January 27th, 2009: I was in the bathtub emjoying the afternoon sunlight, when I noticed something odd. I was washing my chest and put a little bit of pressure on my breast. As I did so, and a small bit of clear, gooey liquid came out. How strange, I thought. Then I realized what it was. I actually called Corey at work to tell him, "I got milk." Lactation? At 31 1/2 weeks? I dismissed it as a part of the third trimester. I later enjoyed a spaghetti dinner which was joined by a pack of javelinas, just outside on the patio. That was the first time they visited us at our home.
On the morning of January 28th, 2009, the first thing Corey and I did was have intercourse. I was enormous at that point and it was very awkward. We ended up in a position that we rarely use, but it worked because it didn't smash my big belly. Afterwards, I felt very uncomfortable. I blamed the odd positioning. I was on the toilet afterwards and I yelled out at Corey in the bedroom, "We're not doing this again for a long time." ( I should have been more careful with my words.) He asked me why and I told him that I "felt like crap."
I returned to the bed for my daily parineum massage. This was probably my least favorite thing about preparing for birth. I didn't really want Corey down there massaging my opening, but it was for a good cause, I did not want to tear or have someone cut me for an episiotomy. I just had to be a big girl about it and relax. I felt so icky after having sex. Why? I felt as though I was going to start my moon, a strange feeling considering I was pregnant and had not had a moon since last May. I took a hot bath thinking that would relieve my tension. It did, but only temporarily.
I laid in the bathtub for a long while. Corey and I both happened to have a day off from the massage school, so we had the luxury of hanging out at home all day. Corey didn't have to go into work at Elote until 3 that afternoon, so we had plenty of time to wait for the word on our car loan.
Meanwhile, Corey pulled out a file box and turned our living room into an office. He was intently sorting papers into two very untidy piles, "keep" and "toss". I descended the stairs after my bath wearing my robe and pajama pants. I sat on the couch and moaned. "What's wrong?" Corey asked.
"Nothing. I just feel so....gross....like I am on my cycle or something. Uh! Having sex sucks!!!" He put in The Two Towers, Director's Cut, and I sat there, watching Gollum scramble around the screen. He made some mac'n'cheese after a little while, but I really didn't feel hungry. I had skipped breakfast because I felt so yucky, so a late morning snack was a little bit welcome. I only could get a few bites down. I grabbed my exercise ball and took it over to the dining room table. I sat on it and folded my arms on the table, laying my head in them. I bounced around for some time and it really helped me feel better.
I expressed my concern about getting an ultrasound to Corey after getting off the ball. He said he'd be able to come with me next week on Monday because Elote was closed that day. I sat down in the dining room with my back against the wall and was quiet. I placed my hands on my baby belly and waited. The midwife said if I can feel 10 movements in an hour, then that is considered normal. I waited....one..........two..............three movements. It took a while, perhaps ten minutes or so. Odd. Ever since that dance at massage school, the baby had not been as rambunctious as it had been in previous weeks. Usually I could count ten movements in one minute. I would feel it launch off of one side of my belly and hit on the other side. But today, and ever since the dance, the movements were more like a shifting, or a wiggling, as if it were in place, but just adjusting itself. None the less, I did count ten movements and that satisfied me. My baby was moving. It was alive and going, and that's alllll I cared about.
After feeling a sense of relief with the movement of my baby, I went upstairs to get a load of dirty laundry. I brought the hamper downstairs and bent over to grab some dirty clothes out of it. As I came up and turned to put the clothes in the washer, I felt a warm sensation in my undies. "Did I just pee myself?" I wondered? Was I that pregnant that I had lost feeling in my bladder? My bladder didn't feel full, certainly not full enough to leak. I called Maryn. I didn't care if she was still on maternity leave, I needed some reassurance.
"I'm over the hill in Prescott, otherwise I'd come over and check you out," she told me. "Did you get a gush?" she asked me.
"No. Just a small trickle. It very well could have been pee," I responded.
"Well, if you get a gush, or blood of any sort, or rythmic cramping, call me immediately. If you don't get any of those three things, you're going to be just fine. Just take it easy and try to relax and keep calm. We'll meet up next week for a prenatal anyway."
"Okay," I told Corey, "Maryn said if I get blood, or a gush of any sort or rythmic cramping we should call her. That's the official word." However, the part about keeping calm, I wasn't so sure about. I started the laundry load and returned to the couch. Then, I started panicking....
"What if the hoses don't fit on the faucets when we have the baby? The faucets are all covered with mineral buildup. I don't even know if the upstairs faucets have the screw-on attachment to fit a hose up to them. What if we need to run hoses from the kitchen up to the bathroom? Do we have long enough hoses?" I was full-on freaking out about the supplies for having a water birth at home. Why? The baby wasn't coming for another 8 weeks.
Something was definitely up.
Corey, being a supportive husband didn't even question me. He went upstairs and I heard a very loud BANG BANG BANG! He was whacking the mineral buildup off of the bathtub spout. He had also called our friend who had just had a water birth to see if we could borrow their hoses to measure the length. He said he would drop the hoses off later that day on his way to work.
Meanwhile, I was crawling around on the floor trying to feel better, but feeling worse by the minute.
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