I’ve been on maternity leave for two weeks now, and I mistakenly thought I’d have more time to blog. Somehow I forgot that the baby’s room wasn’t ready, the gifts I received hadn’t yet been put away, and my home business needed some serious catching up. Whoops! I guess this is indicative of the many miscalculations I’ll make as a new mom?

The pregnancy has been going great! I had to do a 24 hour urine collection because one of my urine tests came back with a ridiculous amount of sugar in it. The doctor was worried about pre-eclampsia, but I knew that I’d just not eaten the right thing for breakfast. But I did the urine collection, which, let me tell you, is a pain in the ass. If you don’t collect ONE of your urine movements, you have to start the whole thing over. I ended up having a stress induced urine dream, where someone tossed my urine away without asking me what it was for. I think I may have cried.

My feet are swollen so much that the only shoes I can wear now are flip flops. They don’t hurt, but they’re about as ugly as they come:

Those aren’t feet. Those are sausages that bend in the middle.

Sometimes they’ll even turn purple. At least they’re interesting to look at, in a gross-pictures-of-weird-diseases kind of a way.

I’m seeing a midwife, but we’re planning on heading to the hospital when I’m 8 centimeters or so. I’d like a home birth and my husband would be more comfortable with a hospital birth, so this is our compromise. At my last appointment with the midwife, I made her guess when the baby might come. Most first time babies are late, but based on some things I’ve been experiencing, the midwife thinks the baby could be early. It’s quite possible the baby will still be on time or late, but it certainly helps light a fire under the bottoms of people who I’m relying on to get things done before the baby comes!

Since I could use more time before the baby comes, I’ve been talking to the baby and telling him that I’d really prefer that he not come before next Wednesday. He can come at that time, or he can come even later than that if he wants! But I need him to stay warm and cozy until Wednesday. Can’t hurt to ask, right?

I told a friend (hi, Jody!) about this, and she said that she kept telling her daughter to come early and come at night (when her daughter was due, there was a lot of construction on our local highway and they wanted a clear path to the hospital) and her daughter was two weeks early and her water broke at 2:30 in the morning. If it worked for her, why can’t it work for me?