36 Weeks

Today. I am 36 weeks today. Finally. I'm scheduled to be induced on my due date, which is November 13th. We planned it that way so that Neal can come home from work a few days early and then I don't have to worry about calling my Dad in the middle of the night to take me to the hospital because my water broke. Hopefully, anyway. Because things always work out the way you plan them to...am I right??? And if the Tigers keep playing these close games like they have been, I may not make it to Nov 13th. Can stress from SEC football games cause labor? I bet it can.

I start getting "checked" on Monday. I won't be surprised if she wants to take him early though, because she kept telling me that I was running out of room for him to grow. Well NO SHIT, doc. I keep thinking about that scene in Austin Powers where he's all "I'm in a nutshell" and he starts acting like he's literally curled up in a nutshell and this is what I imagine Hayes looks like. I can feel him in every edge of my stomach.

Everything's ready. The nursery is ready, all of his clothes and sheets and towels etc have been washed in baby-friendly detergent. I finally sent all my thank you notes out last weekend. And I'm doing my best to wrap up all my shit at work so that my co-workers don't go insane while I'm out.

So other than that, I've been busy:
1. Watching and obsessing over Homeland.
2. Drinking apple juice like a 5 year old.
3. Taking Zantac.
4. Stretching out the stomach in all of Neal's t-shirts.
5. Buying grandma underwear that are 3 sizes bigger than what I actually wear.(Only way they're comfortable.)
6. Not sleeping at night.
7. Wondering if I'm bi-polar or if it really is just 3rd trimester hormones.
8. Being more worried about work than the baby. Then being more worried about the baby than work. It goes back and forth.
9. Hating my ugly flats from Target but wearing them every day anyway because fuck it, I need to be comfortable.
10. Wondering how long I'm actually going to breastfeed.
11. Praying that Hayes is a sleeper like his Dad.
12. Preparing for the grandparents to completely ignore our babywise schedule.
13. Peeing. All the time. Like, I should work and sleep in the bathroom.

Hurricanes and Contractions

I woke up super early last Tuesday morning because I was supposed to go staff the Parish's special needs shelter for the storm (it's part of my job). But instead of going to the shelter, I had Neal take me to the ER because I was having some problems. Turns out that I was having contractions at 29 weeks. I wasn't dilated at all, but they were still real contractions. They gave me some Procardia to take "as needed" to stop them, told me to stay off my feet for one week, and drink lots and lots of water. I started to feel better a few days later until our power went out at the house. The power stayed off for 3 days, so we went to my Dad's for a bit. I ended up in the hospital again Sunday because I was having more contractions. This time they were 2 minutes apart, but I still wasn't dilated. So they told me to take the Procardia every 6 hours, no matter what, and drink 8 - 10 bottles of water a day. I went back to work Tuesday and, so far, I've been okay. Thank God all of this happened while Neal was home.

I saw a specialist Tuesday morning to have an ultrasound (I have a two-vessel umbilical cord that can sometimes be a sign of problems) but Hayes is perfectly fine. He's already measuring 3.4lbs and is still baking. I'm 30 weeks, and hopefully I can make it a few more.

We were supposed to have our Baskin baby shower last weekend but we cancelled it because of the storm. I-55 was shut down for a while and so was I-10 around LaPlace, and I-12 was a mess. Traffic was ridiculous so we decided not to go up there for the weekend.

Last week was just a mess all around. I forgot how sucky it is to have to deal with hurricanes and all the aftermath, even for just a category one. It takes forever for everything to feel normal again, especially when you're 7.5 months pregnant.

But anyway....a girl at work has been on the lookout for some brown riding boots for me and she found a cute, cheap selection on Charlotte Rousse's website. I got a pair on sale for $28.00. I'm sure they're not super high quality, but they should get me through the season. I'm ready for some cooler weather so that I can live in leggings, boots, and tunics until I give birth. I am soooo over pants right now.

Same girl at work asked me if I watched the DNC last night and I said, "well, no, I was sort of watching the MTV VMA's." I know, I should be embarrassed. I didn't watch the RNC either. I think I'm disenfranchised.

You see, I don't think I identify with the Republican party anymore. I just find them so hypocritical. They use Christianity and Jesus as a platform and then hate others so vehemently when...didn't Jesus teach people to love one another, not judge anyone else, and care more about others than yourself? And while I am Catholic, I strongly believe in the separation of church and state. I think each individual should use their religious beliefs as a guide as to how they should behave in their own lives and toward others....they shouldn't force their beliefs on other people. Listening to a bunch a tea partiers talk about how Obama is a Muslim and wasn't really born in the U.S. does nothing for me. All they want to do is scare people and it just pisses me off.

But I'm not quite a Democrat either. I believe in smaller government, but I do realize that not everyone can be rich. It takes all kinds to make the world go round. Some people can work full-time, have 1 or 2 kids, and still not be able to make ends me without assistance from the government. And I'm okay with that. I help poor people for a living. You can't have safety-net programs without having to help people that manipulate the system along with people who are in genuine need of the assistance.

So I'm thinking about becoming an independent. For now, I think that's how I would identify myself. Until the R-pubs stop giving a shit about gay marriage and Planned Parenthood and focus more on the economy I just don't think I can blindly vote for them anymore.

So Where Were We?

Oh yeah, I was probably getting drunk somewhere fun, during the daytime, with my husband. And now I'm seven months pregnant and spend the majority of my time, when I'm not at work, laying on the couch either talking to the baby, complaining, or snoring and drooling all over my excess 20 pounds. The times, they are a changin', no?

I know what you're thinking....your baby boy already weighs 20 pounds???? Well, not exactly. I was doing really great at first. I gained around 5 pounds during my first trimester and then, sometime after that, it got out of hand. I was telling Cara that I was all "how did this happen?" and then I remembered the cookie cake I bought from Winn Dixie for me, myself, and I. And then it was like hmmmmm, maybe I should stop doing things like that. So I have started watching it the past two weeks. I'm still eating plenty, don't worry. I just make better choices about what I shove into my mouth, that's all. I went back to the doc yesterday and had only gained 7 ounces in two weeks, so I'm good with that.

Work has been an absolute mother fucking beast. Before I was all "yeah, I'm not going to take off the full 12 weeks. I'll probably get bored and blah blah blah." But now? Those assholes can suck it for the full 12 because that's how long I'm going to be gone. And besides, the daycare that we are sending Hayes to doesn't take the wee be-be's until they're 12 weeks, so I have to stay home the full 12 anyway. This means that I will have to work until he's crowning, but that's okay. I sit at a desk all day, so it should be cool.

I guess this is the part where I brag about my A-MAH-ZING husband (and I'm being sarcastic here b/c I hate it when girls describe their {insert object here} as AMAZING.) But really, he has been great. Cooking and cleaning the house and painting the nursery and siding with me over his mother and just really, really great. He's going to be the cutest dad eva'.

I do miss running, I miss drinking, I miss my Starbucks habit, and all that stuff. But don't for a minute think that I am not 100% thrilled about bringing Stephen Hayes Mahoney into our lives. I am so ready for him to be here and I can't wait to meet him. I mean, at least once a day I think back to the morning when I got the positive pregnancy test and I woke Neal up crying and holding this stick with two lines on it covered in my urine. Like, I never thought it would happen. It was so surreal and now I just can't wait to meet Sweet Baby Hayes and I'm sort of worried that I'm never going to let anyone else hold him.

And yes, Pero has given me her copy of Babywise and I am jumping on that bandwagon STAT. But I feel like I should be taking notes while I read it b/c I'm pretty sure I'm going to forget it all by the time the baby arrives.

So that's where we are now! Later y'all!

TMI

I went to the old Hobb Lobb (I'm trying out a nickname) Monday when I was off. I needed some plate/bowl hangers so that I could hang our 4 Tabasco gumbo bowls on the wall in kitchen. I figured that I might as well hang them because we have used them once. I don't want to put them in the dishwasher because they are so adorable that I don't want them ruined and I absolutley refuse to handwash anything, so they've been in the cabinet for the last year or so. While I was there I checked out everything in the Mardi Gras aisle and there was an adorable Mardi Gras wreath made out of purple, green and gold ornaments. It was 59 f-ing dollars. Like, WHAT? I only considered buying it for about a minute and thirty seconds (it was so cute) before I realized that I have a hard time spending $59 on a pair of jeans that I will keep for 7 years. Now I know that I can probably attempt to make this wreath, but I see it going very badly. But I may still give it a go anyway. Yikes. Anyway, I was checking out with my 4 bowl hangers and I was in line behind the biggest, angriest, piece of shit on the face of the planet. He started berating the poor checkout girl because he thought he was buying some item on sale when, in fact, it was not on sale. So he yells for the manager and tells her that the checkout girl was giving him attitude and then he stormed out. The checkout girl then runs to the back to (I'm assuming) cry. So before I leave I go up to the manager and tell her that the checkout girl didn't do anything wrong and that the guy was just an asshole. And then I felt bad about saying the word "asshole" because I'm pretty sure that everyone who works in HL is super religious because they all look like characters out of Big Love.

Then yesterday I was in a meeting and we were discussing something that we needed more info on so I decided to google it on my phone. Thank goodness no one was looking over my shoulder because my search history popped up and the word "vagina" was definitely in there. But that's life when you're trying to get preg....you feel something weird and you're all like, hmmmmmm I wonder if.... and then you google it and then it's in your iphone search history forever and I should never ever try to search anything on my iphone again in a meeting.

So I listen to a lot of rap when I run in the mornings and sometimes I like to try out the lingo. There's this one song where Kanye West says, "that shit cray." I try to say this sometimes, instead of "wow, that's crazy" and Neal just shakes his head and tells me that I can't make it work and I need to stop trying. But now I think it's too late because the word "cray" comes out of my mouth before "crazy" does. I don't know why I think I can pull this off. I am almost 32 and I have some gray hairs and I can remember when my old boss would tell me a story and say "But that's TMI, right?! right?!" and I wanted to punch her in the face for being such a loser and now I'm doing it too.