My Funny, Funny Family

31 weeks

I went to my appointment Thursday -- it was the midwife again -- and she said i was only 31 weeks. i was thinking i was 32, but then i went back and counted and she's right. i got a week ahead of myself somewhere along the line. 9 till my due date, 9 weeks left of work. and the next week or two are going to be really intense at work, ick. i'm involved in a big project with a few other people about offshoring, and i have to write an oracle story, and then in a week the doj will rule on oracle, right when our weekly birth classes are starting, so march should be quite a whirlwind.

At my appointment this week, the midwife felt my uterus and said that the monkey is head down. i thought she had turned last weekend because something -- either her head or her butt -- was stretching the front of my stomach quite far out and there was a lot of movement going on. She said the baby is lying mostly on my right side, which makes sense because that's where i feel the most movement. actually, that side of my belly even bulges out more. This time she said my uterus measured normal, but "on the small end but still perfectly normal." i've gained about 18 pounds.

Friday night i got a pregnancy massage after work -- instead of lying on your stomach and back as in a regular massage, you lie on one side and then the other. it felt pretty good but to be honest i enjoy getting backrubs from erik more, probably because he knows the spots where my back always hurts and i feel more relaxed and comfortable with him. we got a video on pregnancy massage from the library at the ucsf women's clinic, so he knows how to take care of me without hurting anything. he's been a real sweetie.

After my massage i went to Buca de Beppo for one of Bert's girls night dinners. All the girls fussed over me and a couple wanted to touch my tummy. Women on my ivillage board always complain about people wanting to touch, but that's the first time anyone asked me and i was happy to let them. Buca is a place that serves big platters of Italian food family style, and it was really good. But these days when i eat a big meal i always regret it because i feel so stuffed afterward, and my ribs hurt.

Saturday morning erik and i packed up the car and drove to Bear Valley, a ski area about 3-1/2 hours away. My ski pants still fit if i didn't zip them up, but once i had them on erik had to lace up my cross-country ski boots for me. the midwife said it was ok for me to ski as long as i didn't get too out of breath, get overheated or elevate my heart rate too much. so we shuffled along very slowly and i stopped to rest often. we skiied for about an hour and a half saturday, then had a nap and dinner and went to this bigger lodge down the street from ours that has a big communal lounge around a huge fireplace. we brought our travel scrabble set and you could get drinks at the hotel bar and have them in front of the fire. there were games there and a million little kids with their families, playing board games and running around. this couple sat down near us with the cutest little 3-year-old with blond curls. he wanted to play a game and he got out Monopoly. i was thinking, right, like a 3 year old can play monopoly. but his dad just had him roll the die and whatever number came up, he would give him that many pieces of money. the dad said, "oh my gosh Mickey, look, you get 6 tickets," and counted them out, and the kid thought this was the most fun game ever for about 3 turns. then the parents were encouraging him to go play with the other kids, but all the kids there were older and were involved in their own things. the kid kept trying though, even though you could tell he felt really shy. we chatted with the parents a little. It was funny, this was supposed to be our last grown-up, baby free romantic weekend, and we spent most of it watching people interact with their children. the next morning when we were buying our trail passes for skiing, who should we see but Micky and his dad, going sledding. Micky asked me, "where did you go? were you sleeping?" i asked if he was going sledding, with his dad, and he was like, "yeah, with dad." he was looking at me, kind of confused, and i realized that with my hood up, goggles on and everything, he thought i was his mom. she must have had a ski coat similar to mine.
we skiied one trail for an hour and half, and then hit the warming hut to rest, and there was micky again with his mom and dad. it was funny, like we couldn't shake them.
it started snowing really hard. we took another trail, which also took an hour and a half, and it was getting hard to ski because the fresh snow was not very slippery. we turned in our skis and headed home, thinking the driving conditions might be bad. but even with all that snow falling, the road was pretty clear and the roads to and from Bear Valley are much less scary than going to lake tahoe. with tahoe, you have to way up in the mountains and through a pass, only to descend to the lakeside. a lot of the roads to tahoe are quite scary, with big drop-offs on the side, and the weather can make it really hairy. this driving was much easier. we want to come back here with the monkey, maybe next year, maybe in a couple years when she can go sledding, if we don't live back in the midwest by then.

in the hotel last night, when we were in bed reading, the monkey started moving a lot, rippling the skin of my tummy. erik tapped lightly with his fingers where she was moving, and that egged her on. he would tap, she would wiggle. her movements are so strong now. and you can often see my stomach move when she does, even through my clothes.