In my continued effort to tell you things they don't tell you about pregnancy:

When to go to the hospital:

MYTH: When your contractions are five minutes apart, last for one minute each, and continue for an hour.

FACT: When you cannot walk or speak through your contractions.

Um, yeah. I had contractions for over 24 hours. They started about 7 minutes apart and were getting progressively more painful (but not incredibly painful). By yesterday at 1pm they were 3 minutes apart. So I end up calling my doctor (mostly because all the men at work were
flipping out and threatening to throw me over their shoulders and take me themselves) and she says go to the hospital. I go to the hospital, get all strapped up and monitored and my contractions are 2 minutes apart.

They keep me there for 4 hours with their frowny "hmm" faces on and then say, "You can walk and talk through your contractions. You probably have a day or so left."

DUDE. TELL ME THIS BEFORE I COME TO THE HOSPITAL. Wth? If that's a rule? It should be listed in the rules! What is this 5 minutes apart crap? Why doest thou lie to me and make me feel like a reject?

Also, I'd like to point out that on the discharge papers they gave me that tell you when to return it says, "When your contractions are five minutes apart, last for one minute and continue for an hour." Um, yes... been there done that and got sent home. Thanks for playing.

Anyway, poor Ryan. I've hit the cranky/weepy portion of our program and I just want this thing OUT. Gah.

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The last two weekends I have been a productive little birdy. Some would say that suggests I've reached the (mythical) "nesting" phase of my pregnancy. Really? I think Ryan has reached his and I'm just ambivalent enough to trail reluctantly along behind him.

During this fruitful window of Ryan's transition into fatherhood, I have accomplished a great deal of yard work. When I tell people this, I'm universally met with, "WTH! You can't do yard work when you're almost 9 months pregnant and look like a boat!" Now it's even at the point where people see me doing yard work and report to other people who report to other people who end up scolding Ryan at school for something akin to spousal abuse.

As much as I wish I had a good excuse not to participate in the grimy hole digging that has comprised our weekend adventures, the fact of the matter is I don't. Usually he's the one with the shovel and I'm the one on my butt in the dirt pulling weeds within my wingspan. It's not labor intensive any more than it is entertaining.

I did, however, find a task this weekend that people should be appalled Ryan would let his wife do: Charades.

Never have I been worse at a game.

I'm the girl that always wins games. It's a kind of weird genius I have that I'm proud of. Some people (Lauren) think it's freakish. Example: While playing Trivial Pursuit, our team gets the question, "Which two countries' border was determined by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920?" My thought process would go something along the lines of: Hmm. Tartu sounds like Tartuffe which is a French play. French starts with f-r. So... Finland and Russia?

No joke people, I am freakish (and it has very little to do with intellect).

And charades? My B.A. major was theatre performance for goodness sake! But Sunday night? I lost BIG TIME. Monumentally.

I blame the belly.

In one of my non-scoring rounds (when the rest of the group was averaging 12 points a turn and I was lucky to get 4) the word was lion. Lion? For charades? Cakewalk. I hunched over, opened my mouth and roared. I even bared teeth and did an impression of wild hair. What did I get?

"Gorilla! Ape! Baboon!"

Yeah. Apparently, in order to fully imitate the king of the safari I have to convey that I'm not actually bipedal. Me? On all fours? No one would be guessing lion. I can see it now:

"Rodent climbing over a speed bump!"

"High-centered car that's really angry!"

"Kangaroo with vertigo!"

It's probably better that I left it at primates.

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They say that every woman comes to a point in pregnancy when she can't see her feet. Personally, I don't think seeing them is the problem.

I can see them just fine – I can crane my neck to a certain angle and contort my upper body… or I can just look in the mirror. I'd never put on two different shoes and walk out the door, or even don a pair of mismatched socks. Instead, I've found that the true difficulty of combining feet and pregnancy comes when you have to touch the damn things.

In order to actually reach my feet, I have to try and get my legs out of the way to make room for the belly. This is cumbersome, as my legs are pretty firmly set in their place between my upper body and my feet, and don't take well to attempts to move them aside. To get around them, I have to sit (usually on my couch, in front of my coffee table, which holds my laptop, Sylvester) and do a fancy combination of sprawling and bending.

Touching and looking cannot occur at the same time - and therein lies the problem.

This morning, after having wrenched on my shoes in the arduous fashion described above, I was summoned into the adjoining kitchen by Ryan. I stood up, turned and took a fateful step to the left. My leg met resistance, I tumbled forward, and Sylvester was drug loudly across the coffee table.

Ryan looked down at my feet and almost fell to the floor himself in laughter.

Somehow, I'd managed to tie the mouse cord into the laces of my shoe.

The only good thing I can say about this morning is that I did manage untie the darn thing before Ryan could get photographic evidence.

Lucky me – and unlucky you, as I'm sure you all would have enjoyed the visual.

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So.

I am an idiot.

I (predictably) blame the fetus.

Yesterday, I was stung by a bee. This resulted two things: a very lopsided gait and frequently having to respond to the question, “How the hell did you manage to find a bee in 30 degree weather?”

Answer? Mad skillz. I was getting the nursery ready for painting and unrolled the giant drop cloth we keep in our garage, unleashing a ginormous yellow jacket. The lethargic, mid-hibernation, really-freaking-big bee proceeded to crawl across my floor.

What happened next is a matter of great debate.

I say the bastard stung me. Ryan says I inadvertently skewered myself with a semi-mobile (and probably sleep-walking) bee’s half-erect stinger. This is, apparently, the equivalent of impaling myself on a pencil and blaming the pencil. Po-tay-to, pot-ah-to. I think Ryan’s just trying to justify letting the six-legged devil’s minion live.

Act of aggression or merely the combo of my weight and his stinger, the damn thing still packed a punch. The bottom of my foot is all swollen and itchy and is driving me insane. I, being a child of the sprawling metropolis of Oregon’s great capital, remedy this by smothering the bite in Cortaid or some other OTC drug that comes in a tube. Ryan, a child of Hicksville, WA, solves my crisis by mixing together things from the cupboard like some witchdoctor-cum-Rachel Ray. Don’t tell the drug companies, but his was totally the better solution.

This is how I wound up at my parent’s house for weekly family feast, propped on a recliner and dousing my foot in a baking soda and vinegar mixture. All would have been well and good had I not needed to personally apply a fresh coat after dinner…. and had Mother not made carrot cake cupcakes for dessert.

Really, I shouldn’t be held responsible. They were in identical bowls and the color was exactly the same. I swear.

I was thinking, “Dang, the second coat is going on much more smoothly. Maybe I should always make it an hour before and let it sit?”

This was immediately followed by, “Why won’t the dogs leave me alone?”

So, in case you were wondering, cream cheese frosting does not ease the itch of a bee sting. Ganache has yet to be tested. (Though I’m sure some day I’ll get there. *facepalm*)

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By this point, you all know that I have the willpower of a tiny, willpowerless thing. The wee fetus, however, is very powerful motivation to step it up a notch. I want so much to be a good oven. So I flexed, took a deep breath, bought some healthy cook books and I was ready!

...I have not opened the cookbooks. I continue to eat ice cream, have on occasion avoided my required leafy greens, and (predictably) am woefully bad about my exercise regime (I'm telling you, the trapeze lady is CRAZY).

In spite of this, I tell myself I'm not a horrible person. I listen as my coworker informs me without the slightest remorse that she smoked throughout her three pregnancies and each of her young brood have only one head and all of their ten respective fingers and toes. A woman on the third floor reports that she drank Mountain Dew exclusively and liberally, and my grandma, when we discussed pregnancy cravings, stated dramatically, "I had to have rum and coke. Every day at least once a day. And I don't even like rum."

See? I'm so much better than that! I may have had pizza for dinner, but I don't shoot tequila while smoking a cigar. And, and I'm strictly adhering to the "consume nothing bad for the baby" rule. (Except the aforementioned ice cream, of course.) I don't drink caffeine, I will not inhale while walking by a smoker, I turn away alcohol, and I ignore all french cheeses.

Last week came the first true test of my will: the common cold.

During my sickness, I adamantly refused to take medication. I read every label religiously. I tell you, there is nothing you can take without consulting with a doctor. Dayquil? No. Vitamin C? No. You can't even inhale VapoRub without somebody's permission. (Come to think of it, I should check the label on my Chapstick.)

After hearing me whine watching me suffer, Lauren told me I was a loon and tried to sneakily rub me down with Vicks, but I resisted. There was even a covert call placed to the pharmacist to make sure there was nothing I could take. She confirmed. No meds for me!

Life without Dayquil? I... I don't even know how describe the misery (but Ryan could probably describe to you how miserable I was to live with - just a guess). I am now considering building a shrine to that little orange liquid cap just so it knows how much I worship it. (Though that crazy buzz that I usually have when I'm sick? Apparently not the meds. Perhaps its a mucus high?) And no Nyquil? *whimper*

I am adding this to my list of things they don't warn you about when pregnant. 1) The damn thing won't stop kicking. Ever. 2) Colds and flus feel similar to what I imagine it would feel like to suffer through a plague and die a slow and miserable death.

I totally should have kicked Ryan out of bed when he started sneezing.

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I've never liked seafood. I can't stand it, really, in an it-makes-me-physically-nauseous kind of way. I've spent my life avoiding it. I've also spent my life being exceedingly uncomfortable in social situations and trying to keep myself invisible. So when I'm served salmon? I eat it and spend the following hours convinced I can feel the damn thing swimming in my stomach and trying not to puke.

That pretty much sums up the last few months.

I'm now halfway through my first pregnancy and can truly empathize with a fishbowl. I'm mercifully past the nausea and puking but now there is something swimming inside me and constantly bumping its nose against the glass. This little bugger is moving all the time and I've still got 20 more weeks to go. DUDE. They tell you about the headaches and the vomiting but they never mention the 24/7 nudging. Well, I'm mentioning it now. BE WARNED!

Per doctor's orders and Ryan's insistence I've purchased a prenatal workout video and started an exercise routine. It seems incongruous to me that in the most immobile and uncomfortable period of my life I'm trying to imitate the movements of a twenty year old trapeze artist from Cirque du Soleil. There is just no way I'm ever going to bend like that. It's pretty damn funny to watch Ryan try though (oh hell yes I make him do it with me - we're in this together, damn it).

Cravings so far include milk (which haven't had a glass of since that traumatic experience back in high school) and Taco Bell nacho cheese steak chalupas. Ryan is more than willing to go along with the milk but he's starting to complain about the chalupas. I'm sure they're more healthy than he thinks, right? There's got to be some dairy in that cheesy stuff. Plus, I eat the tomatoes now instead of giving them to the puppy. It's progress!

We've had the boy name picked out for months now but are struggling with the girl name. We thought we had one but I changed my mind, then we thought we had another but my dad actually choked on his dinner when we mentioned it and Ryan's parents were both adamantly opposed. Now he and I have settled on a name we love - well, he's settled on one and I've settled on another. I'd really like him to see things my way but I don't know that it's going to happen. I did the "If I died today and you to name the baby and it was a girl what would you do?" question and he picked his name! RUDE! He should at least name her the name I like in honor of his dead wife, right?

Oh, the drama. I shall just name the thing Fetus. Or Fishy. Or Fishy Fetus.

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