Week 32 will be remembered fondly simply because there won’t be anything to remember. There was no medical intervention. (I did have a check-up but it was completely uneventful). There were no strange illnesses, aches, pains or other. It was just about as “normal” as we get around here.

The back aches? Yes, they continued. The heartburn, there was some, but I don’t think I’ve reached for one of the five bottles of Tums I keep stashed everywhere in a few days. The bleeding? Well, that’s a dumb question, of course there was. The insomnia, achy, sleepless nights? Heck yes!

But for some reason, all of it felt manageable last week. Probably because it wasn’t compounded with a host of other problems.

I’m feeling bigger, so much bigger! At my check-up I measured 32cm, which is spot-on where I should be. I can’t imagine seven more weeks of growth. God help me! I’ve nicknamed myself “the moose.” I know I’m small, I’ve barely gained 30 pounds; 35 pounds is the recommended pregnancy weight gain. So I’m doing well. From behind, you’d never know I’m pregnant. But that doesn’t keep me from constantly slamming doors into my stomach b/c I have no grasp of how far out I now extend. My breasts have reached an unfathomable size. Short of those crazies on Jerry Springer with the breasts that look like yoga balls, I didn’t know it was possible for anything like this to appear in nature. This, I could live without. I want my Ds back.

The baby started getting hiccups this past week. That or the very white rythemless genes her father and I gave her mutated and she’s jammin’ away in there. It’s kind of funny the first five or six times I feel it thump, and then I’m like, “hold your head upside down, take a deep breath and drink some water”. In other words “stop!”. I’ve tried scaring here but that doesn’t seem to work either.

I continue to be an emotional train wreck and neither Shelton nor myself wants to live with me anymore. Last night as we were falling asleep I tried to celebrate a small victory that I hadn’t shed a tear in 24 hours… and then Shelton reminded me that I cried that morning in the kitchen. Well, I guess a 12 hour victory is still a victory.

We took our third of six birth classes. These are mildly (OK, incredibly) entertaining. The videos are so old and all of the delivering patients seem like 17-year-olds they would have found at the free clinic. I liked this one most because we spent the second hour touring the birthing center. We got to see the delivery room and the postpartum room (which I’ve had to stop calling the after birth room, sounds terrible!). We held forceps and I was COMPLETELY freaked out by the idea of the internal monitor. They want to STICK this wire into my unborn baby’s head. Hell no. So I feel better knowing where we’re headed when this little darling decides to make her debut.

I’m happy to report it was a good week! No trips to the hospital. No emergency calls to the doctor. No meltdowns. Just a normal pregnant week (meaning I was tired, with heartburn and an achy back).

With week 34 creeping up on us, relief is setting in. (This is the week our doctor has said we can safely deliver and he will not stop labor if it starts.) Not that we’re hoping we go in to labor six weeks early, but if that’s just “one more event” to add to this ever-so eventful pregnancy, we’ll feel a little more at ease at that point than we would right now.

One of the things I noticed this week is that this baby has grown. She feels heavy, where I haven’t really had that feeling before. I also feel like she’s living in my pelvis, or right at the top of my uterus. I think she likes to travel between the two locations. Because of her increased size and weight, everyday activities like say, sitting, have become terribly uncomfortable. It’s like I have a wiggly boulder in my abdomen. With this new growth, my stomach has also jutted out. I don’t seem to be expanding width-wise, but I just keep extending forward.

Shelton has always teased that I don’t know where the sides of my body are. This is probably true, considering the number of times I run in to bed posts, walls, counters, chairs, etc. With my belly jutting further out in front of me, I can’t seem to remember the new buffer zone I need around myself and I keep slamming doors in to my belly. OK, slamming sounds harsh, but they open, hit my belly and it doesn’t feel great.

Yesterday morning I woke up expecting a pretty mild Saturday. I had a lot of things around the house to take care of and had no intentions of getting out of my pajamas (pretty much a normal intention every day of the week now). Suddenly I realize Shelton is on the phone with my mother telling her to drop any plans she had for the day and that she must get me out of the house for the entire day and not return home with me for the greater part of the day. I was like, huh?! I went downstairs to get something and I was then ambushed at the top of the stairs by Shelton. He stripped off my shirt, put my bra on me, slapped deodorant under each arm and told me to get dressed and get out of here. He wouldn’t tell me why I had to leave, just that I wasn’t welcome and not to come back. So I did as I was told, honestly thinking he was cooking up some grand surprise for me. I spent the day toodling around town with my mom then called at 2:00 to ask if I could return home and was told rather rudely not to come back until dinner. So, we came up with some more ways to waste time (and money and gas). At 5:00 I received a call that I was welcome back home. I anxiously drove across town expecting to find a nice dinner, maybe something done in the baby’s room. What I found was an immaculately clean house. That husband of mine had spent eight solid hours cleaning every nook, cranny, surface and floor. It was better than a nice dinner.

I just haven’t been able to take on household tasks like I used to, or want to. Our house is by no means dirty, but a lot of the maintenance stuff has been tossed by the wayside and it’s been making me crazy! Ceiling fans are dusted. Rugs are vacuumed. Furniture is dusted. Bathrooms are scrubbed. It’s so clean and it feels so good in here.

Finally, we took our first of six birth classes this past week. I feel like this is a big waste of my time and money. (This seems to be a theme.) The class genuinely has the potential to be fun and interesting; instead, the 901 year old version of Mrs. Doubtfire is being quite successful at turning this in to a bad reenactment of my high school science class. I honestly thought Shelton and I would be kicked out no less than three times last week for erupting in laughter. The “relaxation” exercise is completely bass-ackward of anything I’ve been doing in yoga. And the hot pink crocheted uterus (I’m not kidding) used to demonstration a birth with a plastic baby through a model pelvic bone was too much… especially when it came out with an umbilical cord and a jelly fish posing as a placenta. WOW!

Mrs. Doubtfire also mentioned that this hospital, where we’re delivering, is “a pro-breastfeeding hospital and you will not find any pacifiers upstairs.” Awesome, love that I’m delivering at a hospital with an agenda. Have I mentioned before that I’d rather have my baby at the Taco Bueno than at this hospital? We’ll be bringing our own pacies with us, thank you very much, and as for my boobs, hospital administration will be told where to go if they so much as whisper their agenda to me. I plan on giving it a fair shot. I know all the benefits. I’ve read all the literature. It still sounds completely unappealing to me. However, I’m going to give it a fair shot, and who knows, I might just like it. And just like the mashed potatoes my family tried for years to shove done my throat because there’s no way I really couldn’t like them (p.s. they are my absolute LEAST favorite food and will make me vomit), I will throw back up your breastfeeding propaganda if you try to force feed it to me.