Yup. Stilllllllllllll pregnant.

How jealous are you of my super sweet Chuck Norris style? This delightful hat/facial hair is the result of a very successful Dirty Santa game a couple of nights ago.

And as you can see, the offspring is still inside my belly. I've been saying from the beginning that she would be a Christmas Eve or Christmas baby. At this point, I'm really hoping that she is. I feel like a December 26th birthday would be such a letdown; nobody is motivated to celebrate on the day after Christmas.

We had a non-stress test and ultrasound on Monday because we hit the 41 week mark. She performed like a boss. Since I really want to avoid medical induction, I got lots of tips from my doula and birth class teacher to ensure that the doctors had no reason to want to induce immediately: I soaked in the tub right before the appointment and then downed a large Nalgene of water on the way, there was plenty of amniotic fluid. Right before the non-stress test I ate a granola bar with chocolate chips in it and chugged a bottle of orange juice, she went nuts. The doctor actually called her "an overachiever."

The doctor said everything looked great, and gave us another week to try to get things started. I've been power walking, squatting, and walking up and down stairs so hard that my thighs are sore. I've calmed down on the exercise because starting labor off with sore thighs seems like a really bad idea. I made a big pot of spicy veggie chili a couple days ago, and have been adding more and more hot sauce to every bowl. I've been taking long epsom salt baths. We've been having lots of awkward giant pregnant belly sex. I've been drinking pineapple juice. I've been taking evening primrose oil via my mouth and my vag. Guess what has happened? NOTHING. No signs of labor whatsoever.

It's time to step up my game. Yesterday afternoon I went to an acupuncturist who specializes in preggos and she stuck a bunch of needles in me that should get contractions started within 24ish hours. Last night I drank castor oil. I have until Tuesday to evict this kid and I am trying my hardest to make it happen today or tomorrow.

My mom and sister are here. This video best expresses the current situation in our household. They are freaking the fuck out with excitement but NOTHING IS HAPPENING.

It's time to get this party started.

She was due yesterday. I'm still pregnant. Meh.

The due date was yesterday. No action so far. I've been walking walking and walking some more. We've been having awkward giant pregnant belly sex as much as possible. I'm about to start chugging castor oil if there is no progress soon. I just don't want the poor kid to have a Christmas birthday. She keeps dropping further and further which is resulting in nothing but an abundance of extremely unpleasant round ligament pain.

The anticipation is driving me nuts! It's like that feeling you would get when you were a kid on Christmas Eve; you are so excited to see what Santa brought, but Christmas morning seems UNBEARABLY far away. I just want to meet her and see her little face and hear her little noises and smell her baby smell!

I know that 40 weeks is just an average and that first babies have a tendency to be late... buuuuutttttt now that the magical semi-arbitrary due date has come and gone, I'm getting antsy as fuck. I JUST WANT THIS KID OUT!

So in the meantime I'm placating myself with doughnuts and Gilmore Girls and bubble baths and as many foot rubs as I can cajole out of my dear husband. The house is clean and all laundry has been done. All my Christmas shopping is completed and the gifts are wrapped. Nothing like the impending arrival of a newborn to get my ass motivated to get the Christmas shopping done ahead of time for the first time ever.

God I hope she's born soon. Everyone I know who has a birthday near Christmas abhors it. (And I've heard all about them, ever since we got pregnant and started telling people the due date I've heard alllllllllll the Christmas birthday stories, do trust.) Not to mention I absolutely cannot wait for sushi and wine. Oh man, sushi and wine, nom nom nom.

Dudes, I am super pregnant.

I am due in 10 days. WTF!?! Some new developments since I last discussed pregnancy:

I can't see my lady bits, like, at all. It's weird. Personal grooming has gone out the window. I scored a Groupon for a $25 wax job, so we'll have that issue addressed on Tuesday. I can't wait. Things are getting ridiculous down there and considering how many people are about to be staring at it, something has got to be done.

My boobs just keep growing. They grew a ton the first trimester and then pretty much plateaued, until last week. Suddenly they are significantly bigger again and let's be serious, as someone who is normally a smallish B, I'm loving it.

The baby dropped overnight. Literally, I woke up Tuesday morning, looked in the mirror, and was shocked. The shape of my belly had completely changed overnight. So naturally, I immediately texted my sister a nudy pic and she confirmed that my belly did, in fact, look completely different than Thanksgiving weekend when I was prancing around naked in front of her while we marveled over my ginormous belly.

 

(Disregard the awkward angle of this picture that makes my legs look strangely short. The photographer was my husband standing in his boxers exasperatedly (spell check said it's a word!) taking a quick picture for me after I drug him out of the guest bathroom that he was in the middle of painting the most perfect shade of retro doctor office green.)

I'm dilated! Ok, so as of Thursday morning it was only half a centimeter, but hey, that's progress. The doctor was actually able to poke the top of the baby's head!

I can't sleep. I've always had insomnia issues, but it has gotten out of control over the past two weeks. I am suddenly a super duper light sleeper; as in, my dog stands by the bed and stares at me and I wake up. I am also finding myself waking up for no reason and immediately being wide as fuck awake. I don't know if it's my body preparing to care for a newborn throughout the night or just my hormones being janky, but I am not a fan, not one bit.

I have gained almost 50 pounds. I am normally a thin person (it's a combo of getting lucky in the genetic lottery + clean eating + having a very energetic German Shepherd who requires an absurd amount of speed walks). The weight gain isn't bothering me too much, except that I see it in my face big time. But it's ok because soon I'll be breastfeeding constantly, eating super clean again, and be able to walk faster than a geriatric sloth. Speaking of...

I walk slower than your grandma. If I walk fast, at all, I get Braxton Hicks contractions. Not a fan. My dog seems to be enjoying the shift to more sniffing time on the walks and significantly more dog park time, but it's driving me crazy. Plus, now that she's dropped it feels different/strange (and not in a good way) and I'm getting dangerously close to waddle status. Not cute.

And now I leave you with these delightful gems from our maternity photoshoot. The photographer is a good friend of ours, and we had fun goofing around with her and along with a ton of amazing shots, she also captured some ridiculous ones.

Caitlin Jamison Photography is amazing!

FYI: The middle one is Lee sneaking in a little bit of dinosaur. It's a thing that has been happening in our friend group since college. Basically, T-Rex impressions are hilarious when you're drunk.

All natural birth, I'm doing it. (eek!)

When I first got pregnant, I just didn't think about the whole birth thing. I mean, I knew it was going to happen eventually, I just kept putting it off as something I would think about later. Newborns seem so very teeny tiny... until you think about one exiting through your lady bits. So I chose to ignore that inevitable event for the first half of my pregnancy.

Caitlin Jamison Photography

Now that we are nearly 38 weeks, I'm thinking about it constantly, and it no longer terrifies me.  Why? Because my best coping mechanism is knowledge and I've been researching the crap out of it. I have been reading all sorts of books, articles, and blogs about birth and breastfeeding. My husband and I are taking twelve weeks of classes on The Bradley Method. I have been talking to every mother I know about their birth experiences (and wow do they vary drastically!).

So I had to make some decisions about how I want all of this to go down. I always had a feeling that I wanted to go all natural, but the more I research, the more sure I am. My approach to labor and delivery is that while yes, I will be giving birth in a hospital, it is because I want to be prepared for a worst case scenario. However, my birth will most likely be low-risk, normal, and should not require any medical intervention.  Birth is a natural event, it is not a medical emergency. My body is amazing and knows what it is doing, I just have to go with the flow (albeit a painful and exhausting flow).

We have hired a doula. I plan to labor at home for as long as possible. I do not want an IV, epidural, or any sort of drugs. I won't go into it all here because I could go on for days, but basically there is a lot of evidence that all the medical interventions now considered to a normal part of birth in American hospitals (induction, epidurals, pitocin, etc.) have a tendency to create a need for further medical intervention (and a scary high rate of cesarean sections).

Some of the things that I keep reminding myself of:

• Women have been doing it since the beginning of time, it's only recently that women have been giving birth drugged (and holy shit the early stuff was s-c-a-r-y).
• Babies born naturally have a tendency to be more alert and responsive after birth.
• Mothers who give birth naturally have a tendency to recover faster.
• The initial breastfeeding has a tendency to be easier for babies born naturally.
• The drugs in a mother's system can inhibit the release and reception of the hormones that cause the natural "high" mothers experience immediately post-birth.

So yup, I'm doing it all naturally. And while yes, it intimidates the hell out of me, women have been doing it since the beginning of time and I can do it too. Hopefully it will all go smoothly and there will be no need for medical intervention, only monitoring. So wish me luck, because in a couple of weeks I'm going to be squeezing a tiny human out of my vag and feeling every bit of it. Gah!