36 Weeks Pregnant with #3

Last week was emotional for me.
Not the same as the week before.
The week before, '2 weeks till full term' felt impossible.
This past week, '1 week till full term' felt do-able, but in a bite-down-on-a-stick-and-press-on-with-my-very-last-bit kind of way. Since just pressing on was taking my full strength, I had nothing left for ANYTHING else. Which equated to me being very crabby.

Also mixed into the crabby I had some fear. We’d run into a couple confusing allergy incidents with Jasmine and with my hormones and emotional exhaustion, I just totally broke down with fear. Called Blake.  Said crazy things. Cried. Essentially begged not to be left alone because I am not a capable adult anymore.
     He was sweet and came home a bit early for me. (I put him through so much, I tell ya. I am not good on hormones. Good thing he’s so sweet and amazingly patient.)

Anyway, I started the week out feeling very queasy and achey. I asked on my personal Facebook page for some novel recommendations -- because I just needed to think about anything but myself for at least one week.  So then I ran to the library. (I tell you, I must have looked just the very epitome of  all bad-things-pregnancy-stereo types. I had cried my make up off. (Normally, while pregnant I get super dark circles under my eyes. But when super-sick-pregnant, I kinda look like death is near, without makeup under my eyes.) I was waddling worse than a duck. I was taking breaks from walking, way too often -- I thought people might be worried I was in labor. One book recommendation that I got was in the teen area -- I got a lot of shocked-and-kind-of-scared---can’t-help-but-stares from teenagers -- it was mostly males in the room at the time. Another book was upstairs, so I sat and did deep breathing for like 8 mins after I found my book. While doing that I almost cried for no reason. THEN I heard some random guy sing in spanish to what I’m guessing was his girlfriend -- got strangely emotional about life and love and friends and imperfections, so I almost cried for those reasons. I tried to get it together again to leave. Waddled unbelievably slowly out the door. Took a break once I got out of the doors, before I made it to my car.  It was an event.)

Anyway. After that I’ve been feeling sorta more normal. Still get nauseous -- just not immobilized by it. Still felt the baby low -- but usually doesn’t hurt. So I started making myself do my nesting projects. Slowly and angrily at first. But as I got more done, I started to feel better.
By Saturday evening I was feeling like “Yes! I can’t believe I got so much accomplished.”

I did wind up getting most the clutter in the guest room put away. It’s not done. But much improved.
(The first day I tried to do this, walking up the stairs was so terrible I had to lay down on my bed for like an hour while Jasmine hung out with me. (Ruby was napping.) Before I gave up and went back downstairs without accomplishing anything. And….cue super crabby!) So I was just very happy to have gotten it as done as I have.

I also was able to get all my jewelry looked through, organized and hung up in my bathroom. I have a lot (too much) jewelry. And it’s been in a box since I moved from IL to Iowa in 2012. I’ve been digging through it in a box for 3 years -- crazy. So getting it out and hanging up pretty feels AMAZING. I like that they get to function as art. It makes the room feel like my special space.

Cute story: Jasmine has been asking me for months now when our house will be done. (I’m guessing this is due to me saying a bunch of contingencies based on that.) And I tell her it’s almost done but we still have more we’ll be doing…bla bla bla. But when she walked into my bathroom, while I was working on the project (Blake was home that day, so she had been by him) she gasped at the sight of my stuff and exclaimed, “Now the house is definitely done!”
:) I think her and I have some similar feelings about what makes a house a home. I like that.

And I also got my shelves styled.

We’ve also been working on our kitchen counter top again this week. We had a hicup and the top needed to be redone. Blake and both our dads rebuilt it. And version 2.0 is vastly improved. Blake’s dad has more wood working things than we do, so the way it was put together this time is like super professional and shouldn’t be prone to wrap over the years. So that’s good. But it’s been hard for me to get to the finishing of it (Staining and polyurethane coating) while feeling so sick and sore.
     The new wood also was taking stain differently than the old wood was. So our stain was looking crazy orange, maybe even pink, on our test piece.
       This caused me to rethink our whole process. So I really want to stain and poly? Or should I just do mineral oil? But it’s just pine wood -- not butcher block, so what’s best really?
      So after too much reading (which really didn’t delay the process, because we needed to do a lot of sanding first) I didn’t think mineral oil would be enough protection for soft pine. I finally went back to my original plan to stain and poly. For the color, I wound up mixing two tones to get what I wanted. Which was basically what I had before -- a barely warmed up, but essentially natural look. I just felt like with no stain the color was just too pastey and dead white for our space. I mixed Minwax “Natural” which adds a bit of clear sorta yellow, maybe vaguely (very vaguely) green undertones, and Minwax “Golden Pecan” which brings essentially a bit of red, but really it’s kinda an orange salmon. (I’m not selling it here. I’m just trying to describe the tone.)  I love Golden Pecan straight up on the right wood -- but in this case, on this wood, the orange and pink were calling the shots. So when I mixed something like 80/20 natural to pecan it came out just like I had before. A nice natural look you’d probably not think I stained, but not bare cold dead white wood.
     I was SUPER nervous to apply the stain. I just felt so much concern over if the countertop could possibly get ruined at this point of so much work. But it went on great.
After that the poly gave me some of the same fear, but less. And with each of the four coats I was more confident it was going well.
     I used “Varathane” water based matte finish, if you are curious. And did four coats with super light sanding in between them.
     We finally finished the last coat on Sunday. And I want to respect it’s instructions of cure time  -- So I’m not going to really use the countertop at all for two days, and not much for seven. (I still need to coat the backsplash we made to be officially done.) It’s hard to wait, but I really don’t want to mess it up. It’s gonna be so great for our kitchen when it’s functioning. So I want it to function well for a long time!

I sort of tried to arrange the shelves nicely. But haven’t really gotten it cute-cute. But it works for me.

(I have some more plans for the kitchen, so I don’t think all this stuff will stay on the shelves. Time will tell.)

Monday I had a check up. I was finally measuring 37 weeks at 37 weeks. This whole pregnancy I’ve measured really big. Well really big mid pregnancy, and then as I’ve gone on, I I’ve been evening out. No one was concerned -- it’s just what happened. Baby sounds good. She said baby has their chin tucked nicely. Baby wasn’t in my pelvic inlet though. 

     At first I wanted to be annoyed and irritated that she thought baby wasn’t as low as I thought. But later on I felt my belly and decided, “yeah no, she’s right baby isn’t down in there.” But I also know baby had been down in there earlier. Feeling the difference between the head being up high this time, made me sure I had felt it down low earlier. So, I kinda just decided it’s no big deal. My inlet is likely roomy enough (from prior babies) that this baby can get in and out of there for now. I think the days where it really hurts are the days baby is way down in there. It wasn’t hurting at all on Monday, when I had the check up.

This baby is definitely my most mellow-in-the-womb baby. He or she seems very calm. They just kinda barely adjust them-self in there from time to time. There was one evening this week where they were more wiggly. And to be honest I’m very glad that most the time they are so calm, because when he or she moves around more it stresses me out -- it puts my mind on my body and how it doesn’t feel good. So I am grateful that this sickness and their calmness came as a package deal, I’d be much more overwhelmed feeling this way and feeling a wild baby in there.

As far as gender guesses goes. I still have no idea. Most everyone I know is voting boy. So for a while I was just kinda going with that (but still not really sold.) But this last week I’ve suddenly felt very convinced it’s a girl, mainly because I feel like it would just be life’s weird game to make me so sick with another girl just because it would baffle me entirely. And so in a weird way it makes perfect sense. (I feel like if it’s a boy then it all makes sense everything was so different. But if it’s a girl, I can’t figure out any reason other than I guess I’m “old” now.) But even still, with that stuck in my mind, I’ve been saying “he” when talking about the baby. 

I don’t know. I’ve called baby “he” at times and “she” at times. Basically I have no guess.

Honestly I’m still rather in denial that I’m pregnant. I’m working on trying to grasp it emotionally. I sort of get it logically. I’m getting the stuff ready. But emotionally, I’ve just been so sick that it’s never had a chance to feel like pregnancy to me. It’s kind of a rip off. I’m hoping it won’t make my transition to mother of three overwhelming.

But I am so ready to be done with this pregnancy. Not just to feel better, but to be able to have a conversation with anyone again. This pregnancy has alienated me from people so much. I usually don’t feel up to company. And when I see people, I’m so tired of the glazed over looks I get when I say how I feel. (And I can’t think of anything else to talk about -- my life is SUPER boring the last 9 months. And my brain has melted. I am socially inept.) I’m guessing I sound like a broken record that is zero fun to be around. I’m not having fun being around me. lol.

But I’m ready to have fun. I’m planning fun when baby is here. I want to go to the beach so bad.  I’m ready to buy us all new swim suits! (Really, I will probably just wear one I have, but if anyone is postpartum swimsuit shopping you should check this blog post out. Awesome tips!) And I’m setting up our toys and yard to be fun. I’m ready to have fun again.

Now that I’m to term, my brain does feel a lot better. I feel so much relief knowing I’m “allowed” to be done. The goal now, is to keep my sanity as I wait to actually be done. It might prove hard... as everyone is rooting for me to go early, so I might get checked on a lot. I don’t think I mind that. But if I get to my due date, it might start feeling hard. (So pray I don’t have to worry about that. :) )

Technically “Early Term” but lets not split hairs.

I’m trying to keep my emotions in check to help open open open. But I do get some waves of “holy crap.” Not so much about labor. I’m surprisingly not afraid of labor anymore. (I do have the occasional “what if it’s harder this time?” thought sneak in, and those aren’t so fun. But I’m so ready to be done even that doesn’t really phase me.) I think the “holy crap” thoughts are me realizing all the logistics of having a new baby. And like I mentioned, I think that’s because I haven’t had my wits about me to process I’m having a baby. So it comes in intense waves. I really don’t want that to impede me relaxing into labor. So be praying for my brain to start connecting with this baby in a sweet way, and that when baby gets here I’m excited to meet them, not overwhelmed with “holy crap.” lol.