I love the chiropractor.

My trip to the chiropractor yesterday appears to have been at least an initial success. She did some weird tapping, massage, and pressure things to my hips and literally the minute I stood up from the table I felt some initial relief. My limp has almost completely gone away and the pain has significantly decreased. This is after I was almost in tears running errands yesterday as the pain was so great that even crossing the street or doing a little grocery shopping felt terrible. I am now feeling hopeful that a combination of chiropractor visits and prenatal massage will make the next few weeks bearable and keep me in some kind of shape to get through labor.

Unfortunately I am supposed to basically avoid putting any weight on my leg until my next appointment with the chiro which is tomorrow. So today I am pretty much homebound. It's weird to be ordered to not even do housework. I should feel relieved, but no, suddenly I WANT to do housework. Go figure.

The other pregnancy related thing going on that I haven't mentioned here is that they are laying off the midwives at the practice that I've been going to!!! The practice currently consists of five doctors and two midwives. Women who deliver at the birthing center (like me) are typically attended by one of the midwives. Other deliveries, including if my delivery went high risk or intervention, are attended by one of the OB's. Since I've been planning on going to the birthing center, I've been making all (but one) of my prenatal appt's with the midwives. But suddenly, it appears that I may be attended by one of the random physicians, if I go into labor after January 1. (which is highly likely) There is a small chance that they will keep the midwives on contract to do the birth center deliveries, and I should be able to call and find out what they've decided tomorrow. Meanwhile, plan B is to try to meet as many of the physicians as possible before giving birth. The situation SUCKS because the only reason I chose this practice in the first place is because they were the ONLY practice in this area with midwives and which had a reputation for being supportive of minimal intervention when requested by the mother. The whole thing had me infuriated a week ago, now I'm just sort of waiting it out.

In other news:
1. I am afraid I will never make friends here and will be socially isolated for the next year or two. (I know, I know, it's up to me to figure out how to make an effort on this. I have nothing to lose.)

2. Yesterday was Derek's birthday! Yay! At Derek's request, I made him an old family recipe for brownies. It includes, among other things, 4 cups of sugar, 2/3 a cup of crisco, and four eggs! Doesn't that sound disgusting???

3. My kitten thinks I am an inanimate object. He was sitting on the windowsill and I was standing nearby. I noticed he was giving me a funny look, but before I could move he had leapt onto my body and was climbing me like a jungle gym. I have the scars to prove it.

happy end of the long weekend

Not that I have a job to go back to.

We had a good, if hectic, Thanksgiving weekend. This was a holiday that used to mean nothing to me, and I only spent it with my immediate family one time since leaving for college. I couldn't get excited by a food-centered holiday, especially one where well-meaning meat eaters would place a frozen entre lasagna at my place and call it a day. (What can I say, they tried. If I wanted something else I should have cooked my own.) Once, when I was 22, I even spent Thanksgiving by myself, and while I was eating the dinner I'd prepared for myself (I actually had put some effort into it) the building next door to mine started to burn to the ground, and I was forced to evacuate with Ace clinging to me like a koala bear. I spent the rest of that Thanksgiving in a van with my stoner-boy downstairs neighbors, all the while wondering if I would have somewhere to sleep that night. Our building escaped unscathed, except for the layer of soot covering all of my belongings. That was something to be thankful for.

This was all before I met Derek, five years ago. Although we'd only been dating since August, he felt sorry for me that I had no Thanksgiving plans, and took me home. TG is his favorite holiday. I think there are two reasons. One is food. The other is that he was born the day after TG and his mother went into labor after cooking and eating a large TG meal. We get to hear this story every year but this year, of course, it meant more. I discovered that Derek was actually born at 34 and a half weeks (yes, our baby would come this week if he were on that schedule). He's insisted to me for years that he was born early but I never believed him because he went home from the hospital within 48 hours, perfectly healthy. But this year his mother proved that it is a true story. Sorry honey.

Anyway, now TG is one fo my very favorite holidays, because I love to celebrate it with Derek. This year we spent it with BOTH of our families (hosted by Derek's Mom), and while this was overwhelming at times, mostly we are grateful that they get along so well and things like this go so smoothly. We also got to see N & J, as well as Jenny, so overall it was a lovely weekend filled with many of our very favorite people.

If anyone is wondering about my state of being, I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable and continue to limp around at an extremely slow pace due to the pain in my hip. Also, I am acutely aware of my abdomen. It feels like my entire body is taken up by my abdomen. I am a large, limping abdomen. Yes.

One Word

(From Bri)

You.Can.Only.Type.One.Word.

No.Explanations.

1. Yourself: hungry

2. Your boyfriend: amazing

3. Your hair: boring

4. Your mother/stepmother: generous

5. Your dog: memory

6. Your favorite item: kitten

7. Your dream last night: none

8. Your favorite drink: latte

9. Your dream car: subway

10. The room you are in: bedroom

12. Your fear: loss

13. What you want to be in 10 years: therapist

14. Who you hung out with last night: husband

15. What you're not: outgoing

16. Muffin: bran

17: One of your wish list items: music

18: Time: afternoon

19. The last thing you did: nano

20. What you are wearing: pajamas

21. Your favorite weather: autumn

22. Your favorite book: Dickens

23. The last thing you ate: cereal

24. Your life: mellow

25. Your mood: hungry

26. Your best friend(S): far-away

27. What are you thinking about right now? food

28. Your car: Honda

29. What are you doing at the moment?: typing

30. Your summer: moving

31. Your relationship status: married

32. What is on your TV?: re-runs

33. What is the weather like?: frosty

34. When is the last time you laughed?: anoche

33 weeks....

On my recent (and glorious, as usual) trip to Brooklyn, I promised Bri that I would blog more regularly to keep her and my few other readers up to date on pregnancy stuff and other stuff.

Unfortunately, I must announce that my news is that today I am suffering from some pregnancy related pain. For the past few days I had been noticing some achiness in my right hip area. Yesterday I felt pretty well and we went walking in the woods for two hours. (I can't call it hiking anymore, I'm too slow.) We saw a magnificent buck galloping through the forest with his beautiful antlers, so it was worth it, but maybe I exacerbated the pain?

Today it's been pretty awful, ranging from a general achiness that spreads between my lower back to my butt to my upper thigh to a shooting pain when I put weight on it. I am also limping because of the pain. I've diagnosed myself with the possibility of sciatica, which could just be for today or a few days or (please no) for the rest of the pregnancy. I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, so I'll ask them if there's anything I can do to make it better or at least not make it worse. It really sucks. Fortunately I feel relief when sitting down but moving around is downright painful. (and we all know how much I like to keep moving!)

I have to say, Bri, although I've always admired you living your life while putting up with the fibro, and not that this is anything comparable, but now I really don't know how you do it. You are amazing!

On the bright side, the baby boy continues to be active, kicking and squirming and a constant source of joy for me. So, I guess I can put up with a little butt-hip-thigh-back pain.

A Boring Post

Okay, I have to admit, for five minutes there was an almost blank post up here entitled "p d*ddy loves your booty". This was in answer to Bri's comment that she was sick of seeing "boob holes" pop up on my blog, so I was trying to think of the one phrase that would annoy her more.

Admit it Bri, wouldn't it drive you nuts to check my blog and have to see "p d*ddy loves your booty" staring at you in large yellow letters? But then I figured you would just stop checking my blog, since it would be so awful. So, I'll try to come up with more creative, neutral things to say in future posts.