mouth even if I open it a crack to talk to someone or answer a question. Call me crazy, but I think the doctors and nurses are in cahoots to try and toughen up all the pregnant women that call in with their petty heartburn-ish questions to prep them for the real pain of labor by making them wait and “deal” with whatever issue they’re having. You know, the whole “walk it off” theory. I’m pretty sure by the time I get a call back from the nurse for the green light to take a couple of Tums, a few chest hairs will have sprouted as a badge of showmanship and willpower to have managed such physical pain. And trust me, I ain’t no wimp, this heartburn stuff is serious business…it hurts like a mofo!

2-3 hours later…

A nurse calls me back to address my heartburn question, only to suggest homeopathic methods I should try first before ingesting any “medication” (like Tums is really a medication!). Her suggestions of raw almonds, bananas, or “fresh mineral water” were all very sweet and nice, but COME ON, I’m sitting at my desk at work with liquid fire churning in my lungs….where the hell am I supposed to get raw almonds, bananas, or fresh mineral water!!!! Oh, and since THAT wouldn’t work, her alternate suggestion was that I lie on my left side and take deep cleansing breathes to help push the acid down. This is AFTER I had told her that I was AT WORK and probably unable (surprise!) to find a suitable place to lie down gently on my left side to take deep cleansing breathes. I mean seriously, what kind of people are they staffing at this hospital?




So, rather than flip out and go preg-zilla on her, I calmly asked her again if I am able to take an antacid like Tums, Mylanta, or Maalox to get rid of the pain ASAP. I think she felt the inner crazy in me straining to get out and threaten her with her life, that she quietly said yes I could take the Tums and asked if I needed help with anything else before quickly hanging up the phone. Needless to say, although I was really pissed off upset at how they handled such a simple question, I think I handled it very well. Knowing how confrontational I can be in distressing situations, I was exceptionally proud that I kept my cool and didn’t in fact threaten her with her life or maniacally drive down to the hospital to give her an intimate tête-à-tête that may or may not have involved me opening my mouth and unleashing a reign of “fire” on her.

Moral of the story: don’t dangle the figurative “carrot” in front of a pregnant woman in pain. EVER. Just do what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants. It’s the best way to ensure that you’ll retain all ten fingers and toes at the end of the day.

UPDATE: I had mild heartburn today that gave me enough time (and therefore clear thought and sanity) to try some of the nurse’s more passive approach to alleviating the pain. I ate a handful of raw almonds and TA-DA…the heartburn went away within 5-10 minutes! Now I feel bad that I scared her a little with my bullying over the phone with the Tums ordeal. At least it made for a good blog, right? :)

BabyMo's In 4D

After much wishy-washyness, Kent and I finally made the executive decision to go in for an elective 4d ultrasound. The cool thing about 4d is the ability to see the baby with depth and also in real time motion. This means we could see her “as is” and not just a silhouette of her profile that is typical with the 2d black and white pictures. We would also be able to see her move and dance around and really see what she is doing in there (from all the movement I feel, I swear she’s doing a 10 kick Karate combo day in and day out…). We were also both expecting to see a "shrimpy" looking skeletal baby - much like the ones you see on the Discovery channel - but to our surprise, she's a little chub-a-lub with fat cheeks (which, I can't wait to pinch)!

Adding to the excitement of seeing babymo on the big screen in all her 4d glory was the fact that my mom was also in town to visit for the weekend (all the way from the windy city)! We had a lot to look forward to and were so happy to be able to share the experience with her.

More Baby Shower Pics

Here are a few more baby shower pictures. The onesies were my favorite thing at the shower - each person had to personally decorate a plain white baby onesie for babymo! It turned out great and I'm so happy to have all these fun keepsakes for babymo. The other two pictures are from a fun little game we played feeding beer to our hubbies with a baby bottle. See Kent, it's not as easy as you thought, huh?

Baby Shower!

First of all, I have to give a HUGE THANKS to my sister, Jodie, and Pam for conspiring and organizing to give Kent and I an AWESOME baby shower! My sister lives in Seattle, we are in Oregon, and Jodie lives in Hawaii, so it was not an easy task at the least! We loved every minute of the shower - from the surprise blindfolded drive to Bronson & Pam's house, the delicious food, fun games, and wonderful gifts - and are so bewildered (did I actually just use that word...) and thankful to have such wonderful, loving, and supportive friends and family. A quick word about the blindfolded surprise - after a rough morning start (sorry Trevor, sorry Mom...I must have gotten out of the wrong side of bed...), my sister somehow convinced me and Kent to put on the eye patch/blind fold to take us to God knows where. I thought we were being taken to a surprise spa massage in Portland, and for some INSANE reason Kent thought we were being driven to a Japanese Chin farm to pick out a new puppy.... :). Well, to our very REAL surprise, we had neither spa nor puppy. It was even better...!