30 week! Baby ninja strikes again!

Ten more weeks. I can barely believe it. When life is moving so quickly within our family, its amazing how easy it is to lose hold of time and suddenly you are ten weeks away from the newest baby.

We’ve taken to calling her baby ninja now. I imagine dressing her up in a tiny back ninja suit for her first Halloween. It makes me chuckle. She kicks hard. Harder than either of the boys ever did. So hard it hurts, but even with her painful stabs I’m thankful for her wild and crazy tumbling routines. They remind me that we are healthy and she’s doing well in that tiny cramped space.

At 30 weeks they say she’s about the size of a butternut squash. I feel like she’s a butternut squash smashed into the skin of a basketball. So snug.

Baby ninja has given me a host of pregnancy symptoms/conditions/states of affairs that have escalated these last 5 weeks and are all new to me. The first and most pervasive is the lack of sleep. Not because I’m not tired. Boy am I tired (more on that next), but she’s got this uncanny ability to wake me up every hour or so because she’s making me so uncomfortable. Its awful. No sleep for this momma even before she arrives!

I had assumed that all that being tired was due to the lack of sleep (because if you know me, you know how much I love sleep) but it turns out at our last doctor’s appointment that I am anemic! Anemic means my iron is low, and low iron is characterized by being very out of breath and very tired. Both things that are very true!! So now I’m on iron pills for the rest of the pregnancy, but I’m still not certain how much of my tiredness is due to the iron issue and how much is due to the fact I just can’t sleep. Sigh.

When I’m not trying to sleep, trying to catch my breath, or trying to figure out where to get my next side of beef, I’m complaining about heartburn. Ish. Its the same as the boys, super annoying, super awful. I pretty much grin and bear it because I’m anti-drugs while pregnant, but its not a picnic. Its exacerbated by the things I love most- lemons- which I drink my water with, religiously, and it makes everything taste not so good because an hour later I get a second version. Paints a nice visual for you, doesn’t it?

I thought I had escaped the fun of leg cramps, but alas, I haven’t. In fact, the last week, every morning I’ve woken up with leg cramps that were pretty intense. It seems always when I think I’ve eclipsed the window for said pregnancy ailment, I learn that the window just shifts in this pregnancy.

But its not all complaints! So far she’s given me no back pain, which is fantastic, because with the boys I had a ton of back pain. And even though I’m not keeping a close eye on my eating (for example, today at a birthday party I had a piece of cake, and now as I write this I’m eating ice cream) I’ve gained about 10 pounds so far. I realize she’s about to head into a huge growth spurt, but 10 pound at 30 weeks doesn’t seem insurmountable, which is good J

My colleagues at work though are likely getting really tired of seeing me in the same 5 pairs of maternity jeans (rotated M-F) and 6 or 7 maternity shirts. Sorry guys. I’m not willing to buy anything new, especially with spring just around the corner. As soon as its warm enough, I’m sure I’ll move to dresses instead of stretchy maternity jeans.

Things are feeling good though and I’m not very stressed, which is also good. I probably should be- there is a lot to do before she arrives and work is ramping up to be at an all time highest level of busy, but I’m okay with all of that. I thrive on being busy at work. At home there are two different lists ongoing- the crazy pregnant wife things to get do around the house before the baby arrives list, and then the before the baby arrives because the baby needs it list.  Both are sorta done, and we’re making progress so I’m happy about that.

On the crazy preggo wife list reigns two big projects: finish the mudroom and landscape the front yard. Right behind those two tasks are clean out the garage and then buy a new car. Every day I get a little bit more anxious that the Jeep is going to die and I’m going to get a call from Drew that says something like “ meet you at the car lot to buy a new car!” But we've ticked off most of the other things on this list- finished the boys built in toy boxes, made or ordered curtains for all the places that desperately need them, finished baby ninja's afghan for the cradle, washed windows, did touch up painting, lots of odds and ends that are all part of nesting.

On the list of things we need to get for the baby before she arrives I still have some work to do! All the essentials are here so if she came tomorrow we'd be fine, but I'd like to get a diaper bag, changing pads, you know, those sorts of prep items that are important at some point :)

I'm hoping though, and feeling like, she'll be on time and not early. I really want to go to Erik's wedding, and that trip is planned two weeks before she's due and I was recently invited to Ohio state for a May 16th meeting, so fingers crossed things stay just the way they are supposed to be up until her due date. At this pace, and with any luck we'll have two more updates before the official Ninja's arrival.