Baby Watch: Week 30

While everyone else is counting down the days until Christmas, we in the “Mahaney” clan are counting down the weeks until the first female grandchild, the future of GirlTalk, is born. We thought we’d invite you to join in our anticipation. So every week, until the baby comes, Janelle will be giving an update on her road to delivery. We’ll even keep you posted on the up-to-the-hour details when she goes into labor.

So, without further ado, here’s Janelle:

Week thirty has arrived and I’m still alive.  Yes, I made it through the “hanging over the toilet” phase and moved right into the “rapid growth” phase, now to find myself right in the middle of the “slightly uncomfortable” phase. 

I think I have mastered the doctor visit “routine”—arrive a couple minutes early; take a seat in the waiting room and pretend to look at a magazine; have your name called so that the nurse can weigh you and record it on some secret chart; head to the examination room and don the doctor’s outfit of choice for patients—a large paper napkin; wait in the examination room while studying all of the sharp-looking instruments lining the counter; do some more waiting while contemplating what a little redecorating might do for the surroundings; wait still longer trying not to watch the second hand on the clock; jolting awake as the doctor flies into the room, pushes on your belly, listens to your baby’s heart beat with her special radar device, and disappears as quickly as she came; then stumble back out to the waiting room and wait for the receptionist as she eagerly books your next “visit.”  Yeah!   

I have finally overcome my fear of needles (a result of a bad experience when I was 12) and you all would be proud to see me offering my arm to the nurse without flinching and even watching as they drain half of my blood supply into little plastic tubes. 

I have learned that you shouldn’t consume candy on your way to the doctor as they (just like your mother) “know these things”.  It can be a little humbling to admit, when asked about the results of your glucose test, that you just finished a box of grape and strawberry Nerds (strawberry being mine and my girlies favorite flavor).  I felt a little like I should be back at the pediatrician’s office.

While pregnancy brings much laughter, it also causes me to marvel.  The feeling of my baby kicking my stomach, the detail found in the sonogram picture hanging on my refrigerator, the sound of another heart beating inside of me, and the joy I experience when Mike gets close to my belly to have a “talk” with his little girl—all leave me amazed. Every little ache, pain, and slight inconvenience point to a miracle.  Ten weeks will come and go in the blink of an eye and I want to savor every minute.  February 20’th is just around the corner.