pregnancy update: week 29

I will definitely have to agree with the books when they say to enjoy the second trimester because the third trimester is a little uncomfortable. The heartburn is no fun but the back pain is what gets to me. Sciatica sucks. It makes me waddle and then annoying idiots at my office tell me I’ve got “the pregnancy waddle” and I want to burn holes in them with my eyes because my excruciating back pain is causing me to walk funny, not my belly. So far, I’ve gained 10 pounds. Not too bad but the belly is getting in the way sometimes. I got wedged in the fridge the other day (hunting for mustard) because I forgot that I could not turn sideways and reach all the way to the back of the fridge without getting stuck.

I went in for my gestational diabetes screening and failed the first test, which surprised the shit out of me and my doctor. Now I have to go in for the three hour test on Monday. I have no symptoms and I’m not puffy or swollen. My doctor said that many women fail the first test and go on to pass the second one. I really, really hope I do not have gestational diabetes. I have been so careful with my diet and sugar intake. I exercise everyday and take my vitamins. Ugh.

I also found out that I am anemic and therefore have to take extra iron pills. I was wondering why people were telling me I looked so pale. Unfortunately, the reason I had to change to a two-a-day prenatal vitamin was because the iron in my original vitamin was hurting my stomach. So now my stomach pretty much hurts all the time. Again I say ugh.

I pee on average three to four times a night. This is apparently a result of my body sucking water osmosis-style from the air as I sleep because I have been limiting how much I drink a few hours before bed to avoid having to pee so much. When I get up, my sciatica jolts me awake and then I spend an extra 15-20 minutes trying to get back to sleep. Good times.
The good stuff: Avery moves around all day and it makes me so happy. I have these wonderful dreams where I am holding her and everything feels warm and safe. I am getting closer to the end and feeling less and less afraid of labour (for now). When my back doesn’t hurt, I feel great and go on long walks with my husband and Charlie. I have never been this hungry in my life and when I eat, it feels so good. I love tomatoes. And the best thing of all; soon all of us get to meet my baby girl and I know she will bring so much love and happiness into our lives that things will never be the same again.

the mortal remains of bees

It’s been a strange week. On Monday, I arrived early at work to find not one, but two dead deer on the property. Two full sized deer; one near the employee entrance I normally use, and the other near the main entrance. Not only is it odd that there were two of them, but also strange because we are not near a major or busy road, so it would be hard to believe that someone would hit two deer whilst driving down the winding road that our building is off of. Also, we are right on a lake, so I can’t imagine where they were crossing from. There is a small wooded area further up the road so I suppose they could have come from there.

Even stranger than this is the fact that I had a dream about deer the night before. Coincidence, I’m sure. I’m not one to believe in psychic stuff. Creepy nonetheless. Worse still is that today is Wednesday, and the deer have still not been removed from the property; something to do with government workers being off on holidays over the weekend. Someone has laid a tarp over each of them and marked the spot with some pylons. When I look out the window it looks like a crime scene.

Last night, I dreamt that one of the deer was speaking to me. It told me that it had a broken leg and managed to make it over the building before it collapsed, where it shivered all night in the cold before finally dying. I woke up very upset and even writing about it now is bringing tears to my eyes. Welcome to the wild and weird world of pregnancy hormones.

Another thing I have been noticing not just this week, but last week as well, is the number of other coincidences that have been occurring. I am not necessarily going to make anything out of this but I thought it would be interesting to document it. There are four “subjects” that have come up again and again, either on television, in the conversations of others I have overheard, or in something I have read. I have been writing these down. Here is my list:

Genesis (Adam and Eve)
Shel Silverstein (the guy who wrote “Where the Sidewalk Ends”)
The Crimean War
Bees

The reason I started writing these down is because, after I had watched a nature show on bees with my husband, we had a long conversation about how few bees we have seen in our garden over the last couple of years, and how we wondered if they are a gauge of a change in environmental conditions just as frogs are. The next day I was scanning the news online and came across an essay written recently by Fidel Castro on US Brazil relations and environmental issues. One of the subjects in his essay was bees, and how the bee population in North America has decreased by 25%. What is alarming about this, according to some scientists that are studying this issue, is that there are no mortal remains of bees to be found, it’s like they have simply disappeared. Something about those words ‘mortal remains of bees’ struck me as particularly beautiful and ethereal. It also made me sad, just as the deer have, and have brought back those feelings of vulnerability that I think accompany pregnancy for so many women. Perhaps the reason I am documenting all of these things is because I am secretly looking for a message in all of this.

A few years ago, when I worked further West, I was driving home in the evening along one of the back roads I usually took to avoid the rush hour traffic. There are a lot of farms along this road. As I came up over a hill I noticed that the traffic ahead of me was slowing. As I approached the other vehicles, I could hear a strange pounding sound. To my shock, a huge black horse came racing down the side of the road, a colt right behind him. As they wove in and out of the cars, I noticed that the black horse still had reigns on him, and guessed that they must have escaped from one of the farms. Though all of the eastbound traffic had stopped, the westbound traffic could not see the horses and was still flowing. For a moment, I was in a movie and everything slowed down as the horses crossed right in front of my car, just as a truck approached from the other direction. I felt my hand go to my mouth and waited for the truck to see the horses. It did not. I felt my stomach drop and prepared myself (I think) for what I was about to see. Somehow, the horses got across the road before the truck got to them. I watched in my rear view mirror as they continued down the road, cars pulling over to the side to let them through.

I remember the sounds that the horses made to this day. I heard the black one breathing through my open window as he crossed in front of my car; saw his terrified eyeball rolling in his head before he dove back out into the chaos. It was one of the most beautiful and haunting things I have ever seen in my life. It felt like it was supposed to mean something. I guess I feel the same way about the deer and the bees and all of the other random coincidences.

this just in...

Michael Crichton is skeptical of the fact that human beings are to blame for climate change.

Michael Crichton!

And we’ve been wasting all of this time listening to thousands of scientists and climatologists who tell us that the exact opposite is true.

Yes people, the man who simplified the concept of extracting millions of years old dinosaur DNA from a prehistoric mosquito embedded in amber and making dinosaurs come alive again has now provided us with his scientific opinion on climate change.

You know, it is such a relief to hear that President Bush and the oil lobbyist groups weren’t just looking out for their own interests. It turns out that it doesn’t matter if we go on exploiting this planet for its resources and pumping out poisonous fumes into the air. And it is totally just a coincidence that carbon dioxide levels dramatically increased during the Industrial Revolution and have continued to increase to this day.

Keep buying those SUV’s people; you can now do it guilt free. All thanks to Michael Crichton.

In other news: Jesus died, so eat some ham this weekend.