Pregnancy Journal: Weeks 21-28

March 28, 2012 (21 weeks):

Last week was our first week of birthing class.  We’re going with the Bradley Method because, well, my sister told me to.  In all matters relating to pregnancy and birth, if it was good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.

Back to Bradley.  This is a 12-week course, taught out of the instructor’s personal home.  Even as a person who likes to be well-prepared, I secretly feel that 12 weeks is a very long time, but I decide to do something I never do: shut up and do whatever I am told.

We are pleasantly surprised by the other three couples in our class, who all seem like people we’d like to be friends with.  This is good, because we need friends in this city.

Each class is two and a half hours long.  We have weekly homework assignments and exercises.  We have quizzes.  Attendance is mandatory or a make-up class must be scheduled and a fee will be charged.  By the end of class, I am unsure whether this is best or the worst pregnancy decision we have made so far.

April 4, 2012 (22 weeks):

My sister wants to throw me a baby shower.  It immediately becomes apparent that I need to create a gift registry.  Scratch that.  It immediately becomes appropriate for me to really research items for our registry, and act like I didn’t start one weeks ago to keep track of the things I wanted.

April 11, 2012 (23 weeks):

The baby’s kicks are finally in full swing.  Because of his position, I was told at our last ultrasound that I’d be a late bloomer (or should I say he’d be a late bloomer?).  This is pretty amazing.  Pretty weird, if I’m honest, but pretty amazing.

May 2, 2012 (26 weeks):

My body is a freak show, but maternity clothes are so comfortable that I don’t even care.  Today I turned to Matthew and told him that I may never wear pants without an elastic waist or bras with underwire ever again.

“…so it’ll be just the one kid, then?” he responds.

May 9, 2012 (27 weeks):

Today is my glucose tolerance test to screen for gestational diabetes.  For some reason my hospital skips the more common one-hour test and goes straight to a two-hour test, which requires me to fast for 12-17 hours prior, get my blood drawn, drink a sickeningly sweet orange syrup, and then get my blood drawn twice more.

As someone who is not a fan of fasting or blood draws, I can only utter the words I’ve been saying over and over again since the moment I first threw up: “This kid thing better be really, really good.”

May 16, 2012 (28 weeks):

I feel the urge to get things done.  The nursery is pretty under control, and I want to wait until after the baby shower before I buy any more clothes or stuff.      If I could, I would order the birth announcements now, just so I could prepare all the envelopes.  Hmmm, maybe I could just order the envelopes?  This seems overly prepared, even for me.

If I watch one more birth video or read one more birth story, my brain might explode.  There’s only so much watching from the sidelines a person can take before they’re just like, “LET ME AT IT!”

I guess I could move on to reading about breastfeed and child-rearing?  Child rearing.  Oh yeah.  After all this prep work to grow him and get him out, we’re actually going to have to raise a child.

As long as I can do it in stretchy pants, I’ll be fine.

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Read previous Pregnancy Journal entries here.