32.3 - Still in awe, and now also a little embarrassed

Less than 8 weeks before baby girl's estimated arrival date.  Wow.  Every milestone we've reached has been amazing to me, and now that we're in the home stretch, I'm no less awed or shocked by this miracle that is happening inside my body.  I can feel her little feet and knees, her little back and butt, just by touching my belly.  There's a baby inside me!  Eight months I've been growing her, and I still can't get over the fact that this is finally happening to me, to us, that we've made a whole new human. 

I'm just starting to daydream about how she'll look - I'm convinced she'll have red hair, but I wonder if it'll be curly like her daddy's or straight like mine?  We saw her profile on ultrasound at 18 weeks, and she's got the cutest little nose; I can't wait to kiss it.  I want to hold her little feet in my hands, and stroke her little arms and legs.  I want to rub her sweet little back and smell her head.  Just two months to go, and I'll get to hold her close and snuggle her all I want - it seems like a dream.

Maggie mailed baby shower invitations two days ago - the shower is two weeks from today.  Time is flying. 

The nursery will be painted this weekend.  Come hell or high water, the nursery will be painted this weekend.  There's no time left for procrastination.  None.  It has to happen, and it has to happen now.

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A few hours later, and Jimi's working on the nursery.  I've got dinner in the crock pot and I'm trying to get my arms around our laundry situation.  I'd love to have everything organized and sorted and folded and hung and put away before baby girl shows up.  I'd love to have our house in perfect order before she arrives.  Time to get on the ball, I guess. 

 

My hips hurt.  The yoga still really really helps, and I've been back on the almost-daily wagon in an effort to make the pain go away.  The fingers on my right hand have been numb for weeks and now there's never any change, they're just always numb.  I finally bought a wrist brace and it helps for a few hours, but it's not a solution for complete relief.  I guess I need to resign myself to the fact that this is the way it's going to be until she's born - but I think I'm going to check out an acupuncturist, just in case there is relief to be found.  My fingers on both hands are getting puffy - not that I've ever had slender fingers (I wear a size 8 ring), but I can feel and see the change and it annoys me.  The ridges on my ankles at the end of the day, left by the bands of my socks as my lower legs swell, those annoy me too. 

 

Want to hear a great story?  Baby girl is doing her best to slow my bodily processes down, and my normally-like-clockwork system hasn't been so regular these days.  The juice we've been making is supposed to help with that, but after two days of no results, I was beginning to doubt all the stories I'd heard.  Yesterday, though, Kim and Jordan had to leave the office for a couple hours, leaving me alone with our salesman to catch the phones and help customers.  Of course, juice kicked in.  After a brief "Can I hold it?" hesitation, I decided the answer was no, and told Jeff he'd have to fend for himself for a few minutes, but that I'd hurry back.  Everything went swimmingly...until I flushed.  Everything went down, except the water level - it just kept creeping higher and higher.  Shit.  This has never happened to me before; at least, never at work.  I grabbed the plunger and worked it a few times, and heard what I thought was the sound of clear pipes.  Thinking I'd fixed the problem, I flushed again, and that was my downfall - instead of going down, the water rose dangerously, and then, to my horror, spilled over the edge of the toilet.  I watched helplessly, urging it to stop flowing up and over, but it ignored my pleas and continued its journey to the floor.  By the time it stopped, half the bathroom floor was flooded, and all I could do was stare at it incredulously, cursing loudly in my head, wondering how in the fuck I was going to fix this problem without announcing to our salesman that I had just flooded the damned bathroom. 

 

I looked at the roll of paper towels and considered them for a moment before deciding this job was much bigger than some cheap roll of generic paper could handle.  I sighed, resigned myself to the inevitable, left the bathroom and walked the few feet to the closet where the industrial-sized mop and bucket live.  Fate was smiling on me, Jeff was on the phone.  I rolled the loud-ass bucket out of the closet, down the hall, and into the bathroom and began the tedious process of trying to sop up the toilet water covering the floor.  It took forever.  I stopped two or three times to come out and check on Jeff, even taking the time to show him how to set up a price matrix for a new customer, and then going back to my task.  I'm sure he was wondering what in the fuck was going on, or knew very well what in the fuck was going on, but he was too much of a gentleman to ask any questions, thank goodness.  To save myself some dignity, I left the bucket in the bathroom, planning to roll the loud contraption back to the closet later, when no one was around to hear it and ask questions about why it'd been in the bathroom.  When Kimmie and Jordan returned from their errand, Jeff was out of the office on an errand of his own, so I brought the girls up to speed on my tale - because now it was funny, and these are girls I consider friends, so I wasn't embarrassed to tell them what had happened.  They laughed at me good-naturedly, and we continued on with our day.  Why I didn't move the bucket to the closet then is beyond me - I guess I just didn't think about it. 

 

I'd planned to work only until noon, but status quo dictates that if I plan to leave at noon, I may get out by 2.  At 2:30, Kimmie said she couldn't wait for me to leave so she could tell my story to Jeff and our boss - I threatened her with bodily harm.  At 3, Jordan's day was ending, and she made a trip to the potty before heading out - when she was finished, she rolled the bucket out of the bathroom and down the hall to it's closet home.  My boss was at his desk at the end of the hall - "What's that doing in there?"  He wasn't in the best of moods - it was year-end inventory and nothing was going his way.  "Natalie had it in there," was Jordan's non-committal reply.  "Why?"  He wasn't going to let it go!  Kimmie came out of her office, laughing her ass off, "I was going to wait until she left before I told you the story!"  Fuck.  Some friend she is.  I tucked my tail, went to the end of the hall, and told my tale to my boss, expecting a hearty laugh.  He wasn't nearly as amused as Kim and Jordan - I didn't even get a smirk!  I blame inventory. 

 

So yeah.  There you have it.  Proof that pregnancy eliminates all pride.