Nesting is Truly True

When I read about nesting while pregnant with my now four-year old daughter, I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Truly I didn't. I literally did not get the concept. Just like I still don't get the signs that read, "Don't curb your dog." I have been living in NYC for 7 and a half years, see that sign on every street, and still can't imagine its meaning.  My comedic hero, George Carlin, would also be confused. And he would be appalled by the sign and by the term, nesting. Why can't our language be more meaningful? Say what we mean!  Instead we use bogus terms to sound important.  Leaving the curbing of the dog thing aside, since I don't have a dog, I don't need to know what it means. But nesting does apply to me right now because I am supposed to be doing it. I now get what it means because I finally read a definition of it that makes sense.  However, choosing the word "nesting", was a really bad idea. Whoever came up with it should be put on trial. Sorry. It left me utterly confused and dejected four years ago because I thought I was supposed to be doing something which I wasn't doing. I guess I wasn't doing it because I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.  This is torture for a 9-month pregnant lady.  But, as I mentioned, now I know what nesting is. It's organization. And I have been doing it, furiously, I might add.  All I can do and think about in the last 24 hours is getting my apartment clean and organized.  And that is what nesting is to me.  I am on a rampage of getting my place spic and span. I just bought some more cleaning supplies at the $.99 store. I've disinfected the hand-me-down baby toys. I put mattress covers on the beds. I have made the fridge spotless (it wasn't easy to get the dried syrup off the side door). The floors have been scrubbed. Cabinets rubbed down. Radiator pipes fixed and painted.  Furniture re-arranged for ease and simplicity.  Clothes have been sorted, discarded, or stored.  Sheets are clean.  I even moved my wall pictures around.  Yet, I am not nearly finished. I have an inner need to carry on well into the nights before this baby comes next week with more scrubbing, polishing, dusting, sweeping, vacuuming,  re-arranging, tossing out, and stacking. Yes, one can and must do all these things, even in a one-bedroom New York City apartment. As you can see, there is no stopping me.  My hugely pregnant body has taken on all the positions that ferocious cleaning requires.  This will toughen up the baby, who has now likely experienced contortionism.  Not an ounce of this "nesting" business occupied me in my last weeks of pregnancy four years ago. You'd think that even though I didn't have a clue what nesting meant, I still would have had the urge for organization. I didn't then. Now I do. I guess it's true when they say every pregnancy is different.  Let's hope the cleaning urges last me a lifetime! 

How Do You Really Know When It's Time?

The Internet offers many articles on what to expect in weeks 38 and 39.  The baby may drop. But that's usually only in first pregnancies, they say. What about second pregnancies and beyond? Doesn't the baby drop? My baby feels like it has dropped down to my knees, based on the lower back pains that are keeping me sleepless the last few nights. Yet, we all may agree that books and magazines and articles alike all tell us not to go to the hospital too soon. When is too soon? What is the point between being too presumptuous and being careless? Those taxi and elevator births sort of skew things a little bit, don't you think?  We don't want to bother our doctors in the middle of the night, but we don't want to ask our partners to become home birthing doctors either. Why don't we just camp outside our chosen hospital in the 39th week? That way, if it's a false alarm, we can just go back to our tents or cars. If it's not, then we can simply walk in the door. Whether a baby is already coming out of us or not, at least the professionals can finish the job, not the taxi driver or a panicked partner. Back to my earlier question, why do babies not drop as quickly as first babies? That means the first-time mother gets more of a warning. Hey, that's not fair. Regardless of how many babies one already has, it is still scary stuff to not know when the human being inside of you wants out. I want to know. How do I plan for anything, then? Even getting the mail seems like a hazardous errand if I'm supposedly not in the know.  It seems like the very most important detail that is being left out from us mothers is the detail we should be most in tune with. When is the baby coming out? It's just another example of a slap in our face on top of being punished with 9 months of pregnancy followed by painful childbirth for eating that apple. Here's the thing. You get to the hospital too early and you sit around for days, wasting everyone's time. You don't get there fast enough, and you're lectured by your doctor and made to feel like you're the worst mother in the world.  It's as if we are more concerned about what other people think than about living through the whole experience of labor on our own terms.  Even in the final moments of 9-month pregnancy, we are self-conscious.  Bogus.  Let's stop that.  I shouldn't care a less if my doctor is inconvenienced by me.  That's his job. Or is it? He gave me the speech on what he pays for medical malpractice insurance each year. Last check-up, he was on the phone telling his patient to not worry, to go home. She was obviously at the hospital too early in his opinion.  I could hear her pleading with him to come over, but he won the argument and tended to me and the rest of his patients in his office instead.  I detected annoyance in his voice.  Oh gosh, we clearly haven't gotten a hold of our own destinies. Still.  Yet, however appealing birthing at home with total control sounds, I'm still one who's wired to rely on technology.  So I'll wait until my doctor's green light tells me it's o.k. to proceed, suppressing my own annoyance or not. I'll follow those articles and believe my baby has not dropped.  At least, if all else fails, I live one block from the county hospital.

The Truth About Age and New Motherhood

In your forties the idea of becoming a new mother again is scary, to say the least. At least in your twenties, you know you are going through the same things that millions upon millions of new mothers go through all across the globe.  Yes, it's true, having children in your forties is happening a lot and it is nothing new. But it isn't even near as common as child rearing is in the two decades that precede it. And for that, the woman who finds herself with an infant in her forties may feel a little lonely at times.  There just aren't enough of her. Even here in New York City, a mecca for women who put off having children later in life, older moms are the exception, not the rule.  So, at play dates, at school, on the playground, I am going to continue to be the one who is going to be older than the other moms. That's o.k. But sometimes it'll be lonely when the other moms can't relate to what I'm talking about. Picture this: the kids are playing on the jungle gym and we moms are on the bench talking.  Musical groups come up. I mention Led Zeppelin and Rush. I get a quizzical look. Or  I mention that I named my daughter after the Little House on the Prairie books. Another pause, followed by, "Oh, yeah, I've heard of them." The point is, I stand apart in the group. The group can't relate to me totally. I'm an anomaly Now, for Pete's sake, I am not attempting to elicit pity from anyone reading this. I am merely stating facts and figures. Here's a figure: Only 5 percent of live births are from women over the age of 39.  As recently as 2006, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) reported that the average age of the first time mother in the United States is 25.  If that were graphed, I would fall on the far right tail of the distribution curve. I'd be deleted for skewing the results. Maybe I should move to New Zealand where the average age is 30.7. At least I'd have more of a chance to fit in when I reveal my true age amongst the playground moms.  Maybe, in lieu of, ""Oh my, you look good for your age," I'll be greeted with, "Who cares?"  Forgive me, I am having fun with this topic. I don't feel left out or different, really.  The real culprit is stamina. Or lack thereof. That is what is scaring me. I can handle different. I had a poster in my room growing up with a rooster with an actual comb on its head. The poster read: Dare To Be Different.  Believe me, though, I didn't tell myself that I would wait until my forties to have kids. I don't think many women actually aspire to that because we all know the risks and difficulties of getting and staying pregnant, even as soon as age 35.  So, looking, acting, and being older than my contemporaries on the playground shouldn't and doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that I may run out of steam chasing them around the playground. Getting pooped out, so to speak.  A friend of mine has a 25 year-old and seven year-old. I asked her a question to which I already knew the answer: "What age was easier for you when you had your sons, 24 or 42?"  We all know her answer was an emphatic 24. She answered so quickly and with such gusto, it got me to think about what lies ahead for me in the need-for-energy department. With an active four year-old and an infant any day now, I am headed for activity the likes of which I've never experienced.  When most people my age start thinking about how to fit relaxation into their lives, I will be thinking about how to get more physical energy out of my body.  While I'm chasing my kids around the apartment, let's just hope the saying, "It'll keep you young", is true. I will need youth on my side, and I'll take it any way I can get it!

Going into Labor on Thanksgiving Day

Not really! There's no baby yet, but I had some false alarms on the drive home from Thanksgiving dinner at our friends' house. Going over some big potholes put me into labor mode. And we started discussing the option of going to Woodhull Hospital near our apartment in Brooklyn. There were lower-pelvic tightening and labor-type pains going on.  But then it suddenly stopped, and I realized that perhaps the two plates of food and three servings of dessert I ingested might have had something to do with the pains. Nevertheless, it would have been some story had I truly gone into labor today. I wouldn't have minded. I'm definitely ready. It's really dragging on now. However, there is still much to do - as my friend inquired while I helped her make a pecan pie - if I had the diapers yet. No, that is a detail I've forgotten.  Better get those diapers tomorrow, yet do I dare venture out on Black Friday to buy them? I don't think I want to face Baby's R Us when those fake labor pains, along with my crippled leg, might creep up while I'm waiting in line to pay for diapers.  I will go to the local baby store here in Brooklyn and get a package or two to start.  Next, I need a breast pump.  But I still have time for that.  It's now two weeks away.  I can't sleep tonight because the belly is now a liability for me  while lying down. I simply can't get into a comfortable position. That's an oxymoron if you're 38 weeks pregnant.  Coupled with 10 pounds of Thanksgiving food, there is no way that sleep will come to me tonight easily.  What is a 38-week old baby doing inside there about now, anyway? What is going through the mind of a soon-to-be-born baby? "I want out," or "I want in?"  I have no idea because this baby of mine is just doing what seems like perpetual somersaults.  I can see the stomach moving and undulating with each kick. Well, it did cross my mind this morning, as it will every morning for the next two weeks, that this baby will come out today.  And I will be a new mother again at age 46.  Yikes!  Well, I am so thankful for having the joy of being pregnant this year, at my age, with a sibling for my daughter to grace our lives in a few days' time. Thankful that I have gotten through these nine months with no real problems, except the unnecessary ones in my head. But I guess that goes with the territory.  Happy Blessings of Thanksgiving to All!  

Being Retrospective in the Countdown

As I suspected, my doctor was utterly unconcerned about my crippled leg and my scabbed up arms. He barely had time to notice me today, except to unwrap a chocolate kiss for my daughter. Today was my second to last doctor's appointment before baby comes.  Weird to think that, for a man I feel I know so well these last nine months, I will no longer be seeing him, save for one time a year, once I give birth. You go to the doctor a lot when you're pregnant.  Every test, every blood draw, every sonogram in this pregnancy has revealed healthy, normal results. I am lucky and will be giving thanks tomorrow for that.  My doctor's non concern for me is rubbing off on me. It has helped me stay calm throughout this pregnancy, when it would have been so easy to freak out.  Freak out because of my age and all the high risks that go along with it. I am having an amazingly safe and stellar pregnancy in a 46-year old body. I can't believe it. I really can't. In the first trimester I didn't breathe. In the second, I relaxed a little. In the third, I have done a little of both, but mostly really relaxed.  I have been even a bit risque at times, when perhaps some fortysomething year-olds would have played it super safe (as I did in my 42 year-old pregnancy). I snorkeled, drink caffeinated tea sometimes, exercised in gyms (but not enough and not anymore!!), take care of play with my cat, ride public transportation in a city full of germs, use cleaning supplies to clean my apartment (but I try not to breathe in the fumes. I am switching to "green" cleaning supplies as soon as possible), pick up my 40-pound daughter every day for hugs and kisses, pick up boxes, bend over, squat down to pick things up. These things may sound trivial and harmless, but knowing me in my first trimester, I am surprised I did anything outside of bed rest!  You know, being pregnant, I decided, shouldn't stop you from doing what you need to do. I don't really have a choice, anyway; like most people, we have to do our own house cleaning and child rearing. Carry on. If my doctor isn't concerned, it's his way of saying that pregnancy - no matter at what age - is as circumstance as anything else.  I am going to view it that way, and enjoy these last two weeks, for these will be the last two weeks I'll likely ever (let's face it) be pregnant again. 

The Aches and Pains of Being Pregnant at Age 46

I couldn’t believe it when a shot of pain immobilized my left hip while walking slowly though Central Park this evening.  We had just had a picnic and were headed to the carousel when the area where the leg and torso meet flared up with a strong dose of acute, nerve-wracking, albeit only seconds-lasting pain. That sentence is weird. First of all, picnicking in late November is not a normal event for the Northern Hemisphere. New York has been experiencing a ridiculously mild fall. It’s so nice out you can sit on the ground and wear balmy clothes.  Second of all. Where my leg and torso meet is an area of my body I can no longer ascertain, let alone locate.  The belly is hanging over, but I can feel the pain and numbness.  What is going on? I thought the itching was the worst part of the pregnancy. Now I am unable to walk? Well, I can walk, but every few steps I let out a gasp. It’s a shot of pain that isn’t fun.  Dad says now I should understand how extra weight can throw you off balance. My daughter is getting frustrated with me. I can’t do much anymore. I can’t sit on the floor. Now I can’t walk. O.K, I can walk. I am exaggerating. But this nonsense of taking a few steps followed by adrenaline type pain is taking the fun out of going anywhere at all in this gorgeous weather. Gosh, I hope it rains so I can just sit still. That’s the forecast for Thanksgiving Day, thank goodness. I plan to sit around in the morning watching the Macy’s Day Parade, followed by football, followed by a car-driven arrival at our friends’ house where I will sit and (hopefully) be waited on….my very advanced pregnancy ruling the day. I can do what I want and have everyone do it for me.  Coupled with this last-minute decision by my legs and skeletal system to go caput on me, I have every excuse in the world to be and act queen-like. Boy, do I have a lot to tell my doctor tomorrow. Itching and crippled up is what I am.  Maybe my 46-year old body is revolting against the condition I put it in. Yet, plenty of women in yesteryear were conceiving and giving birth well into their late forties because there was no such thing as protection. Also, don’t forget, a woman’s main role was to be a broodmare, such that from puberty until menopause, she was either non-stop conceiving a baby, giving birth to a baby, or nursing a baby. No, it’s not my age, I am not convinced. It’s the 40 pounds I’ve packed on and my lack of exercise that have exacerbated my new hip joint problem.  Well, it’s the age a little, don’t you think? Now that I have written two days in a row about my physical shortcomings, I can honestly admit that being pregnant is not all that easy. It’s not all that hard, either.  I am not complaining, merely stating what’s going on with me in my 37 and a half weeks completed.  I still consider myself fortunate to have had such a virtually problem-free pregnancy at age 46.  I am enjoying it and hope I go all the way to 40!

Nuisance to Report in Pregnancy

I wasn’t completely forthright when I wrote in an earlier blog that all has gone well in this pregnancy.  There is one very annoying physical ailment I have been dealing with for the last six months, which has gotten worse. I am sorry I haven’t mentioned it. I haven’t even told my doctor. It must just keep slipping my mind, or else, I just don’t want to talk about it because it is so awful. Here’s the problem: I have terrible itching on my arms and hands and feet.  It’s as if tiny insects are biting me from 10PM until I fall asleep. And I don’t fall asleep easily when I am busy itching away at my skin as if it were bark.  There are no bed bugs that I can see with the naked eye. And I have no actual bites on my ankles. So I Googled if there is anyone else having this problem who’s pregnant. And voilá, wouldn’t you know, there exists an itching epidemic for pregnant women. It’s called PUPP, which stands for pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy. That’s a mouthful. The bad news is that it lasts all pregnancy. That I know for a fact because I am experiencing it. The good news is that it apparently disappears magically after birth. Can’t wait. I feel like I’m incessantly itching away mosquito bites or poison ivy, like I’m living in the Amazon jungle. I will tell my doctor on Wednesday. Knowing him, he’ll give me the old wave of the hand, as if I’m wasting his time with such insignificant nonsense.  As you know, my doctor thinks everything is just honky dorey all the time, and that questions are superfluous.  I thought your health care provider is supposed to be inundated with questions from all of us, the newly informed and take charge patients who are taking control of our own health care. My doctor can’t be bothered with questions. He acts as if you have to be straggling into his office with gunshots or stab wounds or a disfigured face before he’d take notice and take action.  Anything less pressing than that is handled with a smile and a closing of your patient file.  Forty six year-old pregnancy falls into the category of “completely routine.”  So, to my little itching problem he will likely give me the furrowed brow look that says, “I can’t be bothered with this non-event, not even for a second. Next patient, please.”    I’ll just take my self-diagnosis of PUPP and wait out a couple more weeks in an itching frenzy. It won’t be that bad.  At least I never had to deal with vomiting or swollen ankles or nausea beyond three months.  I don’t rest through the night anyway as my frequent trips to the bathroom disallow me from more than one hour’s worth of uninterrupted sleep.  The maddening itching aside, I’m a complaint and problem-free 46 year-old, 37-week pregnant person.

What it Means to Reach 37 Weeks at Age 46

I am full term today! My sigh of relief today is the biggest one yet. My pregnancy has been thankfully uneventful. I got an A+ on my sonogram two days ago. I couldn't have asked for better health throughout. Although waddling around with an extra 40 pounds packed in a humongous stomach isn't exactly the easiest thing I've ever done, it hasn't been all that bad.  The only difficult part of the pregnancy was the keep-to-myself stress I felt from day two until I was somewhat out of the woods around 32 weeks.  My inability or my refusal to allow myself to rejoice in the earlier months is now hindsight.  If I had known then what I know now - that everything is completely on track - I would have been dancing in the streets from the day after I read the pregnancy test.  To be certain, I did dance and kick up my heels the day the pregnancy test turned into a pink "t". April 14th.  A day to store in my journal forever!! What happiness I felt that day...to know that a little life was forming in my belly.  And it was there in spite of all the odds against it getting there in the first place and staying there.  Now here I stand 7 months and 5 days later. The profound happiness is back today. What joy I get to experience again.  That little start of life is now a full term baby getting prepared to enter the world outside my womb any day now. He or she can come out today and be right on track. That's what our 37 weeks we've reached together has come to. Come out, come out, little baby, you're allowed to now.  Thank you so much for growing and being a wonderful tummy mate. What a great job you did. I hope you didn't mind the onslaught of late night snacking or several trips to the bathroom  at night I put you through.  Your big sister has all her old baby toys set in blue buckets ready for you to play with her.  Thank you for this remarkable journey. At age 46 it has been an experience of a lifetime!

The Weather and the Final Weeks of Third Trimester Pregnancy

The weather in New York in October and November has been splendid. I hear we're in for another gorgeous weekend. If it is anything like the last two weekends, we all may want November to last forever. But baby won't.  He/she is going to want to get out fairly soon. Trouble is, I am enjoying these brilliant blue-sky, white, fluffy-cloud, crisp autumn-leaf days. And I still have to carve some time out to get the last details in place and get my mind in baby mode and life altering change mode.  Maybe I am in denial. I go about my days as if this appendage is just a part of of my body that will be there forever.  Maybe I am supposed to act this way, as if I am going to be pregnant forever, as if this baby is going to stay in there forever, as if my life is la-dee-da-dee-da.  Let me take a pause to hit the upside of my head: "Mary Anne, do you know what's coming?" "No, I don't. I can't fathom what's coming. Don't talk to me about it. I just want to be outside in this amazing weather." Yes, the weather is to blame, then, for the fact that I have no car seat base for the infant car seat, that I don't have a breast pump, that the apartment is still cluttered, that all the baby toys are still down in the basement covered in dust, that I haven't thought about life after December 7th when the baby is due, that I don't even think about it now. And I could come up with another few dozen things that, now that I think about it, I haven't done or I don't do.  Last week I thought I was ready for the baby to come that afternoon, delusional I was in my joy in having the fitted crib sheets all freshly laundered and placed.  The chaos that is about to define my life is in a very far corner of my mind. And I am about to get the biggest wake up call I'll ever know. Yet, the bliss of fall weather is beckoning me right now.  Yes, I am either in a denial phase or an absorption phase. Either way, I want to milk (no pun intended!) the last few weeks for as much as I can. You know that saying, "I'll cross that bridge when it comes"? Well, it applies to me.  I don't think that health care providers, mother groups, relatives, society in general, etc, would appreciate hearing me say that.  You don't "wing it" with a baby. But that is what it seems I am doing. Baby thoughts aren't even on my mind. What's on my mind? Movies, pecan pie, trees, going to the beach in November, and baking scones.  When do you know you're ready for the baby? Will it just pop into my head on December 6th?  Just so you know, I don't get excited about trips, either, until I've landed. Please don't judge me for comparing a new human life to a five-day vacation. Unless the vacation is outside in beautiful weather!!

Reflecting on What it Means to Be 46 and a Mother to Little Ones

My gratitude at being a 46 year-old naturally pregnant woman was further cemented by my sonographer today. She saw my date of birth and said, “Why, I am only one year older than you, with three grandchildren, and am just starting to go through menopause.” And all I thought to myself were two things:  1.) “I am lucky to have a healthy pregnancy at my age”, and 2.) “Oh my gosh, what am I doing?”  But here is what I am looking forward to:

-Staying youthful as I will be spending the next several years doing kids’ stuff with my kids.

-Being a wise and patient parent.

-Spending a lot of quality time with my children.

-Pouring over homework with enthusiasm.

-Being the oldest (probably) mom at the graduations.

-Staying fit and healthy because I know I will be the oldest mom at the graduations!

-Giving my kids the best of me.

It is a bit bizarre to think that with this child, I will be 64 at his/her high school graduation. But 60 is the new 50. And I can pull off 50 just fine. I’m only 4 years shy of it, and still look all right. (With make up and styled hair and clothes, that is.) That alone is going to incentivize me to get into an exercise program for the long haul. I don’t want to embarrass my kids. O.K. I am getting ahead of myself and looking into a far off future. Let’s get through the next three weeks and materialize a healthy baby. Let’s get through infancy, if I can darn well remember what to do, then take it from there.  My daughter asks me how old I am from time to time. I used to lie and say 32 because I didn’t think she could fathom a higher number, nor did I think it held any meaning for her.Who am I kidding? I was too embarrassed to say.  But lately I have changed the practice to telling her the truth because, come on,  I just can't lie to her. Tonite she asked me again. And I again told her the truth.  She said, “Forty-six? Gosh. That is big. That is old. That is like Mrs. Moises (her teacher).” To which I quickly responded, “I’m not quite as old as her, honey.” I figure I might as well let the cat out of the bag with my kids and be honest Abe when it comes to my age. I know that it will get out in school one day and I will be the topic of conversation from time to time. But I don’t agree that lying or withholding the truth is the way to go either.  I have confidence that they will be on my side, defend me, and not let others’ comments get to them. Such as, “Your mom is so old.”  I will just have to do some marathons during their school years, so that they have a cushion against any such idle talk. They can come back with, “My mom may have a high chronological age, but she looks good and can run 26 miles in four hours without stopping!”  As you can see, I have put some thought into this.  It felt good to let me daughter know my age.  Although, my honesty theory already has holes in it, because Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are all very real to my daughter. What a hypocrite I am!  Oh well, you can’t be consistent all of the time.  

How Do You Care For a Newborn?

It’s as if I’ve drawn a blank.  The crib and changing table are staring me in the face right now. But all I can think of when I look back at them is that I have completely forgotten how to take care of a baby. I really have no idea.  Three years have passed since my daughter was in the infant to one year-old stage. How did I take care of her? How did I feed her round the clock at night like all the books say you’re supposed to do? I don’t remember nursing her at 12AM then 2AM then 4AM then 6AM. But I must have because here she is.  How do you handle a baby? How do you change its little diaper?  What happens in the first 24 hours at the hospital?  These and millions of other questions are weighing on me like a ton of bricks. My memory bank has been depleted in the baby department. I look at the very young Hasidim Jewish mothers on the subway, all with strollers with babies in them. Some of the mothers barely look over 18 years old. They are jabbering amongst themselves, so confident in their mothering and obvious know-how, that they haven’t a care in the world of the enormous responsibility they possess laying in those strollers.  I see all kinds of young mothers in my neighborhood, going about their daily lives, with baby in tow.  All carefree and in charge. Why do I feel like I am going to need two nannies, a mentor, and a nurse all for my one baby? I’ll tell you why…I don’t know what I’m doing.  All information and experience I once knew has left me as high and dry as the Sahara Desert.  I’m freaking out! You know that saying, “A mother instinctively knows what to do the second the baby is put in her arms.” Oh really? Well, that saying certainly does not apply to me.  There is no way that knowledge is going to enter my brain in the moment after birth.  I have to attain it somehow. Brains don’t just instantaneously absorb things.  What if I’m clueless and no knowledge has been obtained when I get home from the hospital? Oh no. I’m still flabbergasted as to how I did the infancy stage with my daughter. Does anyone else feel this way? Four years is too long. It’s like studying for a science test, yet taking the test four years later. It’s impossible!! No on can do it.  You can’t retain knowledge for four years then regurgitate it back in an instant.  Motherly instinct? Nonsense. I'm not going to get it or have it. I am going to have to plead with the nurses to come home with me and stay with me until baby can walk and talk.  Preferably until baby can talk. Goodness gracious.  I will ask my mom to come live with me. I will be the only 46 year-old second time new mother who ever lived who needs her mother to help her.  This is an embarrassing notion. Forget it. Scrap that idea.  I have to suck it up and hope my brain is permeated with baby care skill through osmosis or divine intervention.  Maybe I can fake my way through and baby won't notice.  Talk about a scary situation.  If that motherly instinct fails me, I'll just refer to my books. I've always been a pretty good student.  Baby Care 101...here I come. 

Preparation Intact

What I have been putting off for fear of getting ahead of myself and jinxing the baby, I have now accomplished in the last two days...organizational nesting. Sounds like a master's degree program.  It was a lot of work.  Baby cloths were sorted, labeled and put in proper drawers.  Crib is fully functional, with all accouterments in place, such as blankies, border padding, mobiles, etc.  The baby car seat is all clean and ready for baby. I even packed what I need to take to the hospital.  I referred to a list found in What to Expect When You're Expecting, the bible of all pregnancy guide books. In fact, it has an unfair market share and needs a formidable competitor.  There is a lot of material in there that is simply bogus.  And it spends far too many pages, in fact a chapter, on what can go wrong.  That's not the kind of information expecting mothers, especially 46 year-old ones want to read.  But the "What to Take to The Hospital" list is pretty funny. Included on the list are a bottle of champagne, make up, a deck of cards, and pads.  If the hospital isn't going to provide me with pads, then they neither care about their sheets or they are horribly cheap. They are going to get thousands of dollars out of my insurance company, so they better well cough up some soaking pads for my lovely discharges.  They $350 per night room charge is shocking enough.  I am going to bring make up, though.  If those first pictures taken while holding the baby are any indication of a women's true beauty, I am in for a big jolt of reality.  Every crevice and disfigurement of my ashen, sagging face will be clearly evident.  Add on makeuplessness to the formula, and I will be the vision of a freak show. Nope, I'm taking lots of make up with me. But I'll leave the champagen and deck of cards behind.  My and the baby's going-home outfit are also packed. For me, I chose a lovely maternity suit, because I know that will be all that will fit me.  This suit no longer goes over the burgeoning belly now, but once baby is out of that space, I am making the grand assumption that I will, indeed, fit into it. (If my presumptuousness proves me wrong, I think I'll have myself transferred from the birth center to the liposuction wing.) Baby's outfit, of course, is green and yellow. Sorry baby, I don't know what sex you are! Well, now that I am pretty much prepared as if the baby were going to be born this afternoon, all I have to do is get in the proper mindset that I will soon be a 46-year old mother of two under the age of five. Yikes!  Stay tuned for tomorrow, because the page will be filled with one huge theme:......I forgot how to take care of a newborn!!!!

What it Feels Like to Complete 36 Weeks as a 46-year Old

Maybe you want to just slap me for always bringing up my age, but it just dawned on me - as I looked at my calendar - that I made it to 36 weeks in the 45-50 year-old age group and I feel ever so fine!  The baby is kicking. I have no malaise whatsoever, except the huge gravitational force that is my belly, aching feet for any walking over four blocks, and founder-like symptoms after eating more than five bites of anything.  I had a clean bill of health on Wednesday's doctor's appointment:  a strong blood pressure, no trace of protein in my urine, no gestational diabetes, no signs of pre-term labor or preeclampsia.  But the scale indicated I have gained 40 pounds. My doctor could care a less.  He sees some behemoth mothers-to-be come in and just sends them to a nutritionist.  He thinks I'm a stick. Oh my gosh, is he wrong. I am going to probably gain 55 pounds all told.  (Yesterday I covered a blueberry bran muffin in loemon curd and ate the whole thing.) I think my doctor needs to tell me to watch it this last month.  I'll need to lose a lot of weight after the baby is born (not an easy task when you're fortysomething!) but I guess that's not his problem. He was more concerned if I wanted to do a tubal ligation at the birth.  "What's that?" I asked. "Tubes tied," he responded. Does he actually and honestly think I can get pregnant again?  He told me if I did, he and I would both become famous.  He's still my biggest fan club on the whole spontaneous pregnancy-at-my-age thing.  It seems I amuse him.  Anyway, these Fridays in November are big milestones because I'm reaching the full-term stage.  Let me say that it has been quite a truthfully stressful pregnancy where I have managed to manage my stress in a healthy way.  I kept one foot out of the emotional pregnancy, if you will, because of the statistics of miscarriage and other dangers in my age group. But now, today, I am going to put both feet in, then kick them up and feel the rush of excitement of my impending second motherhood in my forties. I washed the rest of the baby's clothes this morning. Baby daddy brought up the crib from the basement and he's putting it together tomorrow morning. Yippee...I can now do my favorite part, which is getting the cute baby layette all organized and labeled in drawers.  I am going to nurse these last four weeks for all it's worth.  That includes getting spoiled any chance I get.  Wish my grandmothers and Prairie's grandmothers were here now to wait on me hand and foot! No, that's a bit too self-indulgent.  I know, I will let myself have a mug of caffeinated tea every day.  I adore tea, and I miss it.  Although I imbibed last Saturday at my tea party, I did feel guilty about it. Well, no more guilt. I am 36 weeks and counting. Hoorah!

Sleeping the Right Way

Now I know what they mean when they say don't sleep on your back when you're pregnant. I haven't been heeding this advice. But starting tonight I will.  Last night I woke to the pain of smashed kidneys. Lying on my back, I quickly turned to my side. Then I stumbled out of bed and sprinted to the bathroom to relieve my compressed, full kidneys. Poor things. I have been abusing them all this time because sleeping on my back is my most favorite position. But what do I expect when 50 pounds of belly is free-falling on to them? Like stone-weighting, a gruesome torture method used in the medieval times when confessions were forced out of people as heavy stones were set on their bodies, my kidneys were being subjected to the weight of the massive boulder that is my belly. Then I heard that lying on your left side is the best position for mid-term pregnancy. Why is that? What's the difference between the left side and the right side? It must have something to do with the mother's heart. Maybe it has to do with the baby's heart. Who knows. But I am going to have to switch from side to side because I will not be comfortable either way. But for the sake of my kidneys, I will become a side sleeper.  Actually, I have caught sight of my large, pregnant belly while laying on my side. I look like a horse that is about to give birth, with a heaving stomach to deal with. The belly sort of distorts, bearing forward as the side concaves inwardly.  Not a pretty site. I am not going to look at it anymore, which may be difficult to avoid, because I will now only be laying on my side. I have no other choice. I want my kidneys. I need my kidneys.  I got weighed today at the doctor's, and I know that no kidney can withstand the kind of weight that I have crammed into my 8-month pregnant body.  I wonder what other organs are being crunched during the night as I sleep?  Maybe sleeping on my side will alleviate the urinal impulses that propel me out of bed several times a night.  Something's gotta give because the frequent trips to the toilet and the pain of crushed organs is not my idea of getting rested up before the baby comes. And I need all the sleep I can get at age 46.  All the books tell you to get a lot of sleep. Yeah, right.  It's not happening. My body has gone on auto-pilot and seems to function on sporadic sleep. I can't even remember the last time I got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. But I have a small,  four-week window of opportunity between now and the birth to practice sleeping on my side and getting those wonderful 8 hours in, maybe?

Stomach Size in the Last Trimester

The sheer size of my 8-month pregnant belly is frightening, even to me. I cringe when I look at it. It is so large, I wonder how skin is able to expand around it. Is there no limit to how far the skin stretches, for I look like I'm carrying an army inside. I could fit a school of blue-fin tuna in there, or a flock of baby hammerheads. Very few maternity pants stay up. I am reduced to wearing x-large stretched out sweat pants. There needs to be a store called, "Plus Size Maternity Clothes." Sleeping on my side, of course, is my only option. The protrusion of stomach lays there as another entity that needs its own bed space.  The scary part is that there is another month of growth my stomach will experience.  Will the elasticity of my epidermis finally stretch too thinly? I'm afraid it will.  I cannot imagine getting any bigger, but I know I will get bigger. And I will be left like the rhinoceros who got lost in its skin.  the baby will come out but the stomach and skin will have nowhere to go.  For if skin expands to such gargantuan lengths, how ever does it contract back? No doctor or scientist will be able to explain that to me.  I will have to get liposuction and skin removal surgery. My belly button popped through weeks ago.  My belly looks like the head of a bald ogre, with interesting patterns of stretch marks and stripes and red blotches.  I can't bear to look at it in a mirror for its sheer hugeness and color pattern.  How can that belly belong to me, I ask myself as I look at my size 6 jeans on the upper shelf of my closet. The chance of me fitting back into those jeans ever again is about as great as me winning the New York State lottery.  It ain't gonna happen. The belly is part of my life forever now.  I created it and it won't ever leave me. I'm stuck with it. Tents and ponchos will be my wardrobe from here on out. I better start shopping from the Orvis catalog!

November Mondays in the last Month of Pregnancy

I will face these Monday mornings here on out with anxiety and boredom.  Both are easy to explain why I have them. Anxiety: 1.) Losing my total freedom in five short weeks. 2.) About to be juggling two kids, because I know myself. It took me the 32 years since seeing Jaws to go into the ocean without freaking out about getting attacked by a shark. See what I mean? I tend to panic. Boredom: 1.) I am running out of things to do all day. 2.) I want to get on with the birth because it's now turned into the biggest wait I've ever known.  Trees grow faster than the time it takes to complete a third trimester. I refuse to watch television. My neighborhood in Brooklyn isn't exactly a walk through Central Park, so leisurely strolls are out. It's loud and dauntingly treacherous where I live (a lot of dog doo-doo, screaming merchants, alarms and sirens, busy chaos - just what you imagine NYC to be.)   Today is rainy and windy, so I'm indoor bound.  I don't feel like fighting the rain.  I managed to find a raincoat, though, that barely zips around the belly. I'll be donning that when I pick up Prairie from school. The highlight of the day will be making pumpkin pie and clotted cream. I want to eat that the rest of the month of November, right through Thanksgiving into the birth.  In fact, I may be packing the pounds on. I tend to eat a lot when I am bored. I also tend to eat a lot when I am anxious.  Anxiety and boredom together are a dangerous combination.  When I'm stressed I do the opposite...don't eat much. Too bad I'm not stressed.  I have some short bread cookies in the cabinet I plan to get out soon this afternoon to dip in my decaffeinated tea. That will give me something to do and will calm my anxiety for 30 minutes or so.  Hey, there's plenty of cleaning to do. Like get on my hands and knees and clean the floors.  Nope, don't want to do that.  Pay my bills? Naw. Study? No thanks.  Write my thank you cards for the tea party shower that was on Saturday? O.K. I should do that today while dipping the cookies in my tea.  But what about the rest of the week? Monday makes you face that.  I had better take advantage of this precious time I have and make my belly go with me to do some things. Even if it's to the library or to a coffee house.  All right. Here is my plan: Spend Mondays planning out my week and writing some things on the blank November calendar with my magic marker. It should include a combo of cleaning, cultural outings close-by, get togethers with other non-working friends, studying, helping out at my daughter's school, and resting up!

Personal Hygiene While In Your Third Trimester

With my last pregnancy, I had a corporate job. Suits were required.  A pregnant person gets away with a lot, though, while on the job.  I did have three pregnancy corporate suits, which have been somewhat forgotten in this present pregnancy, although, I will be forced to wear those maternity corporate suits at home since I am running out of maternity clothes that fit me.  But today's blog is about showering. The kind you do in the bathroom. I showered daily with my last job in my third trimester, for obvious reasons. But I have no clue how I did it, because I also was very huge.  It is so hard to shower these days that I often skip it for days. Why bother? I can't reach my legs and feet to soap them up. The belly gets scalded with the hot water. I drop the soap constantly, and it is no picnic to pick up a soap bar in the shower with a humongous appendage attached to your stomach.  All I do these days is take my daughter to and from school, go to the grocery store, post office, bank, get on the occasional bus, etc. Again, why bother? If I douse a little perfume on me, who will notice I haven't bathed in days? After all, that's how the French do it! The whole purpose of perfume, in my opinion, is to disguise body odor. At least, that is why it was invented. 
This morning, however, I got a whiff of myself. Coupled with not remembering the last time I got in the shower is probably not a good sign of cleanliness. Today I must take a shower.  Please don't think I am a disgusting person. I don't really sweat anyway. I wear different clothes and change my underwear everyday, does that count? (Underwear is a whole other topic. My underwear lays low because there is no way it goes over the belly and I am not about to go buy big women's underwear like I did in my last pregnancy and felt like a freak.) I think it averages out to about a shower a week. It's all I can handle. And as much as I would love to enjoy a luxurious bath, NYC apartments aren't really geared towards that. Most of the baths here aren't standard size. Perfect for my daughter. but there is zero possibility of getting my hugeness into the tub.  Plus, knowing me, I'd probably hurt myself getting in. Getting out would also yield a zero possibility.  Oh, how I would love a bath, though, with bubbles and candles, a book and classical music, cookies and milk. Dream on!

The Duldrom Days of the Mid-to-Late Third Trimester

O.K. I'm starting to get bored.  I remember I felt this way with my first pregnancy, but at least I was going to a job and interacting with people. Well, pretty much I was. The intern sitting next to me couldn't understand why I'd work so pregnant. My plan was always to work up until the end, for two reasons: I wanted my much-coveted and far too-short maternity leave to be on the back end of the birth, not the front end.  Also, It was hot August and my office was wonderfully air-conditioned. Oh, and also, what else was I going to do? Might as well work. The intern told me on that Friday night leaving work, "It's inhumane you're working." I had Prairie the next day. But with this pregnancy, I don't have to work. Maybe that's not such a good thing. I miss talking to other adults while I am incapacitated.  Frustrated with this huge belly's insistence on not letting me do much and my own 46-year old energy level, it is a feeling of incapacitation.  Third trimester 46 year-old pregnancy is not all that it's cracked up to be. How is 47 year-old Kelly Preston feeling about now?  I am so thankful that I feel physically great, so I'm not complaining in that aspect.  But the last month is hopelessly boring. Even though I still have some getting organized to do, it's not going to take up all my next 30 days.  I organized my Cd's today. How boring. What I should be doing is studying my financial planning modules more. I just can't take security valuation and mutual fund selection processes all day long.  I study bits and pieces throughout the day. But I'd take a little more excitement. The World Series and the elections are over. Now what?  I am starting to tell anyone who asks how I am that I am bored. It's sort of fun to do that. I wish I could go help children in the Sudan.  Someone needs to give us non-working third trimester pregnant women something to do to contribute to society. Bored, restless, non-productive, useless, nervous, and stir-crazy are the best adjectives to describe me these days. 

Slowing Down

It's time to start concentrating on what's ahead. There is one last task for November that is non-baby related. Well, it is in honor of the baby. A tea party baby shower that my friend is hosting at her house this weekend that I will prepare for will be taking up my next few days. Yes, I had the grand idea of the tea party part - by no means a symbol of the political tea party from yesterday's election!  Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, to have eight ladies to afternoon tea? It's a grandiose ideal, not one you actually have to carry out when you're 8 months pregnant at age 46 and fatiguing quicker and quicker these days! Oh well, I'm always up for a challenge. I'm, making my grandmother's lemon curd (oh, so unbelievably and sinfully delicious) and ginger bread with chocolate chips. Yum. And her pumpkin pie recipe. Now if I were truly heroic, I would buy real pumpkins and scoop out the flesh.  From the Jack-O-Lantern that we carved on Halloween, a semi-large pumpkin yields about three tablespoons of pumpkin meat. Did you know pumpkins are mostly hollow and filled with seeds? (Pumpkin seeds are a great source of iron - I did toast the seeds from our Jack. I impressed myself). So canned pumpkin will have to do because there's no way I'm carving up 10 pumpkins for a cup and a half of pumpkin required for a pie.
An afternoon tea is comprised of tea sandwiches, a variety of course; followed by the second course of scones and muffins. We are going to bake two types of scones. Then followed by dessert (as if scones aren't dessert). Three need to be represented at the tea. I found myself at Bed, Bath and Beyond - a labyrinth of commercial excess - in search of teaspoons and cloth tea napkins. I requested and got a personal escort to the exact location of these items, thank goodness. No walking around aimlessly for me. The legs and bladder can't take it anymore. Only I didn't find cloth tea napkins. No one seems to have them. Pretty paper ones will have to do, I'm not that much of a martyr. Once the party is over, all I have on my calendar, and I hope that will be ALL that will stay on my calendar (no sudden going-into-labor-early-rushes-to-the-hospital for me, please), are weekly visits to my doctor. I even scheduled the weekly sonograms on the same day as the doctor to achieve an economy of trips. Yes, once again, because of my great age, I need to have a weekly sonogram the last month of pregnancy to make sure baby is growing. Hey, if the third sonogram shows baby at 7 pounds or above, I'm skipping out on the last one.  Oh yes, can't forget Thanksgiving. I'm hoping one of my home bound friends will invite us over!  If not, we'll go to a restaurant.  Or, we can eat take out at home. So that's my November. I plan to take it easy, set up the crib, and sort in piles the baby layette. That's about it. I better enjoy the down time!

Cold Weather and Pregnancy

The freezing temperatures this morning caused me to put on a heavy coat. The season has started, I guess. The problem was the coat was nowhere near zipping up. I got scolded by another mother, after dropping my daughter off at school, for not covering up my neck. Native New Yorkers tend to get overzealous, I've noticed, about the cold weather. It's as if New York were in the tropics and any temperature below 55 degrees is some sort of concern.  My daughter's teacher thought she would be too cold on the walk home, so bundled her into two coats, against which Prairie protested the whole way home. Okay. so it was cold this morning. It's only November and it's still Fall. I refuse to get the heavy gear out.  Cold weather kills germs.  I think I blogged earlier that I either wasn't going to get a maternity winter coat or that I'll have to break down and buy one.  Baby is to be born in early December. Still technically Autumn.  Whatever I wrote, let it be updated to this announcement: I'm not getting a maternity coat. It's no surprise that the belly is master of me now. I have to succumb to its whims. The belly has taken over my life. But I refuse to break my banking account.  By Christmas let's hope the belly is 50 percent back.  The buttons of my winter coats that I already own will reach the buttonholes.  They better. Truly cold weather doesn't come until February, in my opinion. So I will have two months of breastfeeding and more sensible eating to get back into shape. I should probably exercise too. Oops, I am getting ahead of myself.  I've got 6 more weeks before baby. If the weather were to stay in the 30's during this time, I still won't buy a maternity coat. That's final.  Belly will just have to bear it. It'll toughen up the little one inside. Build character.  The amniotic fluid, thick wall of the uterus, the belly fat, and skin are keeping the baby as warm as can be. A $150 coat from Macy's isn't going to keep belly and baby any warmer.  I couldn't even go to Macy's if I tried. Try getting off the subway at 34th and 7th on any regular day of the week and you're swarmed by the biggest intersection of people in NYC.  Going into Macy's is like going into a football game at Penn State. Over 100,000 people are in there at any given moment. Finding the coat section would be near impossible. I swore of Macy's the last time I was there when I only made it halfway across the first floor and became claustrophobic. Now my belly would be in the way, to say the least, and I'd be a human bumper car. But Macy's has the best coat sales all year round. Too bad. I'll be fine, brisk but fine.