You know you’re 35 weeks pregnant when you light yourself on fire

It’s funny how the last couple of weeks of pregnancy resemble the first couple of weeks. Tiredness and nausea set back in with a vengeance, except this time around you also have to contend with a raging appetite, braxton hicks (fake pregnancy, or is that preterm labour?) and the excitement of waiting for your new baby to arrive.

Their are obvious physical indicators that I am in the home stretch of this pregnancy, such as achey hips, feet and back, night sweats, frequent trips to the loo during the night, as well as not being able to see my vajajay (sorry if this is too much info, but anyone who has been pregnant knows this to be true!). The other change that I have noticed in the last couple of weeks is the inability to put my shoes on, add lotion to my feet or generally attend to my tootsies in anyway without feeling like I am going to faint. I’ve found that if I wait at least an hour after a meal, I can sit and add lotion to my feet! Bliss.  You see if I sit on  the edge of the bed, put my ankle up on my opposite knee so that I can reach my feet, I risk  inadvertently giving myself the heimlich maneuver  with my leg across my tummy if my tummy is too full, which is often.

Knowing that this baby can arrive at anytime now also makes me want to be able to attend to my nether regions and feet. Hey, someone is going to be looking down there for at least a couple of hours, I can’t help but feel that all should be properly trimmed for them. But, then again it’s an irrational thought because as far as I know a nurse will come along on the day and mow the grass anyways.

As I mentioned before the final weight is starting to pile on and I’m like a teenager having a growth spurt unawares of how much bigger my body is. The other day I body slammed monkey #1 into the wall with my protruding tummy. Since then we tend to have little run-ins at least once a day, with his head at my tummy level just lightly bouncing off my belly. Thankfully he thinks its funny, me I can’t help but hear godzilla music in the background as the soundtrack to my life. I’m knocking over books at the library and just in general clumsy and spatially unaware of how my body fits in this world.

The other night I was making dinner, stirring a pot of bolognese sauce and adjusting a pot of boiling water when I smelt something that was not the yummy tomato sauce I had created. I looked down to see that the down winter vest I was wearing was on fire. Thankfully I only singed a small bit towards the bottom of the vest – in the area where I can no longer do up the buttons on account of my belly. Hormonal and somewhat shocked, this reduced me to tears. For me, pregnancy clothes have been a hassle this time around. Leaving New Zealand winter to arrive to New York at the end of a hot and sticky summer and now nearing the end of my pregnancy while another season starts – clothes shopping has been a nightmare! I never seem to have the right seasons clothes on hand. It’s going to be a whole new set of winter clothes this year, seeing as I haven’t lived a North American winter since 2002 so I’d prefer to wait til I have some semblance to a pre-pregnancy body before I go coat shopping. Anyways, I cried over dinner at the injustice of ruining one of my favorite pieces of gear, then took a deep breath and carried on.