Made in Richmond

I’m currently 33 pounds heavier than normal, I can’t move without moaning, the pregnancy is finally starting to show in my face, and my chest and neck are covered with Vicks VapoRub.

Try to control yourselves.

Be prepared for some hilarity.

Pictures after the jump…

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We were supposed to have our 50 billionth follow-up appointment with the specialist tomorrow morning at 8:30am. An appointment we’ve had scheduled for two months. An appointment that 1) involves putting to rest the likelihood of a potential “issue” and 2) means seeing this wiggly child on screen (TOES!!!!!)

You may remember that I’ve switched jobs. Switching jobs usually involves switching insurance. When you go to a specialist, there’s all kinds of “authorizations” that have to happen before you can be seen, otherwise you might get charged a ridiculous amount of money. Yes, insurance is a very confusing animal, made even more confusing when you go from being a dependent to an employee with her own health plan within a month. But still, you’d think staying on top of paperwork and getting everything in super early would alleviate any confusion and delays.

NOT SO MUCH.

At my regular OB appointment last week, I checked with the office manager at my OB’s office to see if we had gotten the appointment reauthorized under my new insurance. She said she would check on it and call me right away. Which she did, because she’s awesome and does her job very well. And do you know what she said when she called me?

“I looked up your social security number in the system and they are showing you have no active coverage. I knew that since you’re 35 weeks pregnant, you’d probably want to know that.”

And after thanking her for being wonderful and realizing that information like that is, oh I don’t know, IMPORTANT, to someone who could realistically go into labor AT ANY SECOND, and proceeded to explode.

And we all know how pregnant ladies explode. We cry.

After spending yesterday trying to get the whole not having insurance thing sorted out, my day ended with a phone call saying that my insurance was now active and I should be fine.

AGAIN NOT SO MUCH.

My OB’s wonderful office manager called me this morning to say that I’m still not showing up as active and that authorization requires 24 hours. 24 hours after she called would put us at 10am, a time very much after our 8:30 appointment.

Again with the exploding, mostly because I know how hard it is to get appointments with specialist, and also because DAMMIT.

So, then the sweet, sweet office manager advised me to call the specialist and explain the situation. Hopefully we would be able to get another appointment late this week or early next week - she would hate for us to show up at the appointment and not be covered.

Taking her advice, I called the specialist and explained what was going on. I sensed some hesitation in her voice. And then my voice got wobbly. As soon as she heard that she said, “Ok, honey, we’ll figure this out.”

I managed to get another appointment for 1:00pm on Monday, a good 5 days after our original appointment but hopefully far enough away that this stuff would be well sorted out by then.

Finally our insurance person gets back in touch with me. She says it takes 48 hours for me to appear in the system. Something she probably should have mentioned yesterday during maybe 1 of the 18 times I mentioned that I had a specialist appointment on Wednesday morning. And then she said, “You could always just go to the appointment, pay, and then file a claim to get reimbursed.”

Yes. Yes, because THAT WOULD BE SO EASY. While I’m at it, I will also solve world hunger and figure out exactly why anyone cares about what Kim Kardashian is doing. Equal levels of difficulty but realistically with a higher probability for success.

I was awoken at 1:30 this morning by a very wiggly baby - not just a few kicks and jabs, but some full-on head butts and body rolls. I’m starting to feel the baby make his/her way a bit farther down and he/she seemed quite determined to make some progress last night.

I spent some time in bed enjoying it. And then some time in the rocking chair trying to lull it to sleep. But to no avail. Finally (at about 3:30) I got back into bed and asked Ross to put his hand on my belly. As soon as he did, the wiggling calmed down and we were all able to get some rest.

Guess who will have middle-of-the-night comforting duties with this little one?

Our childbirth class instructor has suggested that we carefully select what music will be playing in the delivery room during the different stages of labor.

For some reason, I have no idea what to include in this mix. What would you put on yours?

You know what’s weird? When you’re lying on the examination table in your OB’s office, and as he checking everything out he says, “Look at that! You’re having a contraction right now. That means your body is practicing for the big day!”*

Yes. The big day that is now just 6 weeks away, give or take a few days. The big day that is now so close that when people ask when I’m due I can say, “Next month.”

*I must say, it is very sweet of him to seem so excited by my wimpy Braxton-Hicks contraction. The man has been delivering babies for almost 30 years - you’d think he’d be all, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, good for you.”

Lots of pictures after the jump.
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I know these updates are getting to be much closer together. But, I feel huge. And I will share the hugeness with you. You might not notice much of a difference, but I sure do. Pictures after the jump.
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Do you think there’s any chance I can spend the next seven weeks floating in a swimming pool? Pictures (yes, multiples!) after the jump.
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I’m going to talk about peeing now. Specifically me peeing. Just so you know.

Now that I’m 32 effing weeks pregnant (!!!) I have to go to the doctor every two weeks. So, this afternoon I made the treck out to the West End for what felt like the 11 millionth time. They called me back, asking me to make my customary stop in the restroom to provide a urine sample.

Some of you may not know that when you get pregnant, you pee in a cup every time you go to the doctor. Every. time. And usually peeing in a cup is not that difficult.

That is, until you approach the end of your pregnancy and you can’t so much see certain parts of your body anymore.

Let me preface this by saying that last time I had to give my urine sample, my belly was still small enough that the involved parts were still in view - not full view, but I was usually able to get them into my peripheral vision.

Today? Not so much.

I was aware that the baby had undergone quite a growth spurt over the last couple weeks, but I hadn’t thought about how this would affect my ability to perform when called upon.

So, when presented with the task, there was much bending, twisting, and contorting, just so I could get a view of what I was doing. But to no avail. There was nothing else I could do but make a rough estimate and hope that my own body hadn’t become so foreign to me that I 1) peed all over my hand and 2) had to tell the nurse that I couldn’t see what I was doing and needed to try again later.

Luckily, I made it into the cup. Although I don’t know what I was worried about. It’s not like doing it again would have been such a stretch. The baby’s head is pushing solidly against my bladder, causing me to run to the bathroom every 20 minutes.

I had some dignity once upon a time, too.