A Trivial Martyrdom

I know some readers are going to snort sarcastically at this post, but it amuses me: early in this pregnancy I got my first real gray hair. Since being admitted to the hospital, I have found four more. This kid is already giving me gray hairs!

34 weeks, 5 days

Pictures

The good ones are from Anita's camera, the crummy ones are from my camera phone in the hospital. Look how smart Solana is, she plays chess at age 3! :-) (actually she just likes to arrange the pieces on the board over and over again).

Update

My sister is here! She got here this afternoon, having left GA Friday afternoon/evening. A long trip with a 3-year-old, but here they are! It's wonderful to see them both. I'll post pictures soon :-) We hung out this afternoon playing with beads (her new hobby) while Solana colored and sang songs to herself. It was a gorgeous day, and before they got here Terry and I hung out on the hospital grounds enjoying the sunshine and blossoming trees. It was very soothing and relaxing.

Now all have been dispatched and I'm wondering whether to try to grade a couple student papers that came in over the weekend.

BP is hanging out in the zone above where they'd let me go home (140/90 - although we do get below that, it doesn't stay) and where they'd want to deliver (160/110 - hasn't crossed that line since Thursday morning). Baby is stubbornly staying head-up, but we're trying some tricks to see if it will turn.

Previews

Last night at the hospital they asked if we'd like a visit from "pet therapy" - I'm on the pediatric ward, since maternity is full right now (I take this as a good sign - means delivery is not imminent!) We said sure, and they brought by this bunny! It was very quiet and gentle and such soft fur. So we got to practice petting a little fur-baby :-) Doesn't this picture just make your heart melt?

I've started on Christmas knitting already but I'm not telling who this is for :-) The color makes everyone ask if we're having a girl. We don't know yet, but the ultrasound tech knows... she wrote it down on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed envelope so we can find out whenever we want to. I'm kind of into the suspense, actually! The past 5 days have presented way too much new stuff to adjust to at this point.

Evidently

According to the ultrasound I had yesterday (long story), the actual position of the Critter is better reflected by rotating that image below by 180 degrees... what I thought was a knee is actually a shoulder! Such a tiny shoulder...

Cut and Pasted

E-mail written to a friend on April 21, 2008:
~~~~~
So we're having a little (too much) excitement here - Friday night my feet were so swollen, that I decided to check my blood pressure. We bought a little home monitor back in December but I haven't really been using it since bp seemed to be back to normal during the whole second trimester. Well, it read really high again - around 160/110. They had told me that over 90 was cause for concern. So I took the day off on Saturday and just kept my feet up and drank a lot of water. Sunday Terry got back from Belize, and we went to a childbirth class. But still the blood pressure stayed high and the low-grade headache I'd had all weekend got really bad Sunday night. So this morning I called the ob/gyn, and they had me come in for b/p check and urine test. Even though the urine test was negative for protein, the b/p was still really high - 150/100. They recommended keeping me at the hospital overnight for 24 hours monitoring, and Terry thought that was a good idea so here I am! Thankfully they have wireless.

The good news is that the baby is doing great - they monitored the heartbeat for a couple hours, and also did an ultrasound so we could see all the parts again - it was cool because Terry hadn't seen any of the previous ones. It's growing right on track, moving vigorously, and seems not at all stressed out. Also, by 2 p.m. my blood pressure had dropped to something like 120/84, which is much much better. But I'm to stay here until tomorrow morning while they collect all my urine to check for enzymes.

I guess there has been a lot going on recently; the end of the semester always stresses me out, plus the remodeling of our bathroom has disrupted our routine and made kind of a mess in the apartment. Add to that all the baby things that are piling up, unassembled and chaotic - it's like a constant reminder of how much our lives are going to change, but without the feeling of preparedness, because it's all just a jumble. And I was worrying about Terry and all the travel and work he has going on. So maybe I just needed a "Time Out." Hopefully all is well and I can resume a regular schedule by Wednesday. They'll decide by tomorrow noon-ish. I really really hope I can come but will keep you posted either way. Take care, and big hugs from me - EEP

Sketch

This sketch shows approximately how the Critter is oriented - hence the little knee-bump that keeps poking me near my belly button! Based on where I feel the hiccups, and where the midwife can hear the heartbeat, we're pretty sure this is the general orientation. She said being off to one side like this is pretty common.

Everything looks good at 33 weeks!

Not as cute as Tara's pictures!

I'm not completely satisfied with these socks.
I used a pattern from "Knitting Sensational socks" - yes, my first real Fair Isle socks! - and interspersed regular old stripes when I realized that the stranded knitting was using up the white yarn way too fast.
Both colors are left over from previous projects. I did an "afterthought" heel, but it made the stripes an uneven thickness.
I like the overall effect, just not all the details.

The other photo is from a friend's baby shower. I hope all these people don't mind having their photos anonymously posted on the Internet...

Case in Point

I knit these socks (100% cotton) for a friend whose baby shower was today. Each one took about an hour.

Holy cow

SIXTY DAYS TO GO...

Metaphysical dilemmas in knitting

I've been trying to figure out why I am so uninspired regarding baby knitting for our Critter. I have some nice cotton yarn for summer, and I can always make 6-9 month sweaters for next winter. I think I'm past the point of worrying about "jinxing" the pregnancy by being overconfident. So why is it so easy to knit for other people's babies and not for mine?

The other day I went through a bag of baby clothes that Anita left at my house, sorting out the clearly "girl" clothes from the more neutral items (since we don't know the sex yet). I held up a little green sleeper and just stared at it for a long time - it seems like such a foreign and strange item. I struggle to imagine the creature that will inhabit this piece of clothing. A tiny human being with limbs and head and heart and a will of its own. A little person.

As real as the experience is of feeling little limbs and body moving on the inside, until I actually meet our baby I think it will continue to feel just a little unreal. I almost feel like I can't really knit for this baby until I get to meet him or her, and see what kind of little person this is.