“Baby, no one could have ever told me bout this”

It’s a week past my due date this weekend. It’s okay really, but like Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part. I am really ready to meet our baby, I just have to muster up a bit more patience and wait until it is ready to come out into the world. Friday Mr. Cuerda and I went to see Shrek 3 at the drive in and I felt my first contraction sitting there in the car, I was holding his hand, and as the contraction came on, I just started squeezing, apparently quite hard, though I was unaware of anything going on at the time. It didn’t hurt so much as take me by surprise. I had no idea what a contraction could possibly feel like, and I started having this building gas bubble in my abdomen, that wasn’t releasing, and my natural reaction was to tense up. We decided to leave, the movie was almost over, but the drive in was packed and we didn’t want to get stuck there. I felt another one, and was a bit more prepared, I was able to relax my abdomen and it was not bad at all. We pulled over so I could stand, and that made a huge difference. I had three contractions in a little more than an hour, and then…nothing. I had one again yesterday while I was walking, but it was quite light. I have an appointment Thursday morning to see what is going on. I really hope to have the baby by then, if not I will have to make a date to be induced, which I really don’t want to happen. I am not much more uncomfortable than I have been, I can deal with it, I know most first time babies tend to be at least 10 days late. It would just be nice to know when. Perhaps if I stop listening to NPR and CNN all day it might decide the world really is an okay place and decide to come out.

What do you need?

Browsing around the Pew Research Center’s site, (yes, I like to look through demographics and statistics for fun) I stumbled across this article
about what American’s consider necessities. I feel shameful about this list. There is nothing, nothing on it which a human actually needs to sustain life. That is what I would define as a necessity. I don’t need anything on that list; in fact, I have lived without many of those things for quite a long time, and can get along quite well with out any of the items on the list. Though, if I want to keep my current job, having a laptop is quite helpful, maybe a necessity for the position, but not for living. Even a car is not a necessity, it is very nice, but if we could not afford one, we would be okay; there are other means of getting around. Water, food, shelter…these things are necessities. Indoor plumbing, books, arts/music, education, healthcare, some form of transport, a bike perhaps, are essentials for a better quality of life. A microwave and flat screen TV are not necessary, and never will be. I am just so ashamed of the gluttonous nature of our culture, it is just so sad. I wonder if the American’s surveyed even realize that there are many people in the world who have, do and will continue to live without any of these items.

mmmm, avocados

Amazing lunch today, avocados sliced on warm toasted beer bread and drizzled with a sweet balsamic glaze. Life is so damn good sometimes.

The breakdown

Last night it happened. I was having the worst night of my pregnancy and what I feared most, getting a migraine while I was pregnant and unable to take anything, happened. It was not the most intense migraine I have ever had, but it was bad. It had been hovering about for close to 30 hours, making me feel really quite bad for a bit, but last night it peaked and I just thought, I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to be pregnant anymore. All I could take was one regular strength Tylenol, taking Tylenol for a migraine is a bit like putting a band-aid on a cut that really needs stitches. I felt bad for complaining; I had been on a good “I am so damn miserable” streak for about 15 hours, so more complaining was feeling like too much, I was tired of hearing me complain, so I am sure Mr. Cuerda was! But I really could not take it. I came downstairs about 10:30 last night and asked Mr. Cuerda to go on his first late night run to the store during my pregnancy. I needed some Reed’s ginger ale
and some rainbow sherbet. I hovered over the kitchen sink, in the dark, with a cold washcloth on my head, standing in the hot breeze waiting for him to return with that sweet sweet elixir. He came back with the Reeds, some ginger chews and sorbet, which was actually a bit more cooling then the sherbet, and I sat in the dark slowly sipping the ginger ale for about an hour. I sipped on some sorbet and let the warm ginger work its magic, I could feel it releasing the tension and making the nausea go away so slowly and so peacefully. Oh, sweet relief was coming. It took until about 3:30 in the morning for me to feel almost totally better; I laid in bed sucking on ginger chews and still sipping ginger ale for quite a while. I am up and feeling much more human for a big fat hormone laden invasion of the body snatchers very pregnant person! So I think I am going to go for a swim today and stock up on some more Reeds, I can sense that it will become quite a necessity during this final countdown. Being pregnant really hasn’t been that bad, I can’t say that it has been the most wonderful experience ever, and I probably have had it pretty easy. That being said, I am pretty sure I am entitled to at least a couple of breakdowns throughout the experience, I think I should really save it for labour!