i've taken a huge hiatus from posting an entry, mainly because the last several weeks have been so packed with events (mainly baby related) that i haven't even had time to process them all. there's been the friends' baby shower in milwaukee, the family baby shower in chicago, rups' marathon, the family puja for the baby, my in-service exam, innumerable trips to babies r us, and ridiculous amounts of moonlighting to cover our expenses while i'm on maternity leave. i have no idea where to even start and have a feeling this will be a ridiculously long entry. you have my permission to read this in shifts. ;)
i suppose we'll start with the most important person. BG. :)
this is the ultrasound of her at 32 weeks. she's too big to fit her entire body into one image anymore, so here is her waving and her chubby cheeks. our little chickadee is now 34.5 weeks along, about five pounds and just shy of 20 inches long. i'm not sure these numbers are normalized for indian babies, because i was 19 inches when i was born AND i was almost two weeks late! i've read she resembles a miniature being, whatever that means. from now on, not a lot changes except her fat stores build up (translation: adorable big cheeks and chunky monkey thighs). she has fairly well-developed lungs and would be able to survive outside the womb without extensive medical intervention. i'm not planning on having her come now, but good to know that if she did, she'd be okay. she can produce tears (yes, even within the womb!) and her brain is in a period of rapid growth and is producing hundreds of billions of new nerve cells! she is able to move to the rhythm of music, although being a product of rups and myself, let's just hope she takes her sense of rhythm from our sisters! all five of her senses are working, her nails are completely formed, and she already has REM sleep. wow. she acts completely like a newborn, with her eyes opened when awake and closed when sleeping--and she can blink. she can also see more clearly when there is a bright light on my stomach and probably has the outline of all my organs memorized! this stuff is amazing.
my belly shots at 34 weeks (this week)
she kicks all the time now, and i can often see her body parts creating trails across my belly as she swims around. the(unofficial, of course) ultrasound done a couple weeks ago showed all her measurements were normal. actually, her femur length was 3 weeks ahead of what was predicted for gestational age, which means i've been right all along and she's going to be a long-legged runner like rups. as for weight, she's even above the 80th percentile for her age! where is it all coming from?? i look pregnant from a profile view, but somehow only my basketball abdomen grows, nothing else. (trust me, i'm not complaining about that one). the good news is that somehow all the weight i was concerned about NOT having gained, i've gained in the past two weeks. i've gained about 2 pounds per week, so the pound count is now at 16, which my ob was relieved at. i told her it was mainly from junk food, but she covered her ears and said she actually didn't care how i gained it now, she was just happy i was gaining. well then, i guess that is free reign to eat as much ice cream, drink as much whole milk, and snack on however much chocolate i want.
of course, being pregnant can't all be peaches and cream, right? i have developed this awful sharp rib pain on my right side that doesn't go away with any treatment except a hot towel placed on it all night. i have no idea what it is...is it my uterus pushing on my rib? is it my rib pushing on my uterus? is it BG running her marathon in there? it's supposedly pretty normal, but my ob said it will be there till the baby 'drops', which basically means when she falls lower into my abdomen as her due date nears. i'll be able to breathe better and not have this rib pain, but it also might not happen for another 2-4 weeks. weeks??! also, i can't sleep worth anything anymore. i've gotten one of those ridiculously overpriced body pillows that looks like a ginormous cinnamon bun, which does help a good amount (or at least i think it does--i'm too afraid to try a night without it). some of the girls saw it after the baby shower and rightfully laughed pointedly at it, as rups does every night as he tucks BG and me in.
speaking of the baby showers, they were wonderful! the friends one in milwaukee was thrown about two weeks ago by my sister anjali and my awesome friends nish, wendy, and anna. it was beautifully organized and run; they really did a fantastic job. the cake alone fed 100 people and rups is still eating it. the decorations, the games, the clubhouse, the generosity of everyone who came totally blew me away. i'm usually someone who doesn't go out of her way to mix her different social worlds, but this baby shower had people from so many different parts of my life and it was just perfect. i think i've revised my separate worlds theory. i'd been looking forward to it for so long and i was so happy the whole day. within a few hours, my den/nursery went from organized and professional to so filled that i can only walk halfway into the room. granted, it's not huge, but it's not tiny!
picture 1: the hostesses and me: anna, anjali, me, wendy, nishat
picture 2: me and the sis
picture 3: friends palak, monu, me, rohini, jenny
picture 4: profile view
the family baby shower in chicago was this past weekend and was thrown by my sister-in-law rachana and my mother-in-law. it also was a lot of fun, and again, the generosity of all our family and family friends brought tears to my eyes. i feel really lucky and humbled to have such caring people in ours and BG's life. because of these wonderful people, however, i am now relegated to just the doorway of our den/nursery and left to marvel at all the cool things BG has that i wish came 10 sizes bigger. sometimes i feel brave enough to create a path to the computer, but mostly i just stare at our personal version of babies r us (which, i have to guiltily admit, i have frequented many a time in the past week to fill in the last bits of things we need and therefore have contributed to the overabundance of 'stuff' for BG).
picture 1: my mother-in-law (my MIL is on my left) and aunties
picture 2: my sister (to my left), me and my sister-in-law rachana (to my right)
picture 3: my family (sister's fiancee matt, sister anjali, rups, me, mom, dad)
picture 4: my sister joking around pretending to be pregnant by sticking her stomach out way farther than it actually goes (the auntie in the background is getting a kick out of it!)
it was great seeing my parents again this past weekend, too! they came from florida for an action-packed weekend. when my mom first saw me waddling down the hallway on friday night after not seeing me in person for at least four months, she let a howl of excitement and laughter that i'm sure would have had her arrested for noise pollution in florida. :) she was so happy to see how much my belly had grown! my dad was of course happy, too, but he was a bit more contained. the family baby shower was saturday night, and then rups ran the chicago marathon on sunday morning. he shaved half an hour off his time from last year, as well as his head! yes, he actually did pull off the mohawk! (by the way, thanks to all of you who contributed to his cause for autism research--it was really kind of you and there will be mohawk pictures posted soon!). he was happy to note he was the fastest patel in the race. :) and there were 30 of them!
if that wasn't enough for the weekend, we had the puja for BG that evening at rups' parents' house. family events in the patel family are never small; i think there were about 75 people there! it went well, i got slapped across the face by his kumkum-laden cousins (a staunch gujrati tradition in which they put red powder on their fingers and slap the mother-to-be to remind her to continue taking care of them. as i am marathi, i slapped them back). :) i gave an impromptu speech to our parents which was meant to just be a thank you and acknowledgment and appreciation for everything they've done for us, but which turned out to be a 5 minute talk on their sacrifices, their devotion, our respect and admiration for them, and how much we love and appreciate them. i was crying, rups' was tearing up, every person in the room (yes, even our dads) were choked up. it was great. :) we don't tell them enough how much we love them, and i couldn't think of a better time or reason.
so i think we're all caught up for now. BG is getting restless and wants her daddy to read to her. i think she really wants to watch smallville like i do. stay tuned for the next entry entailing the l&d tour, breastfeeding class, and the class on post-natal fears!
