Hiatus

They stopped it.

I held out for days before going to the hospital with contractions 2-3 minutes apart, and they stopped it.

Or perhaps I should say delayed it, because the drugs only make them come at 12 minutes apart which I am supposed to consider some sort of victory.

I don't know why exactly we have to wait any longer, but apparently we do. Or I do, because I am the only one that really is affected every 12 minutes. And the best part is that I get to play the home version of this game, and so I can take the medicine 3 times a day or whenever I feel the need to make my pulse race and shake like a crack whore.

Anyway, the thing is, yesterday I realized I sounded like the angry pregnant woman all of the time, and now tonight I am just the depressed one. I lost the last bit of sense of humor I had somewhere between the first and second shot laying there in the hospital. So I give up. I'm checking out for a while from the fucking relentless pressure of the maternal universe and going to try to figure out a way to think of something else for 11 minute intervals.

Upright

Well, we did it.

By all calendars, we have reached the safe week. We have made it through the shower (more on that faboo event later), we have made it through nesting, fridge stocking, ridiculously ambitious home projects, Jingle semi-training, tax season, reading, photo placement, pedicure, Easter shopping, hair highlighting and bag-packing. We have performed everything asked of us medically. We can now put bed rest to rest and move on to Operation: Evict Oscar.

You are all unwitting co-operatives in this mission. You will start by lighting candles to St. Gerard, and then sending along every wives tale, urban legend, bona fide medical fact or preposterous grandmother rambling on how to induce labor. I have been busy preparing for this delicate operation by doing laundry all day and vacuuming. Contractions are strong and present, but not regular yet. Yet. The casualty of this mission is that inducing labor for someone who planning on a c-section is so not fair, but every war has its sacrifices.

***
But the shower that my gracious friends threw for me was a beautiful event. Everything was perfect and the only thing left I need would be more space for all of the generous gifts. My sis came down for a few days in hopes of meeting niece or nephew #4, but instead got treated to cleaning the garage fridge and making dinners at Dream Cuizine for said fridge. (I went to Florida for my Spring Break and all I got was a case of ptomaine poisoning.)

***

Okay, you all have your dossiers, get busy. This baby is going to be born in March. Defeat is not an option.

Comic relief

I hacked up a lung laughing at this.

Achoo

The only thing that could make this any more fun would be if I woke up with a cold this morning. Oh look, life just started to resemble the freaking circus.

Seriously. How did I piss off the cosmos this much to be punished like this? Whatever egregious offense I may have committed, I am truly sorry and beg your mercy.

Please pass the tissues.

My Tuesday nights out have been reduced to Michael Jackson and toothpaste at Target

I ventured out of the diva cocoon to go to the doctor's. He was running behind, and I found myself sitting next to a skinny drug rep with a bag full of Ortho Novum samples which I almost reached into and threw them to women around the room shouting, It's too late for me, but save yourselves!

But I didn't. Instead, I just timed my contractions on my cell phone wondering how much closer they had to be before I asserted myself to the front of the line. (7 minutes but if they went to 6 I was knocking over anyone who was there just for a pap smear.)

When I finally got in to the exam room, the nurse had to pause taking Oscar's heartbeat for a big contraction to pass. We breathed through it together, and I felt a little vindicated that I had a witness.

The diagnosis was the same, however. Longer is better, gravity is not your friend, and Thriller, was the best album Michael Jackson ever made. (You don't control the conversation when you're in the stirrups, people.)

So what exactly does this mean? Well, if I want Oscar to be on a breathing machine, then I can start the jumping jacks now. If I would like to increase the odds against that, then wait a few more days until I feast on the chicken parm and calisthenics...

*****

Since I was out, I cheated a little more. I decided that I deserved a pedicure since I haven't been able to reach my own toes in 5 months. Let me tell you, it was worth the abdominal pain. It's amazing how a foot massage and a coat of "Dutch Tulips" can brighten one's general outlook.

****

I cheated even more and went to Target to start stocking up on Easter fare, and now as I write this I feel as though the afternoon just caught up to me so I'm back to horizontal for a few days. I need to finish the boring novel I'm halfway through and there are a few episodes of "My Super Sweet 16" that I need to catch up on.

Toodles.

It is time

Well, I think this can be considered the home stretch. Once given the ok at tomorrow's doctor's appointment (which had better be forthcoming lest I rip his spleen out) I will resume normal activity and give birth mere hours after I carry a laundry basket to the kitchen.

I know I am supposed to wait until after Saturday's shower, but I cannot adequately describe how badly I want to be done. It hurts. Yesterday, I made a pan of stuffed shells to freeze, and the contractions came at 7 minutes apart. It's time. Oscar must have a thing for turkey and artichoke stuffing. And remember when I used to be fun? Remember when I accepted your gracious invitations and contributed to conversations? Remember what I looked like upright? Good times...

Besides, I have every contractor and craftsman in the greater Tampa area scheduled to come out for some various last-minute nesting project this week, so it really is time.

Think birthing thoughts....

Highlights and low lights

I know I haven't posted this week--I'm miserable company even in a blog. I can characterize the week in a series of highlights and low lights which will explain my absence from the computer.

Highlight: Doctor's appointment with news of only a 24 pound total weight gain.

Low light: Same doctor's appointment with total bullshit surgery schedule date. I am going to do the at-home version of a c-section with some pinking shears this weekend.

Highlight: I read 3 novels this week.

Low light: I had time to read 3 novels this week.

Highlight: Sean taking Tuesday off and doing an amazing amount of work around the house and with the kids. He even called the 1-800 number for the Scooter Store demanding his free scooter just to get me to laugh.

Low light: Wallpaper stripping in the next bathroom he remodeled.

Highlight: Return visit from the dog whisperers.

Low light: On said visit, one of the dog whisperer's had to look under my bed to get Jingle out from under it. I feel so utterly naked. Also, Jingle is tall enough to jump up on the couch now. We're done.

Highlight: Amy's speech is really progressing nicely. Granted, most strangers wouldn't be able to pick up what she says, but they wouldn't help but smile at her version of the word, "butterfly."

Low light: First attempts at potty training.

Highlight: Matty getting excited for baseball and going to the hockey game tonight.

Low light: Signing the permission slip for "the movie" for Stevie and having him tell me that I had better hide those Easter baskets in the trunk so Matty didn't discover "the myth that is the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy." 1/2 Highlight: He didn't mention Santa in that sentence.

Highlight: Retiring one pair of maternity jeans to the closet bag.

Low light: Because I look like this:

3 Wishes

If a genie in a bottle washed up on the shore of my bathtub right now and offered to grant me 3 wishes, at this precise moment, this is what they would be:

1.) An English Governess (preferably an ugly one but one that can cook)

2.) Hard liquor. Anything on the rocks--no mixers.

3.) Forceps.

I know I can't have any of those things right now realistically, but I can dream....

You can't imagine how long and how many people it took to code this seemingly simple image and link

Bon Voyage

Ok, so a MySpace profile for Fantasia, my new Siamese/Tabby mix it is then.

I'm checking into a hotel for the remainder of this pregnancy. I am going somewhere with room service, and maids that change the bedding for you so that in the event that you just spent 35 minutes and most of your finite energy changing the sheets on the place where you spend most of your days and nights and someone under the age of 4 comes in with a stash of pixie sticks and proceeds to open them and dump their sugary contents right under your neck so that the excruciating hot flashes that now accompany the contractions transform the powder into blue raspberry Kool-Aid that now coats your entire expanding body in some sort of nostalgic torture/sticky practical joke so thoroughly that even your tears which now flow copiously out of sheer frustration taste like a blueberry sno cone that was made from seawater and a Downey dryer sheet, will be taken care of for you.

So just send me a bottle of Wild Turkey and a leather strap to bite, and I'll give birth at the Marriott. Oscar and I will see you at the Christening.

Home stretch

Although we've had some excellent entries--both here and via email--we are by no means done with group "The Preserve SubDiva's Sanity Project" in which you all are prisoners. I feel like we've reached a critical point in our efforts, and I could either make it through another 7 days or I could start voting for American Idol contestants and creating a MySpace profile for my cat.

And I don't have a cat.

So keep them coming.

Spring Break!

I probably overdid it a little on the activity level today with Amy's speech and a return visit from the dog whisperer, but I thought I could afford it because in a mere 2 hours, help arrives in the form of one godsent nephew on spring break.

For the next week, there will be a lovable young man of driving age wrestling his cousins, running to Publix for milk, taking Jingle for walks, attending numerous spring training baseball games and anything else that should come up in exchange for my car that no longer gets driven, all the food he could possibly eat, unlimited access to the beach and hot tub and even cash bribes.

It is going to be the best spring break EVER. For me.

For him, not so much.

P.S.

Did I mention the poster of the funniest joke wins a prize?

mailto:divamail@suburbandiva.com

Cheer me up

Okay, I didn't mean for my column today to sound so depressing, but I guess it is. Maybe the boredom is getting to me. Maybe the frustration. Maybe the pain.

Anyway, it is up to you dear blogience, to change that. I issue a decree of joke submission, either here, under comments so others can share in the laughter, or divamail me if they are really raunchy (my favorite kind).

Your other option is to send along one must read novel suggestion.

Get busy, you have an awesome and important responsibility.

Day 5

Remember that really long Russian novel I was reading? I finished it.

Remember those tedious taxes that needed preparing? I prepared them.

Remember all of that bad television I was going to watch? Saw it. And the reruns.

Now what?