Pregnancy Update -- 33 Weeks

So, we are in the home stretch. Less than two months left to go, 7 weeks or so to be precise. According to our latest calculations. Which could be off. So I have something less than 10 weeks to go.

Physically I'm doing quite well. The occasional sore back, since this baby is nestled in my pelvis, unlike Andrew who was nestled securely in my ribs, and some fatigue. That is all part of the pregnancy thing, and so I'm not too concerned. My mobility is severely decreased. I can hardly get in and out of the car, I end up huffing and puffing by the time I reach the top of the stairs, and I have to use two hands to prop myself up when I get off the floor (but I can still sit on the floor, so we're not too bad yet). I need some new shoes, because my only non-tying shoes are heelless and that just doesn't really work with 10cm of snow. I can still tie my shoes, but not well enough that they stay tied up. So I am getting big and awkward. Again, I accept this as part of the pregnancy game. This is my second time around, so my vanity about my physical appearance has already taken a pummelling, and I just do what I can and know it will be over soon and in about a year from now (barring another pregnancy) I will be back to as close to my old self as I'm going to get.

What has always been the real kicker for me in pregnancy is what it does to my mind. Generally I am a really good multi-tasker and can keep track of innumerable bits of information about people and places (in no particular important order, unfortunately). Also, I am generally fairly easy going. Something might bother me for a while, but then I can let it go. Not so with pregnant Jill. Pregnant Jill not only loses her memory and ability to focus on anything outside of the sphere of my immediate household (and even then its tentative some days), but is very easily irritated by things non-pregnant Jill would just laugh off. Um, you might have noticed this in my past few blog entries. Fortunately, Pregnant Jill still has, for the most part, her brain filters in place (these filters have been developed through years of painstaking idiocy and social blunders, and contain several back up firewalls. Sadly they are still, on occasion, insufficient to keep my tongue in check). This means that I do not begin tearing things off the shelf at Toys R Us and shouting "Crass Commercialism! That's all any of this is about! Sheer Crass Commercialism" and get arrested. This means I do not yell at nice church ladies who invite me over for tea just when my son is supposed to be napping and thus interrupt our very hard won sleep schedule for weeks on end. This means I even restrain myself from smacking the grocery store clerk who has not yet figured out (after a 5 hour shift) that the Royal Bank's machines must be down, rather than assuming that her debit machines "have just stopped taking about every 10th person's card. Sorry, I guess you're person 10". Anyway, the point being that I just get a) stupid and b) grumpy at the end of pregnancy. So don't ask me any questions and stay out of my way.

On a brighter note, I will share a silly very pregnant Jill story from this morning. So, I woke up and realized that I had not washed my stretchy black pants that I always wear to church now. So I started rummaging through my very limited wardrobe for something to wear. I had my khaki overalls and my khaki pants clean and an assortment of shirts. Okay, I thought, I'll wear my white t-shirt with my overalls. No, too casual for church. Oh, look! This sweater is in my pile of clean clothes. I put it on to discover that there is a small spot of something off a grimy toddler hand right where my belly button protrudes. Maybe not. I find another sweatshirt that goes well with the pants I have, only to discover that a greasy hand has wiped itself off on the front of my shirt right where other things generally protrude. My other "clean" shirt has coffee on it. I begin to think, "Who put these clothes back in the drawer? Oh yeah, me." Finally I end up going to church in a shirt that is much too short for me with my big zip up hoodie over top of it, zipped up most of the way, and my belly hugger fabric tube pulled down to stop my pants from sliding down and my hair . . . we won't even mention my hair, because it was unwashed and unbrushed and pulled back in a ponytail and wrapped around with a scarf. After I spent 15 min. getting dressed, there was not time for such trifles as hair, especially since Andrew was running around the house in just a diaper saying "I go to church naked." and Dave's freshly dry-cleaned robes were in the back of my car and needed to be at the church before the service started.

Fortunately, one of the good things about being this pregnant is that no one expects that much of you. If you manage to show up and your clothes generally fit, they are pretty impressed. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it for at least another 7 weeks.