Are we there yet?

I am going to apologize in advance in case this entry seems whiny and full of complaints, but I thought it might be wise to document what I'm feeling this time since somehow this stage of my last pregnancy was miraculously erased from memory.

Every pregnancy goes through cycles. Depending on the person and the pregnancy, they may come sooner or later and be shorter or longer but as I see it most everyone goes through the following:

stage 1) surprise/sheer joy,
stage 2) daily worship at the porcelain throne,
stage 3) I feel better/sheer joy,
stage 4) wait to find out the gender,
stage 5) It's a boy/girl/sheer joy,
stage 6) wait a minute -- haven't I been pregnant for about a year already?,
stage 7) birth of baby/sheer joy,
stage 8) hormone induced amnesia (this is the part where you forget all of the bad stuff.

With 48 days to go until my scheduled c-section on April 5, I have been holding in stage 6 for a couple of weeks now. Unfortunately stage 6 was preceeded in this pregnancy by a special stage specific to our current life events:
stage 5b) we're painting the entire house and "de-cluttering" so I don't have time to think about anything else.

It's been a busy pregnancy, but nature has a way of slowing you down when it's time to slow down. My job has been painting every door in the house. Aaron takes them off the hinges and sets them up in the bedroom and I paint and paint and paint until they are done. All are now done except the doors to the laundry room and for some reason I can't face the finality that would come with finishing them (so they've been waiting on me for about 3 days now). I have great intentions to complete some of the other tasks on my lists, but the aches and pains are not making it easy.

I have become convinced in the last day or so, that Noah (an engineer like his daddy) has cracked off one of my ribs and is using it like an ice pick to chip away at my pubic bone in an attempt to "escape." I am in so much pain, I can hardly walk. And when I go somewhere and people see my hobbling around they are convinced I'm "getting ready to go." It's too early to be done and I know that. At the same time, I cannot imagine 7 more weeks of the issues I've been having. Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful to be just dealing with normal pregnancy stuff and not the life-threatening complications I faced with Grace, but wow....ouch. As I start to complain about the pains, the 100 trips to the restroom between 10pm and 6am, my excruciating backaches and several other fun things too embarassing to document here, I start to experience deja vu. I know I've said these things before, but the hormonal amnesia zapped them from memory.

We have an ultrasound on Monday (33 weeks) to monitor Noah's growth. I have a suspicion that I am growing another huge one, but we'll have a better idea after that ultrasound. I am going to the doctor now twice a week for non-stress tests because I am high risk (due to the fact that I am considered a geriatric patient in terms of pregnancy :) and my chronic hypertension - which, for the record, has been beautifully controlled this pregnancy). The first two NSTs have not been fun. During these tests you are hooked up to two monitors. The first measures contractions (I'm not having any) and the second measures the baby's heartrate. Every time he moves, I press a button and they are looking for accelerations in the heartrate after movement. Well, Aaron Jr, er I mean Noah likes to play tricks on us all. His heartate is great and he moves like crazy, but when he does he moves away from the monitor. I can HEAR his heartate accelerating, but since he's moved away, it doesn't get documented on the paper reading (which is needed for documentation and has to be recorded twice during the test). So during the last two tests, I've been strapped in a chair for an hour waiting for this little guy to cooperate. It wouldn't be so bad if I could take a nap or do something constructive, but since I have to participate in the process by pushing the button, I have to be alert. On the bright side, it is quite comforting to hear his little heart beating and hear/see him in there moving around like crazy. Two NSTs down, 13 to go.

Having been through all this twice before, I KNOW the prize at the end is so worth it. Fortunately, Grace is going through the sweetest little stage -- walking, dancing, and giving mommy kisses so I have a visible reminder on a daily basis of how rewarding it all is. Furthermore, through Tyler I can see the longer term rewards of parenting. But hey, pregnancy is NOT all fun and games...and I'm not forgetting that this time!! :)