Entering the 3rd trimester: the final countdown!

Here we are, 27 weeks down, 13 to go, give or take.  The due date is 3 short, or long, months from today, though of course baby Daniel doesn't know the due date, he'll come when he's good and ready.  Since it will be July in Texas, I'd be fine if he decided to come a little on the early side.  Not right away mind you, but a week or two early would be just fine.

I've been fortunate all the way through that I've felt pretty good most of the time and symptoms have been relatively mild.  If the worst thing in the 1st trimester was queasiness, the worst of the 2nd trimester would have to be the acid reflux.  Like the queasiness, it made nearly daily appearances but was seldom very bad.  Alas, the reflux isn't likely to get any better as the belly gets bigger and bigger and crowds the stomach and esophagus more and more.  Also not likely to improve is the mild swelling in my ankles.  I look like I've got 2 sprained ankles.  No pain, just annoying.  Oh, and sometimes I feel like I may as well live in the bathroom as often as I have to go.  So, I'm sure I have 3 more months of all of those things to look forward to.  But, if that's the worst I have to deal with, it's still not too bad compared to the horror stories I've heard.

The Williamsons go to Washington
Kevin and I took a 4-day trip to Washington, DC last week for one of our last "just the 2 of us" vacations.  DC was great and we had a wonderful time, but it was a Waterloo of sorts for me as I realized that well, I'm almost 7 months pregnant, and I can't quite do everything I could before.  I had to take several breaks during the day from all the walking and standing but all in all I did pretty well and we had a great trip.  Here are a few pictures:

Here we are on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the reflecting pool, World War II Memorial, Washington Monument and Capitol building behind us.  With 20 pounds of pregnancy weight, the belly is definitely showing more and more.  Several of my coworkers have commented on "that cute little belly" (do they know what "little" means?) and last weekend both the stock clerk at CVS and the guard at the Hirshhorn Art Museum complimented it too.  Always nice to have people compliment you when you're 20 pounds above your normal weight, so I'll take it! :)

The Supreme Court and a few cherry blossom trees.  What you can't see just to the left of this frame is the tv cameras that were out that day.  We didn't know why right away but then learned that Justice John Paul Stevens had announced his retirement that day.  We didn't see him or any of his 8 colleagues (or, for that matter, the President, First Lady, or any congressmen that we recognized) but did enjoy touring the building and seeing the courtroom where the Justices hear oral argument.  It's really an impressive room.  If I ever get the opportunity to argue before the Supreme Court I'll definitely have to go look at the room again as a tourist first so I don't get too distracted with all the decorations during the 30 minutes I have to make my case!

The Washington Monument from across the reflecting pool, with the FDR memorial behind us.  There's an interesting story about the Saturday night I took this picture.  We had toured the Capitol and done the Smithsonian Air & Space museum that day, gone back to the room for a nap, then gotten dressed up for a nice dinner at Kinkead's.  We had been planning to walk around all the memorials the next day then noticed it was a 3 mile loop.  I thought that would be too much for me to take on at once so we decided to split it up by going to the FDR and Jefferson Memorials after dinner Saturday, leaving a much smaller loop for Sunday.  Sounds good in theory, right? 

Our map showed FDR and Jefferson to be pretty close to each other so I thought I'd be fine to do that walk in my dress sandals.  The memorials were both really impressive and it was great to see them at night all lit up, and without big crowds.  After visiting both, we walked out of Jefferson to find a cab and call it a night.  And this was, it turned out, the flaw in the plan.  There were no cabs coming to the memorial but we thought if we walked a bit along the road leading to it we were bound to see some cabs.  We saw several, but none wanted to stop because it was a high-speed road, so we kept walking...for about an hour and 2 miles, until finally a little after midnight we successfully hailed a cab.  That would have been quite a walk in those shoes even if I wasn't pregnant and hadn't been on my feet all day, but fortunately a soak in the hotel room tub once we got back helped a lot and I didn't get any blisters and wasn't sore the next day.  Lesson learned: cabs are almost everywhere in DC, except by the Jefferson Memorial late at night, when your feet hurt and you really, really need one!

One image I didn't record on camera but that will stay with me from the trip came as we were walking up Capitol Hill (which lives up to its name, it was an uphill walk) on Friday.  We were admiring the landscaping in the gardens adjacent to the Capitol when I noticed a man, possibly one of the gardeners, kneeled on a mat in the garden grass.  I realized he was praying toward Mecca.  He was quiet and not in a particularly conspicuous spot, so it was obviously a moment of personal piety rather than any public demonstration.  Had I not been looking closely I would never have seen him.  It would have seemed intrusive to me to take his picture, but it struck me as a picture that captures well the idea of America, that a member of a minority faith could freely practice his religion in the shadow of the seat of our national government, without anyone harassing him.  A small private moment, but one which could not happen in many parts of the world.  It was nice to see and appreciate.

We got home Monday night and Tuesday morning Kevin was on a plane bound for Seattle, aka "the other Washington" for almost 2 weeks for work.  I'm looking forward to him coming home, but am very glad that he was able to take this trip now rather than later in the year when I'd have to play single mommy.  I'll be traveling soon for work myself, back to New Orleans, first a one-day trip later this month than 3 days in May for a disaster fraud trial.  I got the go-ahead to travel from our midwife and doctor, but after the DC experience I know I'll take it easy on the walking.  I will however enjoy eating for two in the Big Easy!

Ready for the big day?
Kevin and I start 5 weeks of Bradley childbirth classes this Thursday (I'll have to go solo to that one).  The classes will prepare us for the labor and delivery, teaching me helpful positions to labor in and relaxation techniques and teaching Kevin how to help me through the process and play an active role.  The class is taught by a Bradley instructor and her husband in their home and will just be us and 2 other couples so it should have an informal feel and plenty of opportunity for questions.

2/3 of the way through, as mild as this pregnancy has been, I'm looking forward to the end of it.  First and foremost to meet little Daniel, hold him and kiss him, feel his little fingers curl around mine, hear his cries, see whose features he got.  I ordered our first batch of all-in-one cloth diapers this week, after a friend tipped me off that they were on sale, and they arrived yesterday.  I can't believe the little guy will be here, going through a dozen of them a day, in just 3 months, and looking at the different sizes they adjust to (these fit birth-9 months, the next size up goes 9 months-3 years) it's amazing to think that as big as the biggest size looks, in about a year he'll be outgrowing them.  The crib mattress we bought looks so big now, he'll just take up a corner of it at first, but within a few years he'll outgrow that too and need a "big boy bed."  It'll be fun to experience all his milestones and watch him grow up (not too fast, I hope!).

Second, I'm looking forward to not being pregnant anymore.  I can't wait to be able to get out in beautiful weather and enjoy a bike ride, run, or rollerblading, to being able to fit into my regular clothes and put my shoes on with ease (short arms+big belly+long legs=physical challenge), sleep on my back again, eat raw sushi, have a glass of wine or a beer, and not have swollen feet, acid reflux, or a frequent flier card for the restroom.  I've heard women say they loved being pregnant, and once it's over I'm sure there are some things I'll miss, like feeling him kick, but while it hasn't been an unpleasant experience I am looking forward to getting back to real life, albeit a "new normal" which will feature a newborn.

And finally, strange as it may sound, I'm actually looking forward to the labor process itself, much the way I look forward to a triathlon, bike rally, or the half-marathon I'm planning to tackle in December.  With the physical endurance events I've done before, they took a lot of training and effort and there were challenging moments, but finishing them brought a great sense of satisfaction.  Much as I enjoy the athletic events (and look forward to being able to do them again), I'm sure that successfully bringing a child into the world will bring a far greater sense of satisfaction than any other accomplishment.  I am so impressed with my friends who have run marathons and I think whenever they face a challenge in life, they can remember "hey, I've run a marathon before, I can handle this." I'm sure as challenges come along after Daniel's birth I'll be able to remind myself, "hey, I delivered a baby, this is nothing."  So labor, bring it on.