It's officially the third trimester! Yesterday and today, the baby's movement really has gone into high gear. For the first time, early this morning I was woken up and kept awake by what felt like an internal drum solo.
With each increase in happiness and excitement, comes an increase in pain. Two different ladders, up and up and up they both go. Three times per week I'm going for chiropractic adjustments for the next four weeks, then once per week after until delivery. I'll just have to sell a kidney to pay for it.
On the happiness ladder is the scene I came home to: my husband vacuuming after moving furniture and rearranging our bedrooms, setting up Baby Schultz's very own room. *happy tears*
I shared passages from Stephenie Meyer's New Moon that helped me during the miscarriage. Now I'd like to share a passage from the fourth and final book of the saga, Breaking Dawn. *spoiler alert* To my own little nudger.
I could only stare at my shocked eyes in the mirror, my fingers gingerly pressed against the swelling on my torso.
And then, like in my vivid nightmare last night, the scene abruptly transformed. Everything I saw in the mirror looked completely different, though nothing actually was different.
What happened to change everything was that a soft little nudge bumped my hand -- from inside my body.
I had a realistic dream last night. Not that it made sense -- my dreams never really do. But it felt so real. I gave birth and I held you and Andy named you, and later I fed you outside under the sun. You had the funniest little face and red hair (no idea why).
Even though I have the real thing here inside me, I felt a little empty when I woke up. There was real love in the dream, even if it was just in my head.
Lately, with the different moods and emotions swirling through me, it's as though I have multiple personality disorder. I could describe all the personalities here, but it would take up the whole page. Suffice it to say that I range from the blind fog of panic and indecision to the bright clarity of patient love to the come-on-already desire to blink away the next 116 days and get started on my new life, new role.
On a personal level, it's like my identity has completely changed. Although I have a self-professed baby obsession, am I ready for that to define me? To no longer be the person I've been, to become this new role?
Going back and forth in these moods is so exhausting!
Maybe whenever I get scared I can think of the dream again, where the love spread through me like the warmth from the sun, and there was nothing bad that could touch me as long as I had you in my arms and Andy at my side, looking down at you with the love so clear in his eyes.
By the way, thank you to everyone who provided registry input. It was incredibly handy to get expert opinions, and at 134 items total, the registries are certainly comprehensive! Buying things and choosing things for the registry has been a great way to calm myself down and help get prepared. Here is our new crib and changing table combo, which came with a free mattress. (Thanks, Gerry and Agnes!)
I spotted this song on Andy's iPod and remembered that I had once thought it might be our wedding song (in the end we went with "I Only Have Eyes For You" as sung by our wedding band). But I still have a soft spot for this song, and now it seems near perfect for Baby Schultz. From "To Make You Feel My Love" by Garth Brooks (written by Bob Dylan):
When the rain is blowing in your face And the whole world is on your case I could offer you a warm embrace To make you feel my love
When the evening shadows and the stars appear And there is no one to dry your tears I could hold you for a million years To make you feel my love...
There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do Go to the ends of the earth for you Make you happy, make your dreams come true To make you feel my love
I felt something this morning on the way to work (always in the car, it seems...) that puts what I've been calling "kicks" to shame. Seriously, I swerved while driving. I don't know what this baby was doing, but it hurt! I imagined it was turning itself around the hard way.
I had an idea for the nursery -- hanging a baby picture of myself and one of Andy, and then putting one of Baby Schultz in the middle when we get to that point. Here are ours:
Lindsay Dawn, 5 weeks "surprise face"
Andrew Gerald, 5 months "happy baby"
The last week, we've slowly been arguing talking over names. I thought it would be a little more fun than this. Of course, we're just starting out, so maybe it will get better.
In typical fashion, I had my long, carefully chosen list of names all set to go, but none of them won. Andy has had his mind set on one name in particular, which I don't dislike, but I feel lukewarm toward it. We'll just have to keep searching for the perfect one, I guess.
Anyone have any favorites/suggestions? I can say with some certainty that we won't be choosing a name that's in the current top 100 (or maybe even top 1,000) names.
If one is having one's in-laws over for a visit, one would be wise to actually go in the would-be nursery and hide one's ridiculous layout sketch so that one wouldn't be forced (when one's mother-in-law stumbles upon said sketch) to create lies and careful half-truths that insult the intelligence of one's intuitive in-laws, who undoubtedly now know or suspect that one is finally PREGNANT.
I'm overwhelmed by the desire to decorate the nursery. I actually picked out the theme(s), and the curtains have already been shipped. The nursery is going to be yellow gingham and jungle animals (specifically "Jungle Play" by NoJo. See the image at the bottom of the post.) This can't be the start of nesting already. I just have a problem.
But this did lead to the start of our Wal-Mart and Target registries. We're not even eleven weeks pregnant. I definitely have a problem.
It's going to be so wonderful, though. I'm going to make my own artwork for the walls (painting wood squares and gluing on felt cutouts of the jungle animals). I might even buy new knobs for the dressers and paint them to look like yellow gingham.
I drew up a floor plan for how to arrange the furniture in the nursery, and I left it where Andy would see it when he got home at 2 a.m. from work. He woke me up just so he could laugh at my illustrations. I think it was the fact that I actually drew and labeled things like "furnace vent" and "baby wipes." But the good news is that he agrees with the design, and he'll hang my curtain rods.
