Pet peeve #45521
One thing I will not miss about the office while I'm gone on maternity leave: Bad Lady eating her yogurt. She eats it at the same time every day, and every day she scrapes her spoon on the little cup, trying to get at every last bit of yogurt in there. The spoon scrape, it makes me nutty.

Stir it up
I don't know about you, but when my doctor says to me as he is about to examine how dilated and effaced I am, about the last thing I want him to say to me is, "Do you want me just to check you and tell you where you're at, or should I check you and stir things up down there?"

But that is exactly what happened to me this morning. I was completely taken aback and thus, reverted into Beavis mode. "Uh... what?!"

Then he explained something that I'll spare you the details on, but basically he could move my labor along TODAY if I wanted him to. He also shared with me that he could do it and not tell me and I'd never know. Yeah. So I feel fully confident in him now that he's about to reach inside me to investigate.

Up until that very moment I was ready to get this child out of me and be done with it. But hearing that I could go into labor tonight or tomorrow caused a bit of a panic.

"Uh, no thanks," I said nervously. "Maybe next week."

It's looking like they are going to admit me next Thursday night and start the induction (inducement?) process. Right on time for the Big Brother premiere! But it looks like the actual birth would take place next Friday, the 8th. Mark your calendars, Doodle's almost here!

Nesting
Here's photographic evidence that I'm in full-on nesting mode. This is me and my trusty assistant, Dom, working on putting the knobs on the baby's changing table. You can also see the rubble which is the aftermath of my baby shower a month ago.



Also for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics of some of our flowers in our backyard at the moment:



And another one:

Tech support
Wow. Two posts in one day. It's just like the old blogging days!
Anyhoo, this is a venting type post, because I have been getting dumb phone calls all day.

I sent out an e-mail to most of the company, indicating that there are some new files available for download on our Intranet site. I dumbed it down as much as possible, knowing that most of the people are not computer-savvy.

Well, apparently I didn't dumb it down enough.

Part of the e-mail that I sent indicated that these files can be opened and edited in my most-hated program ever... Publisher. Publisher is grand if you're not a graphic designer. But if you are, Publisher is the bottom of the barrel. So... phone call #1:

Caller: I'm downloading the file and it won't let me open it.
Me: What does your screen say?
Caller: It is asking me to save it.
Me: There's not an option to open the file?
Caller: No.
Me: (thinking) Are you at the office or at home?
Caller: At home.
Me: Do you have Publisher at home?
Caller: No.
Me: It's a Publisher file, so you need the program, Publisher, to open it. The office has Publisher.
Caller: You mean I have to go into the office to do this?

...........................

Also included in my e-mail were walkthrough instructions on how to actually find our Intranet site and how to log on. This was the part I really tried to dumb down. I explained that the dialog box would ask for you to log in, and that your login was yourname@ourcompany.com, thinking that logic would dictate that instead of typing "yourname", the recipients of my e-mail would actually type in their own names. Then I explained that the password would be the same password they use to log on to their computer. Call #2:

Caller: I keep typing in yourname@ourcompany.com and it's not working.
Me: You mean you're typing in your name at our company dot com?
Caller: Yeah. yourname@ourcompany.com.
Me: You mean, your name, Jane Smith, at our company dot com?
Caller: Oh! Is that what I have to do?
Me: *slapping forehead* Yeah. So you should be all set now. Did it work?
Caller: What's the password?
Me: Your password that you use to log on to the computer.
Caller: Oh. What's that?
Me: I don't know your personal password.
Caller: Oh. THAT password!

..........................

I honestly don't know how a tech support person can listen to calls like that all day long. Because those two nearly sent me over the edge.

Coming to terms
Sorry for the lack of posts. I suppose I should just throw something up here every couple of days so no one wonders if I've gone into early labor. I haven't.

However, I am, as of today, officially full-term! I'm at 37 weeks. The doctors tell me that Doodle is about 6 and a half pounds now, which is about average for how far along we are. They also are considering inducing me in about two weeks if it hasn't already happened by then. But they are definitely not letting me go past my due date.

So that's where things stand with the baby!

It's funny, I'm in that phase right now where I'm just ready to get it all over with. But at the same time, I'm hanging on to these last few days of non-parenthood for all they're worth. I took a day off on Tuesday and halfway through the day I realized that this would be my last day off where I was alone. At least until he's in school. There are a lot of "lasts" that I'm ticking off in my mind as we get closer.

In the meantime, I'm trying to distract myself with such horrible television as "Hell's Kitchen," "Real World Austin", and of course, "Hit Me Baby 1 More Time" (how bad was Wang Chung last week?) I'm also reading Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons" which actually isn't too bad. I'm trying to finish all 2,000,0000 pages of it before I have the baby and I'm about 3/4 of the way through. My husband bet me that I couldn't finish it, so guess what? I WILL. I will, even if I am finishing it through phase three of labor.

And now, I'm off to lunch at Chipotle. Chicken fajita burrito bol, here I come!

Jacko
So Michael Jackson was found innocent. I apologize if someone has already made the following joke, but if not, then I take full credit for it: Now that he's been found innocent, Michael will be free to look for the real molester.

I know that the mother and son who were accusing him of molestation were really sketchy at best. And that the jury found no "smoking gun" that pointed them in the direction of Michael's guilt. But I still feel like somethin' ain't right with Michael. I mean, I would NEVER in a million years send my son to Neverland to be alone with Michael. Would you?

Whoo-hoo!
Major presentation #3 that was set to take place on Wednesday ... cancelled! Unfortunately it's due to the death in the family of one of our big guys, but still.

And it's not going to be rescheduled anytime soon. If it does, I will most likely be on maternity leave anyway!

Speaking of... I was in the doc's office this morning for my weekly non-stress test and the doc told me that I am having contractions. I can't feel them yet but I guess they're starting. I'm about halfway between a WOOT and an Oh Shit on the excitedness scale.

At least that's overwith.
I'm back from the hell that was the childbirth education class. After 12 hours of movies, pamphlets and breathing techniques, I have decided that if it were up to me, here is my preference, in order, for how little Doodle will arrive into this world:

1. Scheduled C-Section.
2. Scheduled induced labor, with admininstered pain medication injection.
3. Scheduled induced labor with epidural.
4. Natural labor with administered pain medication injection.
5. Natural labor with epidural.
6. Natural labor with no medication.
7. Natural labor with pain meds which ends in C-section due to complications.
8. Natural labor with epidural which ends in C-section due to complications.
9. Natural labor with no medication which ends in C-section due to complications.

So, if my friend Karma has anything to say about it, I'd say I'm in for:

9. Natural labor with no medication which ends in C-section due to complications.

I'm thinking this would be the worst possible option because you've done the whole labor thing, probably for upwards of 12 hours, and then you have to go through surgery on top of that.

Before the class I was all about the epidural. There was not even a question in my head about it. But now that I have seen, with my own eyes, the needle and the tube that goes into your back, I'm not so sure anymore. I think I'm going to try and just go with some other sort of pain medication. Ideally I think I would prefer a C-section from the get-go and just skip the labor part entirely.

I was really hoping that these classes would give me, and my husband, the confidence needed to feel good about the birth and its aftermath. But if anything, it has made us both even more freaked out and apprehensive about the whole process.
I got teary-eyed a couple of times this weekend. One time was while we were touring the special care nursery. There was this TINY baby in there in an incubator and he was the cutest thing I have ever seen, I just felt so horrible that he was so small and in there by himself. I wanted to go and stay with him and hold him.

The second time was tears of sheer horror during the birth part of one of those videos. The woman was screaming in pain, it was too much for me to watch.

There were some good parts to the classes...

I feel better about what happens when we go home with the baby. I think I have a good handle on how to feed, how to diaper, how often they should sleep (about 16 hours a day -- yeah right), how often I should sleep (never), how to bathe him, how to take care of his cord stump, etc.

It was interesting to me to see all the other moms-to-be in the class. There was another gestational diabetic, there were staunch natural childbirth advocates, there were epidural freaks, there were pro- and anti- breastfeeding women, there were clueless dads, there were dads who knew their stuff. There was a Richard Hatch lookalike dad who pontificated on how "amazing" it was that a baby could come out and start breathing on its own right away. He was truly astounded. Another woman obsessed that someone would come in her room and take her baby and did that sort of thing ever happen in this hospital. "Yeah, on Days of our Lives," I said under my breath.

Once again I was probably the smallest woman in the class belly-wise, but there was only one woman in the class who was due before me (and she was having contractions during the class).

If it's any consolation to any woman out there, I did develop severely swollen feet today. Yes, Teem, I too have cankles now. My feet are elevated but the cankles aren't going anywhere.

Ah. Only five more weeks.

I'm sure that when the big day comes I'll be such an emotional wreck that I won't even remember the pain (or will I?), and the only thing that will matter is that my son arrives into this world and that he is OK.

Right now though, I'm on information overload.

Parenting for dummies
I'll be spending most of what is supposed to be a gorgeous weekend inside of the hospital for a crash course in childbirth.

My husband is begrudgingly going with, even though I think he would rather have a root canal while simultaneously having his leg amputated.

And I still haven't told him about the whole "bring two bed pillows and a blanket to sit on" part. I don't think I will spring that on him until we're in the car and it's too late for him to bail.

I really hope they don't show a video. I'm pretty sure they will, though. I know what end of me the baby is going to come out of -- I don't need a demonstration! In fact, I don't even want to know anything that is going on down there while I'm in labor. Just get the baby out of me and tell me when it's over, that's my philosophy. And my husband would concur with that statement, I'm sure.

I'm pretty sure we're going to be the "bad" couple at this class.

Hit me baby
So I'm sitting here watching "Hit Me Baby One More Time," that show where a bunch of one-hit wonders from yesteryear performs their popular hit and then puts their spin on a current song. I really hope that Rob Van Winkle wins the competition this week.

This show is pretty cheesy but it's kind of cool to see all these has-beens back and performing. And the host? More annoying than Ryan Dunkleman.

Edited to add: Never mind about Rob Van Winkle.

Down with OPC
There's this Other Pregnant Chick at work. I never really talked to her before we both became pregnant, but now I feel obligated, whenever I see her, to ask about how she's feeling and make general mom-to-be small talk.

I know these general things about her:

• She is not as far along as I am.
• She was sick every day throughout her first trimester and into her second.
• She sometimes parks in the spot that I SHOULD BE PARKING IN, AND I SECRETLY HATE HER FOR THIS.
• She is not finding out the baby's sex beforehand.
• She is WAY bigger than me. And for this, I feel a little bit gratified.

However, she knows things about me that I'm not sure how she knows. Like today, for instance. I run into her in the hallway and she says, "So what do you have, six more weeks?"

Um, yes, six to be exact.

SHE KNOWS HOW MANY WEEKS ALONG I AM! Not even my good friends probably know that I have six more weeks. They probably know mid-July, but not the exact weekly breakdown. Weird. Borderline stalkerish.

You may think I'm just being ridiculous, but take these nuggets into evidence, as well:

About a month or so ago, a random co-worker ran into me and said, "I was talking about you last night, were your ears burning?" Turns out she and Other Pregnant Chick were conversing about my blood sugar problem, which I did not tell her about, nor did my co-worker know about up until that point.

A few times, I've eaten lunch in the kitchen and OPC will come in and sit down at the table directly next to mine, in the seat directly behind me, and just kind of hang out there for a while. Sometimes she'll chime in if the conversation is baby-related. Makes me a wee bit uncomfortable.

Another co-worker recently told me that she and OPC were talking about how it isn't fair that I am still wearing cute maternity clothes and that OPC is already huge and bloated and swollen like a sea cow (my words, not hers btw -- I just wanted to say "sea cow").

And, early on in OPC's pregnancy, which has nothing to do with me, but it will still tell you how amazingly weird she kind of is, she and her husband created a Power Point presentation using the baby's first ultrasound picture and e-mailed it to people here at the office. I wasn't one of the lucky ones at that point, but I did get to see it, thanks to someone who WAS on the receiving end of that very disturbing e-mail. It had arrows pointing to the little fetus dot and everything, with quotes like, "Mom says I'm making her sick!"

The day -- no, the nanosecond -- that I do something like this (other than posting scads of baby pictures on my blog, because you KNOW I'm going to), please commit me to the nearest mental institution. Don't try to blame hormones. That's just plain CRAZY.

So I feel a little weird sharing more details with her. I feel like she has an Excel spreadsheet in her office and is now plotting my baby's weight (I made the mistake of telling her that he was about 5 pounds now), length, possible hair color, etc. and will show me, with pie charts, the next time I see her.

OK, maybe not. But still. She knows how far along I am.

More parent practice
Thanks, Molly.

In a few weeks, your disgusting hairball that you deposited ON OUR BED, which soaked through to the mattress pad, is going to seem like small potatoes. The minor shit fit that I threw in relation to the hairball and the staining of the sheets and the doing of the laundry will also seem quite minor.

But thanks for keeping me on my toes.

Revelation
Last night I attended a breastfeeding class at the hospital where I plan on giving birth. While I learned a lot, such as how long you can store breast milk in the refrigerator or freezer, or how to tell that the baby is hungry, I also realized something about myself.

I am definitely not mature enough to sit in a room where someone uses the phrase "inverted nipple" and not be able to make a face.

No kidding
So I'm sitting here trying to design the cover of a brochure I've blown off since, um, I don't know, April, and randomly this thought came to me. What the hell happened to Kid Rock? Where'd he go? Not that I miss him or anything. He just kind of fizzled out. I think I thought of him because I heard that gawdawful song he did with Sheryl Crow on Bad Lady's radio.

Obviously I found it so important that I had to post it. Either that or I just successfully avoided designing this brochure for another five minutes.