Sometimes I shouldn't read blogs ...

It's 4 am. I'm on the couch listening to the fusspot cough. Shouldn't be a big deal except that I just read 2 blog posts about toddlers who had to be rushed to the hospital for breathing issues. And while the fusspot was her normal, active self for most of the day she also had several distinctly unusual and inflated meltdowns over little things like not being let out of the stroller or having a second cookie confiscated. I really hope that she's better in the morning.

In more entertaining medical news, we yet again learn that Dr. Google is only as sophisticated as the user. I have spent the last 2 weeks googling some variation of "arthritis in pregnancy" despite JD's weak assurances that they probably aren't all that linked given that one is a degenerative disease associated with age ... See I've been waking up with my hands clenched and in pain and having a good deal of trouble getting them to work either early in the morning (did I mention that a large part of my work right now is data entry?) or late at night (trying to finish up a baby quilt. Nothing 1m x 1m should take this long ...). So I kept on googling arthritis, until a friend quietly suggested that the correct term might be "carpal tunnel." So yeah, count me in for excruciating carpal tunnel, although thankfully when it's pregnancy related it is supposed to clear up shortly post-partum.

An update of sorts

Thank you all for your kind comments. I think that what really freaked me out is that I was feeling so overwhelmed and miserable, and in truth I was just coming off of a rather relaxed weekend where JD was home (and not working) for most of it, where we ran through a large segment of our to-do list, etc. We even had two quasi-dates, meaning that the fusspot fell asleep while we were out running errands and I immediately made JD drop everything and go drink hot chocolate with me. We do live a wild life, after all.

Which really makes me think that this is probably something hormonal. I am not actually dealing with anything more than usual, and neither am I feeling all that physically unwell (despite a few weird late pg symptoms like arthritis-style pain in my hands (but no swelling?), swelling elsewhere, insomnia, nothing too critical). I did schedule a counseling appointment for later this week, and also acupuncture again (which handily comes with a massage before the whole needles-in-my-feet part).

And I am really trying to focus on the positive: a good NST yesterday made even better by a free-super-sized Jamba Juice afterwards, lovely snow this morning followed by warm weather in the afternoon, just about to take the fusspot off to her "dance" class ...

In fact, the only major thing left on our pre-baby list is to find a name. And project which seems to have stalled completely. More on that later, but as per the request of my non-blogging but endlessly supportive Texas reader, a belly shot at 34 weeks. I'm pretty sure this counts as "showing":

Another doom and gloom post

A dear internet-friend wrote a long post about her children's non-sleep habit (you know I love you) and I was thinking about that and how my usual advice is simply: if it works for you, it's fine. So if you're kids aren't sleeping, or aren't sleeping alone, or whatnot, and you're ok with it, fine. After all, I nursed the fusspot to sleep for every nap and bedtime until almost 17 months ...

Which is all to preface the fact that it has struck me that my life is quite simply not working for me at the moment. Not only did I snap twice at JD this weekend (and yes, I consider asking where we store the collander sufficient provocation. The man prides himself on doing a lot around the house and it was exactly where it belongs on the shelf ...) but I also snapped at the fusspot which honestly never, ever happens. It's not that I'm a perfect mother by any means and I certainly get grumpy or pissed at her, but I don't snap. That's in part because of my childhood experiences, but also possibly because of the years I spent babysitting in the big city and convinced that everyone mother had a "nanny cam" on and was watching it selectively (and some of them did, and were, and someday I'll tell the story of what happened the one and only time I ever seriously hurt a child ... hurt a child such that there were 4 distinct finger marks and 1 thumb bruise exactly my size on her arm, but needless to say it all worked out for the best and scared me far more than the kid).

So yeah, not doing well. Let's just summarize: not eating well/enough (in all seriousness, who loses weight in the middle of the 3rd trimester?), not sleeping well (and waking up far more from stress than any physical ailment), not exercising enough, stressed about work, worried that the stress will affect the baby, the usual. And I just don't feel like I am getting the support I need and I'm done trying to pretend that I am wonder-woman so that no one sees the cracks. Especially so that JD doesn't see the cracks (he has currently fled to the basement bar to watch football, a sport he has absolutely no interest in, to escape my wrath).

One thing that needs to be improved is the fusspot's bedtime routine. She's great with the routine, she cheerfully stands next to her crib when I say bedtime all ready to be placed in her crib, lies down ... and then proceeds to fuss/yell/stand up for a good 1-2 hours every night. Our current routine involves staying with her for about a half hour, then leaving her with a CD and the door open. Except that our apartment is tiny so I feel like I can't even take a phone call until she's asleep, and also her CD player broke (blah blah blah: my in-laws bought her one for her birthday but refused to pay shipping so it's at their house and JD and I are too cheap to buy her another one when she has one ... blah blah blah) so I leave my computer in her room and can't work for that time, or I go sit in her room and have her yell at me. So in a fit of anger tonight I decided we would just suffer through another attempt at CIO (it does work for other people, after all), confiscated my computer, shut the door, and let her scream ... for about 2 minutes until JD rescued her and brought her to our bed. See, I put the fusspot to sleep 6 nights a week when I am alone, but neither JD nor my in-laws see any point in the oft-praised "consistency" and they simply sit with her until she's totally asleep. Even if it takes 3 hours. Which you can do when you only put the baby to sleep one night a week. So yeah, beats me what to do. Even with music she can take 2 hours to fall asleep, and she obviously yells more at me than other people (which is normal, I know). But this weekend she's been sleeping in until 9 am or so, which makes me think that she's really not getting enough sleep during the week when we have to wake her to take her to daycare. So there's that.

And then there's the whole supposed-to-be-working-full-time despite only 30 hours of daycare plus 3 doctors appointments this week and feeling exhausted ... same old, same old. Honestly, this week between the 3 doctors appointments, 2 evening work events from 6-9 pm, and possibly not taking the fusspot to daycare on Friday at all, I have no idea how I could even get in 20 hours of work during daylight hours. Let alone wanting to spend a half hour every morning cooking some type of reasonable dinner so that we don't just rely on scrambled eggs, bagels, or boxed mac and cheese for dinner every night.

I know plenty of people will say things like "Of course it's hard" and the like, but the real problem is that I always handle all of this and more (I mean, at least JD is in the same city at the moment), and I do it with a good deal more grace than I am at the moment. The real problem is that my calm seems to be gone, and I am so incredibly stressed that I can't fall asleep at night even when I'm exhausted. So I am going to see if I can get in to counseling tomorrow, but other than that not entirely sure what to do. I really wish I could schedule an hour long walk at some point in the afternoon, but it's quite simply too cold to keep the fusspot in her stroller that long given that she currently refuses to wear gloves, it's too cold and not all that safe for me to go alone by the time JD gets home at 10 or 11 pm, and I really don't have the time during the day ...

I am worried about making it through the next month without making both JD and the fusspot stressed. I am worried about really bonding with/enjoying a newborn when I am quite this stressed. I am worried about the stress affecting the baby, or sending me into pre-term labor (the fusspot was already early, so everyone I talk to keeps reminding me that it could be "any day" and I know that 34.5 weeks would be ok eventually, but it's hardly ideal). I need to figure out a way to eat real food, to get some exercise despite the weather (and no, I have no gym membership at the moment and don't really see this as a reasonable time to join), to get work done during the day, and to relax. I am sticking with my motto for the year, which is that I alone am responsible for my own happiness, and I'm hardly imagining that any of my long-time friends will somehow leap to my aid, so that's out.

But at least my dear readers assured me last week that this was an ok place to vent.

And now an entirely inappropriate topic for this blog

in very little letters: birth control.

I actually do think that in my large, stressed, grumbly state at the moment I am probably going to make a better decision regarding this particular issue than in the delightful post-partum amnesia about childbirth and pregnancy, while snuggling a spoiled-milk-smelling newborn (and yes, in my fantasy the fusspot is playing alone quietly on the living room floor).

And hence I will be upfront about the problem: I am leaning towards ... well ... the nada option. And JD is too, although for quite different reasons.

To review: my chances of a "unassisted" conception are rather low. When we first started this project I was told by 3 separate clinics that my chances were "practically zero." I have after all ovulated at most three times in my life, and most likely only twice. And with 2 pregnancies thus far, that both makes me the luckiest infertile in the world and also not particularly likely to turn into an urban myth.

However, pregnancy does change things for some infertiles, and I seem to fall in that incredible category. So while the fusspot took multiple canceled cycles and injectables, the bargain baby took very little intervention. And there are even decent theories about why that was. To start, my diagnosis is severe PCOs and also a highly unusual clinically high co.rti.sol but not Cus.hi.ng's syndrome or a tumor (oh yes, I did have more than one MRI as part of my diagnosis). Sharp and rapid weight loss seems to help a lot with the first factor for me, and nursing with the second. With the fusspot, my clinic put me on a crazy no carb (and I do mean no carb) diet, aka the "egg diet," which made me lose at least 10 lbs a month. The theory was that rapid weight loss can improve egg quality, and whenever my weight dropped too low I was supposed to take a month off to "bulk up" again. Such fun (for the record, I am plump but not overweight so there was actually a fear of my getting too skinny if I lost more than 30 lbs. My BMI was in the 'normal' range when we started all of the fun). With the bargain baby I lost 30 lbs in a month thanks to a travel bug and while starting to wean, and then got pregnant exactly 6 days after going in-patient to treat aforementioned bug. And as for the other hormonal issue, all signs indicate that nursing actually helps. A lot.

In short, it actually seems possible that I could conceive sans fertility clinic in the future if I both manage to nurse and drop a lot of weight rapidly.

And while I logically know that responsible working adults engage in "family planning" of some sort, 99% of me wants to shout "NOT FAIR!" It's just not fair to ask the infertile woman who wants more children, and honestly could arrange her life to both maintain employment and support them in an emergency, to use birth control. And since JD is entirely uninterested in being in charge of this issue himself and also convinced that is is unnecessary (not only due to the above mentioned medical issues but also the usual "issues" surrounding co-sleeping and nursing. All you nursing women who have a normal se.x drive, we do envy you), the burden falls on me. And a tiny, irresponsible little voice asks: what if this is our chance? What if being responsible adults makes us miss out on that one miniscule window of opportunity that might just be out there? But then the responsible part of me asks how I could possibly handle doing this again next year when I am so terribly tired and grumpy and overwhelmed at the moment (not to mention still severely anemic and likely to only get worse ...), and more importantly if "a miracle" could possibly be fair to either my husband or the fusspot?

And hence, I ask you, dear internet friends/psychos, how you made your decision whatever it might have been?

Rainy day, gloomy subject

I don't know if it's the weather or the long awake stretches at night or just working through the long to-do list around the house, but I have been spending a lot of time over the past few weeks thinking about friendship.

Maybe my expectations are too high, maybe the couples we know who are truly attached at the hip and couldn't imagine needing anyone else have it right (long-time readers are probably well aware that JD and I despite being quite happily married are the anti-thesis of this, and both very much enjoy our independence), maybe I'm really doing something wrong, but it has just struck me recently how much it sucks to be quite this pregnant with a toddler in tow and no best friend in the country. I know that I am exceedingly lucky to have several very close friends who I am sure I will be in touch with in 10 years ... who just all happen to live outside the U.S. and thus are not particularly easy to reach. But when I am having a bad day, there's no one I can call at night except my husband who is usually busy at work.

There is certainly no one who is going to call and just check how I am doing. And I guess that's what has been bothering me recently. My close friends are too busy with their own families and living abroad and time differences, etc. get in the way and my local friends are mostly just acquaintances who will certainly ask "how are you?" when we run into each other on the street, but they're not going to go out of their way to check in on me. And mostly, I'm fine. But there are those occasional days when I am tired or overwhelmed or like last night when I snap at the fusspot (and it retrospect I was entirely in the wrong. She kept telling me that she'd peed and I kept telling her to go to bed and stop trying to stall, never thinking that she had managed to scrunch her diaper enough that I sent a rather damp child to bed on a cold night ... oh, the dumb things we do when we're tired) that I really wish I had a friend who I talked to every day. Or who at least might pick up the phone and genuinely ask how things are going sometime. But maybe I am just fantasizing a type of relationship that doesn't really exist anymore, especially not in a super-busy city. And maybe it's also that we were the first of our really close friends to have kids and things will be different in 5 or 10 years.


Or maybe, it could just be that I finally e-mailed my 'best friend,' the one who was with me through every step of middle and high school, the one who I almost didn't graduate on time from college because I dropped everything to be with her when she got cancer (a cancer which needless to say has almost certainly made her infertile), the one who was my maid of honor ... and she didn't write back. Nada. In 2 weeks. I know she's read her e-mail, so ... beats me. I am sure the news is hard for her, both because she probably won't be having bio-kids and because she's still single. But I guess I figured that in 2 weeks she'd get it together to write a superficial line or two back. And I certainly don't feel that I contact her at this point. If she's so upset that she can't write back, I'm guessing the last thing she wants is to talk to me.

A lovely NY weekend

We finally had one of those weekends where it really felt like we took advantage of living in the big city. In about 2.5 days (use, JD is at work today ...) we managed to take the fusspot to her 4th borough, visit some of the more iconic shopping spots, eat both good take-out and on "Curry Hill" for lunch today and in general take 3 buses, 1 boat, and 11 different subway rides ...

random thoughts thereafter:

- Nothing will make you feel older than taking the Staten Island subway line at 10 pm on a Saturday night. We were on our way back from a party, and feeling pretty adventurous that we had made it all the way out there and stayed out so late, apparently the night was just starting for 99% of our fellowship subway and boat companions. And apparently despite the night still being quite so young, none of them felt the need for anything more than tank tops and mini-skirts. And yes, the fusspot was the only stroller on our particular voyage past the statue of liberty (and for the record, we visited the Island for a 3-year-old birthday party. Oh, and to meet the 3-year-olds new sibling. Nothing is more relaxing than snuggling someone else's sleeping newborn for an hour, and then handing him back when he wakes up).

- The following makes a pretty full (and granted, exceedingly yuppy) Sunday for a family including one stroller and one super-waddling mother:
a. Crate and Barrel (to purchase 4 new 95 cent juice glasses. No, I don't regret our decision to allow the fusspot to use real glasses at the table. Yet).
b. Jamba Juice for a delicious snack
c. Uniqlo (which has apparently undergone some type of massive customer service overhaul. Everytime I stopped for more than 2 minutes to wait for JD, a sales person brought me a chair to sit on. Seriously. I may consider just going to browse again soon. For those of you not familiar with this chain, it is the Japanese equivalent of a cross between H and M and Gap. Nice, trendy clothes but not too pricey. I would highly suggest not losing your husband in the store if he happens to be wearing a tight t-shirt, jeans, and longish black hair. Just saying. And despite being a little 'larger than normal,' I still grabbed 2 super-soft sweatshirts for nursing and new pajama bottoms.
d. B and H. The crazy, crazy camera store run by religious Jews somewhere overlooking NJ in midtown. I had no idea that the fusspot would love it quite so much but between the merchandise moving on conveyor belts overhead, the free bowls of candy on every shelf, the super-friendly store employees, and the plethora of other toddlers she would have happily stayed for hours (well, we did actually. She would have stayed even longer. We now have a new tripod, new flash for a big camera, and new point and shoot. It doesn't sound like much but JD must have consulted every single employee about all 3 purchases).

And then today we took the fusspot to a "big playroom" to take some photos, aka Grand Central. Yes, the fusspot and I rolled around on the floor of Grand Central, but we certainly washed our hands afterwards before digging into Indian food. Thank goodness it was not too crowded because the fusspot certainly has no sense of stranger danger whatsoever at the moment (not that I mind). And the great thing about taking photos in such a public place is that when she started to look tired, we just offered her a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie and she was off again. If any of the belly shots worked, I may post one here later.

The next time I get stuck in a waiting room staring at a cord blood donation poster for an hour ...

The cord blood donation ads are everywhere: in the midwives, the waiting room for u/s, the first page of parenting magazine, right next to the sign-in sheet for NSTs ... and they are all really aggressive, something along the lines of "Would you spend $2000 to save your child's life?" And recently, they make me pissed.

See, we have been trying rather hard to find a way to donate the cord blood from the bargain baby. We were all set up to do so for the fusspot except that the donation kit arrived a day too late in the mail. If you read those ads you'd think that cord blood is like liquid gold and biracial baby's cord blood is in particular demand and honestly if this was like the bone marrow registry and you had to donate $50 or so to donate your cord blood, we'd totally be up for that (not all bone marrow donation sites require donations, but the one that JD and I used does). Except that it seems to be particularly hard to donate in NYC. There are a few hospitals which are set up for it, but ours (which happens to have the largest L and D system in the city, I'm pretty sure) isn't. So we need to arrive with kit in hand and have a place ready to come pick up the kit within a few hours of the delivery. And we simply can't find someone.

The one place we've found is Life.ba.nk USA (found on marrow.org) and while we will probably go that route, they only pick up on certain days and more importantly they use their donations for scientific research. I am well aware that cord blood donation is not exactly cost-free for the baby (the sooner you clamp the cord the greater their chance of anemia along the way, and we all know how I feel about that particular issue. On the other hand, all babies had their cords clamped immediately until very recently and we seem to have survived just fine), but it certainly seems worth it to potentially help another family, and probably worth it for scientific research, for us. But seriously, how can the for-profit industry be quite so aggressive when the "public banks" are apparently so underfunded that they can't afford to send someone to come collect particularly needed donations in one of the largest hospitals in a major city in the U.S?

And if anyone has donated in the greater-NYC area and has any wisdom on how to do so (our midwives are fully trained to collect cord blood and happy to do so, so that's not an issue at all) do please let me know!

and the alarmists seem to win out again

So a few days ago I posted about considering just renting/borrowing a doppler and several of you gave me information about how to do so (and the lovely Katie just asked about it again). It turns out that a doppler is not considered "sufficient" proof that the fetus is not in distress. It indicates the baby is still there, but does not track long enough to show that the baby is not in distress. This is also why I wasn't just triaged at the midwives last night, but instead sent straight to L and D.

I thought that the point of bi-weekly non-stress-tests (NSTs) was to monitor fetal movement and check for heart decels (another classic sign of distress). At least, that's what I was told when I was a gestational diabetic, and that's what my favorite midwife had suggested.

And then they had yet another practice-wide meeting about me, and it seems that the alarmists won out. So now the proposed course of action is bi-weekly NSTs and bio-physical profiles (i.e. the super-long u/s most women have just at 20 weeks). Bi-weekly. Ugh. And, since I have yet to schedule them you can bet I'm going to get the 3 pm slot and have to somehow lug along the fusspot or pay for extra daycare, plus the wait can be hours by the end of the day. I have another week and a half reprieve to "see if I can feel the baby move" but baring that, it looks like I'm in for a lot of long medical appointments in the following weeks, and hopefully no unnecessary-monitoring-induced-unnecessary-interventions.

Much of me is rather annoyed by the hassle, but then 99% thinks it's just another 2 months and I would of course do absolutely anything to get a healthy baby out of this pregnancy. Of course, next midwife who suggests I "look a bit tired" is going to get an earful. I've already asked Y. about dropping off the bargain baby at 2 weeks for a few hours a day (don't panic - I'm thinking 2-3 hours, no bottles because I'll be working only a few blocks away, and not increasing to a 4-5 hour workday until he's at least 2 months old). Which is all to say that every hour I don't work now = less time to lie on the couch with my newly renewed netflix and my shirt off snuggling a new baby. So yeah, all those hours of "preventative monitoring" are going to lead to long nights until the baby arrives.

Off to draft a more detailed "to do around the apartment" list for my long-suffering husband.

And the first trip to L and D

went slightly better than expected, and did much to reassure me that despite all my frustrations midwives are a good fit for us.

So how we got there: around midday I realized that I hadn't felt the bargain baby move in a while, maybe a couple of days. That's not at all unusual for me, but I called the midwives just in case. My favorite one suggested I drink 3 cups of OJ (something I am always loath to do because of the insulin resistance/prior GD), lie on my side, and call in an hour if I don't feel anything. I promptly ran out, bought OJ, chugged it, had a dried pineapple slice for good measure lay down ... and ... fell fast asleep until she called to check on me. Whoops. But on the way to run out the door to collect the fusspot from daycare I was pretty sure that I felt one decent movement, so I called it a day.

Except, of course, there was a change of shift at the midwives and the next one called me back an hour later and asked me to go to L and D to be triaged.

The L and D nurse was incredible. Instead of taking my full medical history, etc. she took one look at my intake sheet and said "Let's listen to that heartbeat for a while and when we both feel better, we'll do the paperwork." And sure enough, the bargain baby was kicking away. As far as I was concerned, all was well and I was just about ready to be discharged.

The problem was that in a 45 NST I had one braxton-hicks contraction. Which is totally and delightfully normal for almost 33 weeks. Doctor L and D however came in and announced she was ready to a transvaginal u/s, FNN, and Group Strep B test in case I was about to go into 'pre-term labor.' I know that doctors are very critical of how midwife-people tend to be anti-doctor (and I am so not in the camp, being quite happy to delegate all of the high risk aspects of my pregnancy to medical professionals, and to leave the getting the baby out part to people who focus on just that), but it was so classic that I walked in worried that my baby was in distress or no longer with us, and the moment I was there the doctor started worrying about pre-term labor for which I have absolutely no risk factors: no contractions I can feel, no prior pre-term labor, no signs of pre-term labor from earlier exams.

So, of course, I refused the pre-term labor tests, which of course triggered the head doctor coming in for a consultation and a fresh round of calls to the midwives. Needless to say, no one was all that annoyed because everyone involved could freely admit that a single small braxton-hicks contraction during a 45 minute NST does not exactly send off crazy alarms for pre-term labor.

So off I finally headed to Jamba Juice and home to the laundry. It's looking more and more likely that I may soon find myself in for weekly NSTs given my utter inability to feel most fetal movement.

Gorgeous snow

falling across the city. Thank you all for your comments on my last post. I do really appreciate your indulging my extravagance.

Had a long chat with JD about many things last night. Newest tactful comment from my darling husband: "I have never seen a maternity shot of anyone that looked good. Total waste of a photo session." So there you have it. Our less expensive photo session will be saved for a gift for my in-laws (to take photos with the fusspot, naturally) and JD has promised me "decent" belly shots next weekend. Or possibly in the snow this weekend (don't worry, lots of snow but it's still quite warm out).

I did however sign us up for a (single) cleaning session, with a company which uses (I know, I know, we live in an absurd neighborhood) only organic cleaning products. Hopefully something like groupon will have another offer and I figure 2 professional cleaning visits should get us through the spring.

In total loony-ness, I realized that my husband has RSVP'd to attend a friend's wedding 2.5 weeks after the bargain baby's due date, and conveniently on my big 3-0 birthday weekend. And at the moment I'm really thinking that I might just go with him (he is by the way presiding at a wedding on his big 3-0 birthday later this spring). Presuming that the bargain baby is born prior to his due date, I would have at least a 3 week old. It's a flight, but that's totally doable with a little baby and then warm weather and friends in Texas. We'd leave the fusspot with my in-laws, so it would also be a bit of a break for me. This is crazy, right? Most of me feels like the real costs are the hotel and car rental, and JD's going to pay those anyway so if I buy a ticket and toss it, no great loss. Of course, I won't even broach this subject with my mother until we're safely returned, which probably means it's a terrible idea ...

I have lots more to post about the rest of our conversation but it will have to wait for later (largely about my immense bafflement that JD is as unconcerned about 'family planning' post-bargain baby as I am, although for entirely different reasons).

I did astoundingly make it to the opera last night despite having to run home from waiting in line to buy rush tickets, transfer fusspot from daycare to our neighbor's, grab a sandwich and then cab back to the opera because I was cutting it that close ... and of course, in true mom-style I finished my elegant evening by running by the grocery store to pick up some things. The joys of grocery shopping alone are much underrated and it may be the first time in months I've been able to browse the grocery aisles without singing the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round ...

Still here, slightly less grumpy

Well, the family are gone for the moment (final round of visitors start Friday) and I am significantly less grumpy except for being exhausted and subsequently stressed about how little work I am doing. After much consideration about just skipping them, I am taking the occasion to record my extraordinarily self-indulgent and superficial New Years resolutions. I realized over the weekend that I am very, very near to the end of this pregnancy and honestly I am going to be sad if I don't celebrate it in some more explicit way (not the baby part, which I still find hard to take for granted until I have baby in hand, but the whole waddling phase). And a late-night tiff with JD which resulted in me spending 2 hours sobbing on the couch at 4 am (in his defense, he had no idea he'd offended me and thus fell asleep in bed) reminded me that I am indeed responsible for my own happiness. Thus my resolutions:

1. Stop worrying about grocery bills. At least for the next 2 months. Which explains how the fusspot and I went to Whole Foods for dinner last night. Salad bars are a genius invention for toddlers, although balancing baby in shopping cart loaded down with groceries and stroller plus tray with dinner was a bit challenging ... as was the bus ride home.

2. Get a massage. I scheduled one for next week, but may still cancel it. The truth is that I am too cheap and materialistic to commit to this type of indulgence, and I may decide to take the money and spend it on a baby quilt on Etsy which (with shipping) will cost less than a 45 minute massage. If anyone knows where to get a good prenatal massage for under $120 in NYC, do please let me know.

3. Bump photos. Let's be honest: I want them. Not exactly the sexy/quasi-naked type because I hardly find myself particularly appealing at the moment (and JD certainly doesn't, as long-time readers may recall) but the action-type which record this whole crazy process. Last time we took the most adorable photos of me waddling my way through a hike when I was about 6 months pregnant, and both JD and I love them. So I bid on a one-hour photography session for $49 on an online site, and have threatened to use that for maternity shots (instead of some family photos in a couple of months) unless JD caves and takes some decent ones in the next 2 weeks. All I want is a few photos which commemorate quite how absurd this process is.

4. Baby shower (I did warn you these were incredibly self-indulgent, right?). The problem is that I read way too many crafty blogs (despite not having time to personally be crafty) and I keep reading about women who are having their 2nd or 3rd baby shower. And part of me just feels like I'd like my friends to recognize this experience because for the most part our baby-friends have one kid and are done and our close friends have no kids and no prospect of kids in the next few years and just find the whole thing odd. So one thing that's for certain is that no one is going to offer to throw me some type of shower. I think my ideal scenario would be a lovely lunch out with 2-4 friends at a restaurant. But I also don't have friends in the city who know each other or would even think of such a thing. So I think that what I'm going to do is to invite all of our neighbors with babies/toddlers over for a playdate. And here's the brilliance of this plan: I won't even tell them it's a baby shower. I'll just buy flowers, pull out the cloth napkins, make a few special pastries ... and no one will be any the wiser (except perhaps my husband). They certainly won't think of feeling obligated to buy presents since they won't know this is "a shower" and I'll get to decorate and nest and take cute photos for the baby book.

5. Freeze some meals and finish stocking our cabinets. Not something I am at all good at, but seems like a good idea. Any ideas on easy to freeze meals which can last for 2+ months?