This week the baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (heft a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. He’s rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren’t fused together and don’t entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.

What a blessed week! Jude has settled into a more reasonable position – my hips have stopped hurting! Hallelujah! He is up in my ribs a bit now and then, causing me to feel a little claustrophobic because I can’t get a good breath. I am still getting those lovely contractions now and then, but I’m happy to report that they seem to have relaxed a little, coming less and less.

I have to apologize for my last few posts. As I look back I seem to be really negative about the pregnancy. This has been a more difficult pregnancy for me, but I am not a complainer usually. I guess I am trying to be as honest as possible so that when I do look back in five more years (or 25) I’ll have some kind of record of this time. As a second time pregnant mom, it is amazing to me how much of this process is forgotten or remembered in soft focus, not just by me, but by all of the moms I know! Most of the women I speak to have a hard time remembering much about being pregnant. When Guinevere is pregnant and asks me if I had (insert pregnancy symptom here) while I was pregnant, this will provide me with that memory hopefully. So, apologies for seeming so honest. It’s a little embarrassing!

I have done it! I spent this past week getting things finished and ready in my classroom for my leave. I finished organizing, sent stuff off to the printshop, and suddenly feel at least partially ready to go! It is a great relief.

Now thoughts are turning to the nursery. Initially we were pretty casual about the whole thing. He will sleep in our room, why get all fussed up about a nursery? We were planning on having Bradley share his office with the crib and calling it good. But as time has gone on, Bradley and I are suddenly enamored of creating our son’s own space. Partially out of necessity, we NEED to organize all that stuff that is being handed down to us! But the other part is pure nesting, plain and simple. We are running with the 1950’s space theme. We are doing the crib up with blue and brown stars to match the blue and brown walls, and we’re going to stencil silvery stars here and there around the room. In addition, Bradley is drawing ‘Atomic Boy’s’ artwork for the walls, some of which I am going to embroider, some of which will be just his artwork. I am on the lookout for soft robots, rockets and all that good stuff. I think it will be very cute and very livable for a long time. Even when he’s 8 years old, he can have a space themed room. So now we are trying to find a new home for Bradley’s drafting table, work computer and everything. It may be a while, but we will figure something out eventually…

Speaking of decor, we went to BabiesRUs yesterday and added some fun stuff to the registry. Namely the star pattern stuff, but also a few other fun things. We had a nice day, roaming the mall, looking for the just right super soft and cuddly stuffed animal for our son. We found it at Hallmark of all places. We usually avoid that store, but good things have been arriving there lately…

It seems like my world is getting smaller and smaller as this pregnancy progresses. We are doing fewer and fewer things that are unrelated to the baby. I guess this is how we begin to open our family circle to him. I sit here racking my brain for what we did this week, but it all centers around our little spaceman sitting in my tummy.

Enjoy the week!
Tamara


Comments are closed.