out of Kadesh

I realize I’ve neglected writing about the OTHER thing that occupies all my brain space, which is the fact that I’ll be pushing a kid out of my vagina in OH, TWO AND A HALF MONTHS. And really, thank God summer is almost over since a) the southern heat and humidity is making my skin peel off and b) my belly is now so huge that I can no longer bend over far enough to shave my bikini line. (I figured I’d get all the TMI out of the way in the first paragraph, but who am I kidding? I’m sure there will be more coming. I mean come on, why do you come to this blog anyway, right? Right?)

So, Vanguard. The truth is I won’t be filing a class-action lawsuit, since that would require me shelling out tons of money, energy, and time just to expose them and it wouldn’t really get me anywhere anyway since probably the whole world already knows they are the reason your panties keep creeping up your butt. No lie – from now on anything bad that happens I’m going to be thinking about how VANGUARD is to blame! Also I won’t be filing a class-action lawsuit since I don’t really have a case other than this: THEY SUCK. Also I don’t really know what “class-action lawsuit” means, and I’m sure that’s important. Seriously though Reader, you would not BELIEVE the two days that we have had. It’s like there is a committee of people who sit around going “let’s figure out all the ways to screw people and make them feel like they’re being ass-raped.” And then they do each of those things. It’s too much to even talk about on here and to be honest, it’s too soon to rehash with any sense of humor whatsoever and I don’t think you decided to read this post just to be subjected to a bitch-session, so I’m done. Actually, one more thing: if your retirement happens to be with Vanguard, I highly recommend getting that money in competent hands STAT. Ok, done. On to the kid out of the vagina thing.

My belly is now so huge I can no longer see my feet, and apparently Blueberry still has 3-5 more pounds to put on before he emerges. (Did I mention the emerging is going to be happening in 10 weeks?) The nesting instinct has hit me hard and I haven’t been able to do anything about it yet. I spend countless hours online, shopping for nursery items, which I then email to myself with subjects like “rugs” or “bedding.” I have 17 unread messages in my inbox, all from myself, all full of links to baby stuff. I bought a changing pad this weekend, just because I really wanted to cross something off my list. Yes, I have a list. It’s four pages. And I keep having these dreams where the baby is born but hasn’t been able to eat or be changed or we can’t take him home from the hospital because we don’t have a car seat because all our stuff is in storage. I have never felt so unprepared for anything in my whole life.

I have my first OB appointment in almost two months tomorrow morning. Before you all start freaking out that it’s been almost two months, let me first say that you could in no way be freaking out more than I have been. You can not freak out because I have officially freaked out enough for the entire state of Tennessee. And secondly, the baby’s kicks are strong and frequent, hitting the hardest around 7:30am when I am SO not ready to be jolted awake by the power of a kick from the inside. For those of you who have never been kicked from the inside, I can only describe the feeling as a long-fingernailed hand grabbing a wad of muscle tissue every couple of minutes. It doesn’t hurt per se; it just feels really, really, freakily weird. Sometimes I think he just stretches out because I feel this claw-like tissue-grabbing pressure on either side of my belly and I’m like holding my breath subconsciously, waiting for him to finish stretching and curl back into a convenient little ball… waiting… until I push on his foot or whatever it is and he retracts. How’s THAT for alien-life form? The creepiest thing he does is like some kind of roll or something I guess, which literally takes my breath away every time he does it. All that to say I know he’s doing just fine in the incubator, even though an OB hasn’t checked my uterus for almost two months. (See? More TMI, there it is!)

The sad part about being so pregnant is that I had to take my rings off yesterday. My fingers are like fat sausages, something else compounded by the heat. I struggled for several minutes and finally managed to squeeze them off, and while my fat sausage-like finger pulsed blood back into that place where the symbol of my marriage just was, I put my rings away for the remainder of my pregnancy. And until I find a SIZE NINE sterling silver band somewhere, I’ll just look like my child-to-be is a bastard with some Baby Daddy somewhere who left me for someone hot. Which might be until after he’s born, because who carries SIZE NINE wedding band-looking rings? Whatever, I can deal with judgmental stares. It’s called being raised in the south.

Today I’m spending the day packing up the four suitcases, dog and cat equipment, various baby paraphernalia that I’ve accumulated, ponytail holders, and non-perishable food items that are currently scattered all about my parents’ house. I’ll start on THAT daunting task as soon as I waddle into the kitchen to find something else bad for me to eat and scarf it down in record time.

Dream #1: The baby is crying and crying and I realize he needs to be changed, but then I realize I don’t have any diapers for him because the cloth ones are packed and we weren’t ready for him so we didn’t buy any paper ones and we have to break into someone else’s house or a church nursery to steal some.

Dream #2: The baby is crying and I realize it’s because he’s like 3 weeks old and I’ve never fed him before. My boobs don’t contain any milk and I can’t find any bottles because we live with my parents who don’t have a newborn so we have to go to the store to buy some bottles and formula and I’m upset because I think how much I really wanted to nurse him and how he’s starving and it’s taking forever at the store to get bottles and I can’t find anything.

Dream #3: We’re leaving the hospital with the baby and it’s cold outside and when Lance pulls the car around I realize we never got him a car seat because we didn’t have time and all of the sudden he was just born, but the hospital won’t let us take him home because we have to have a car seat and I’m really upset because I’m all “I was going to get one I just never got around to it and I ran out of time!”

We didn’t find a house. We looked at 12, and there wasn’t ONE that we want to live in. What’s the deal?

The first house had an apartment upstairs that needed complete renovation and had a leak in the ceiling. Second house was a frat house – I could barely breathe in there or walk around for all the clothes everywhere. Third house had no floor. Fourth house already had a contract on it. Fifth house was right next to a railroad. Sixth through twelfth were in the ghetto.

I don’t believe I can explain how incredibly frustrating this is. What are we supposed to do? What if we never find a house? What if we have to move into an apartment, then we find the perfect house like one month later after we’ve spent lots of money and time on the apartment?

Where is Blueberry going to live y’all? I keep hearing he can’t stay in my uterus forever…

No I am not stressed out, no not one little bit.

Last night I dreamed that we tried to rent a fabulous apartment and it fell through because they realized we didn’t have any money so then we had no place to go and it was raining. Then the dream changed and my brother and I were walking around holding this newborn boy and I had to change his diaper for the first time but I didn’t have any diapers because they were all in boxes, so we broke into some kind of church nursery and I was all “Jeremy! See if you can find any baby wipes!” and I was wiping up mounds and mounds of poop and then I’m like “I wiped him too much! Get me some Desitin!” and I was rubbing it onto his little red penis and all the while he was crying, crying, and so was I, and I woke up and realized it was the cat howling and cutting into my nightmare.

So no, I’m not stressed! No anxiety about moving to God knows where while I’m four months away from giving birth, no siree! Everything’s just fine and dandy over here! Can you feel my BIG SMILE AS I TYPE?

Ok Reader, some crazy stuff has been going on here in Kadesh. It’s hard for me because I can’t talk about it yet, and as you know my life is hardly private. Not being able to blog the stuff that’s chasing itself around my head is pretty much like torture for me. So I’ll blog about other stuff that’s been happening, which isn’t nearly as important or exciting, ENJOY.

1. I bought my first pair of maternity jeans. I was really terrified by this whole process to be honest… I didn’t want to tackle the figuring out of sizes, trying to find something cute, trying on of stretchy pants, etc. So I bought what is known as a “belly band,” a device which is useful in holding up pre-pregnancy pants while they are unbuttoned and unzipped. However, my belly has reached such an incredible size now that even that had become unbearably uncomfortable, so I got myself down to the local Target and faced the fear. And Reader, let me just tell you that the minute I slipped into those elastic-waist-banded, indigo jeans, I thought I had died and gone straight to Lay-Z-Boy, and I burst into tears of relief. These babies are SO. COMFORTABLE. I don’t know why I waited so long… when I think of the months of comfort that I forfeited with the belly band… Well. Suffice it to say that I kicked Lance out of our bed because my maternity jeans are my new lover, and we have a lot of lost time to make up together.

2. I pretended I wasn’t exhausted, had to work the next day, trying to grow a human being inside my uterus, etc., and went to see the new Harry Potter movie at midnight on Tuesday. Then my bff from high school, Jennifer, and I co-wrote the most amazing movie review, which you can view here.

3. My back hurts. If you have ever been pregnant, you will understand why this deserves its own number. The only other people who could possibly understand the utterly debilitating pain that resides perpetually in my lower back are those who have ever bent over at the waist, had a grand piano placed on their shoulders, and crab-walked it across Texas.

4. I’ve gained ten pounds. Obviously the reason for this is the tiny mango-sized human with a little penis and his own placenta that now also exist in my body, and absolutely NOT because all day long, all I do is EAT.

5. Now we come to the one I can’t talk about yet, and it’s the biggest one, and I promise more news is coming soon. Now to abate my frustration at not being able to talk about it yet, I think I’ll conquer #3, stumble into the kitchen, and accomplish more #4.

A week ago I flagged the “penis care” section of my What to Expect the First Year book. I saw it and was like holy shit, I need to learn penis CARE!? Then I decided instead of having to breathe into a paper bag, I’d just come back to this after I find out if I even needed the penis care information. I might need to look up “Vajay-jay care,” in which case I’ve pretty much got it anyway. I mean, I know how to care for the vag after 26 years of life with one.

And lo and behold, with a wave of her (ultrasound) wand, the doc shows us our baby’s “distinct penis” (which sends Lance into whoops of pride in the corner), and I think, ok, now I’ll go back and read about penis care and I’ll be so put together and everything will be ok. So I open the book and read, in what takes up like 2 pages, that basically “No special care is needed. Just wash it with gentle soap and water while bathing him.”

And I’m all, blink… blink… did I really need to read a book to figure that out? I mean call me crazy, but why make me panic by putting an entire section in bold about HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR SON’S PENIS SO HE DOESN’T END UP ALL INFECTED AND DISFUNCTIONAL just to tell me hey, no need to worry, everything is going to be just fine.

Maybe this is what motherhood will be like? Lance keeps telling me that the number one rule of parenting, in his mind, is don’t freak out. I think that’s about the best advice on parenting that anyone has ever given me. Unfortunately he married me, and my middle name is “FREAK OUT.” Lance is going to have to tell this kid all about his distinct penis. I’ll be there to kiss boo-boos and make pies and help with English papers or whatever, but Lance has to have THAT talk with him because let me tell you right now, I WILL FREAK OUT.

Plus, I’ll be the one the poor kid has to talk about in his therapy sessions, because I showed half my office his little pee-pee today. I think it’s about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I had no idea how happy I’d be to find out it was a boy, but I almost burst into tears imagining Lance and I taking him to a museum as a five-year-old, or him in a little t-ball uniform, or at piano lessons, or (dare I dream…) kiddie drama class. I can’t wait to see him in little boy clothes, playing with little boy toys. I can’t wait to see him on Lance’s shoulders or wrestling with our dog. This is going to be so. Much. Fun.

I was going to post a picture of the wee-wee for you, Reader, but decided I couldn’t handle the teenage rebellion when he finds out about it. Suffice it to say, all the other pics are labeled clearly for us: “arm,” “hand,” “nose,” “leg,” and then there’s the picture of the penis with an arrow pointing to it, and it says “BOY.” So that settles that.

But I’m saying “him” because “him/her” is getting old and “it” is just weird. And right now he just looks like an alien anyway. If it turns out this baby is a girl, I’ll pay for her therapy later.

Last weekend, I went to the Tony Awards. Yeah, I didn’t have anything else to do so… I figured why not. WHY NOT HAVE THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE. In addition to being so close to Sir Elton John I could have reached out and touched him, it was exciting to me that Blueberry was getting his first trip to NYC, so we got some “Baby’s first” pics.

Here’s baby’s first time in Times Square.

Here’s baby’s first wait on the train… get used to this, baby.

Here’s baby at the Tony after-party. He is still hip enough to party with Mama and Daddy.

And here is baby… ON THE WAY TO HIS FIRST TONY AWARDS! (The other lovely ladies are my coworkers and friends, Emily and Jackie.)

Tonight, we took communion at church. Nothing has felt more real to me than this, not even hearing the baby’s heartbeat yesterday. As I ate the bread and drank the wine (ok I’m a protestant so it was actually tiny crackers and grape juice don’t get me started), I suddenly remembered this thing I had read warning mothers-to-be that everything they consume, the baby also consumes. Which means tonight, I fed my baby the body and blood of Christ.

How we’re going to raise this kid, we don’t know. What we’re going to say to him when he wants to know about all these issues that Lance and I consider “gray areas,” I have no idea. But what I do know is that no matter what, I want to raise this child to love the Lord, and love people. And if I can teach him to do that, I will have succeeded as a parent. And I felt it seal today, that commitment within me, when baby had his first communion.

- I miss coffee.

- I miss sushi.

- I miss wine.

- I have to pee.

- Why am I so constipated? Pushing leads to hemorrhoids… I hope I don’t get hemorrhoids.

- Oh, so that’s a hemorrhoid.

- I have to pee.

- Ugh I look so bloated…

- I have to pee.

- My boobs hurt.

- My boobs look great!

- I’m hungry.

- I’m tired.

- I really wish I could poop.

- I really wish I could stop farting.

- I really wish I could get off this toilet.

- I have to pee.

- Why am I not throwing up? Shouldn’t I be throwing up?

- Omg I’m going to throw up.

- I’m so CRANKY!

- I’m so sad!

- I’m so happy!

- I’m so tired!

- I have to pee.

- If I don’t get food in me RIGHT NOW someone is going to pay!

- Allergies? Where did you come from? I’ve never had allergies before…

- Ahh….CHOO! DAMMIT!

- I have to pee.

- My shirts all make me look fat.

- My pants are cutting into my circulation… maybe I’ll just unbutton them.

- Damn, I forgot to button my pants back before walking around work for half an hour.

- I think need new pants.

- Sorry for that fart, Lance, but that’s what I call SWEET PAYBACK!

- We gotta find a bigger place!

- 700,000 DOLLARS FOR ONE HOUSE!?!?!?!?!

- We’ll NEVER FIND A BIGGER PLACE!

- Omg what have I done… we don’t have money for this!

- I HAVE TO PEE.

- Look at this sweet tiny onesie… ok I think I can do this.

- Omg I can’t do this.

- Omg I’m going to throw up.

- I’ll never sleep again!

- I’ll never have another date with Lance!

- I’ll never hang out with my friends!

- I’ll have to get a minivan!

- Oh dear God and sweet mother Mary please don’t let me have to get a minivan.

- I’ll be a slave in my own house!

- I’ll never watch another movie!

- You can’t have sex for how long after giving birth!?!

- Babies need food every TWO AND A HALF HOURS!?

- My boobs… my poor, poor boobs.

- I should probably stop desperately holding onto my boobs in public.

- Guacamole.

- I have to pee.

- I’m STARVING!

- What if I don’t cook and we just order a pizza?

- What if I don’t cook and we just order Chinese?

- What if I don’t cook and we just go out?

- I think I’ll skip my work out this morning – I’m so tired!

- I should have worked out instead of sleeping in.

- Instead I guess I will eat some more.

- Wow I am getting really fat…

- I should walk my dog but I’m so tired!

- Lucy STOP PRANCING AROUND! I’M SORRY YOU DIDN’T GET A WALK OK!? GET USED TO DISAPPOINTMENT!

- Paddington STOP KNEADING ON MY BELLY! DON’T YOU KNOW THERE’S A FETUS IN THERE!?

- I’ve already gained 6 pounds!? My doctor’s going to kill me…

- I have 13 new pimples… no, 14.

- I have to pee.

- If I eat lunch meat, raw fish, fish more than twice a week, undercooked meat, undercooked eggs, unpasteurized cheese, drink wine, coffee, tea, soda, or anything out of a plastic bottle, don’t get enough protein, water, calcium, fruits and vegetables, or prenatal vitamins or work out just the right amount but not too much the baby will have 4 ears, one eye, and 9 toes on its face. That’s a lot of pressure.

- Omg there’s a baby in there and there it is on the sonogram screen. And it’s WAVING! The pregnancy test was right!

- It looks like an alien!

- If this kid has Lance’s eyes I’m a goner.

- I am SO EXCITED!

- I am SO TERRIFIED!

- Lance is going to be a daddy! I can’t wait to see Lance as a daddy! This is so worth it.

- Should I post a picture of the inside of my uterus for all the entire internet to see? Eh, why not.