The Latest

This has been an exciting week so far. Arwen had a lot of fun over the weekend snowboarding with "the guys" and luging like a madman. I have gotten 10 cute diapers sewn over the weekend (still have 5 more to go). We got the basement unit of our new house painted and the carpet cleaned. It's all ready for Jen when she gets here sometime Thursday or Friday. I got a massage yesterday, which was just freaking fantastic. (Although I'm already achy again...) Our upstairs tenants are set to move out of the house tomorrow. And today I got official confirmation of what I had come to suspect: the baby has dropped!

That doesn't mean we should be expecting to go into labor immediately or anything; our birthing instructor said babies drop on average about 2 weeks before they arrive. But I began suspecting she had dropped as of last Friday, when I noticed new pressure down below and ever since then I've been having a hard time just walking and doing ordinary things. I wake up in the night every few hours needing to roll over and get into a new position and find it's tough just rolling over or getting up to go pee. It's like there aren't enough muscles to move my body parts. And what muscles there are are feeling very strained.

Ever since last Friday I've pretty much been dragging my left leg around like a cripple. It's just too heavy to pick up! That combined with the sore ribs I have from last week's coughing bout has left me in a pretty sorry state. I also have a tiny bit of swelling in the ankles. Even still - and I know this sounds weird - I feel pretty good. I know it won't be long now, and although it's a fairly constant discomfort, it's nothing unbearable. I keep trying to envision adding gut wrenching contractions on top of these aches and remembering that if I'm going to have the natural childbirth I'm hoping for I'm going to have to figure out how to suck it up and deal with it. If it's hard walking down the hall now, or getting on all fours to stretch it will be doubly so then.

I think too what's adding to my chipper mood is all these happy changes that are just around the corner: meeting Roan, Jen moving up here, and getting into the new house. We have so much to look forward to.

Oh, there was one more thing. I found out at my checkup today that I tested postive for Group B Strep. It's fairly common, but about 10% of babies exposed to it during birth develop a life-threatening infection. So they take treating it very seriously. I have to receive IV antibiotics 8 hours before birth. I was really bummed to hear this news because having an IV in restricts your movement, and being stuck in a bed can slow down your labor substantially. But my midwife assured me that it's not so bad. I'll have to be hooked to an IV for a few minutes every 4 hours, but in between I will be free to roam the halls or sit in the tub or whatever I like. So it's not so bad. If that's the only hiccup we have in this birth we'll have a lot to be thankful for.