Short People Surprises

Yesterday marked a holy 40 days until our due date.  Why holy?  Forty is a significant number in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  I see it symbolizing a period of preparation, cleansing, or sanctification.  It's the number of days that God made it rain to rid the world of evil in the Flood.  The number of years the Israelites wandered in the desert until they were ready to enter the Promised Land.  The number of days Jesus spent praying and fasting in the wilderness before he started his ministry.  The number of days in Lent as we prepare for the holiest of holidays in the Christian calendar.  The number of official weeks in pregnancy.  I do not see it as a coincidence.

In researching this number forty and the significance it has to the Bible, I was intrigued by Biblestudy.org's statement that, "The number 40 is the product of 5 and 8, and points to the action of grace (5), leading to and ending in revival and renewal (8)."  Lord knows I need grace to get me through these last days, and I can only hope for revival and renewal at the end of this 40 week marathon.

See, things are starting to get uncomfortable.  Painful, even.  I knew it would happen, of course.  That's what the third trimester is all about, according to many women who have been here before me.  My doctor has been warning me about it for months.  He was expecting me to be miserable back in the springtime, actually.  I've been an odd case for him, I think.  I wasn't a regular patient of his before getting pregnant.  Our first appointment was when I was already nine weeks along (I count myself lucky that he would even take me on as a new patient at all due to the reputation he has around here).

The first thing that came out of his mouth when he met me was, "Hi, I don't know you.  You're short."  I shook his hand extended hand, thinking to myself, "Great, my doctor is either a complete jerk or incredibly insensitive.  Neither is good."  I smiled (with clenched jaw) anyway.  Thankfully, he didn't mean it to insult me.  He was making an obstetrical observation: I'm barely 4'10" so it wasn't going to be easy to get a baby get out of there.  Add on the fact that neither Drew's family or mine can manage to churn out babies less than 8.5 pounds.  I could pretty much see SCHEDULED C-SECTION flashing in neon over this doc's head as we continued the conversation.  During my exam, however, he looks up at me and says, "Hey, there's a lot more room in here than I thought.  I think you might be able to do this."  It turns out that I inherited a child-bearing pelvis from my mother - thanks, Mom! - so it's quite possible to have the baby exit the normal route.  Short Person Surprise #1.

Even though he's delivered over 10,000 babies in his career (WHAT?), I think I still freaked him out a little.  He said to me that first visit, "This is not going to be a pretty pregnancy.  Forget about that nice basketball tummy you see on other people.  You're going to be all over the place.  There is just nowhere for that baby to go."  Fast forward to 34 weeks, and here I am, not quite looking like the freak show he expected.  In fact, I'm pretty sure my thighs and hips look thinner now that when I wasn't pregnant.  Maybe it's because my belly sticks out so much it gives the illusion of smaller everything else.  Instead of a muffin top, I have a (quite large) baby bump which looks decent in clingy shirts because it's supposed to stick out like that.  In fact, if I squint while staring straight on into a full length mirror, the outline of my body doesn't look that much bigger.  I think since my belly pudge is now stretched around a larger circumference, the squinty me in the mirror looks in better shape.  When people who haven't seen me in a while say, "Wow, you look great!" I actually believe them.  How's that for a change in body image?  Short Person Surprise #2.

I'm pretty sure that my OB plays psychological games with me.  He had be telling me since my early May appointments, "You're going to be miserable the next time I see you."  Each time I came in for my check-ups, I would smile sweetly and tell him how great I was doing.  I wasn't lying, either.  I'd thought about it, but I'm too much of a whiner NOT to let everyone in the world know how I'm suffering.  I'm a bit dramatic.  But when someone tells me I can't do something or I'm not going to be able to tough it out, I have this strong need to prove them wrong.  Whether it was my chosen mental state or a blessing of an easy pregnancy or the fact that I was able to stop working at the beginning of the third trimester (or other pregnant ladies really exaggerate the tough stuff - I doubt it), it wasn't until these past two weeks that I've wanted to whine and complain.  "It's about time," Doc said yesterday.  Short Person Surprise #3.

What is NOT a short person surprise is that I can no longer drive without rubbing my already tender bellybutton raw.  Or, what's left of my bellybutton.  There are still a few wrinkles left that let you know it was a navel at some point, but it's mostly stretched to capacity.  I have to get the seat so close to the pedals to drive properly (yay for manual transmissions) that I squish against the steering wheel.  Drew is actively researching the adapters that little people have to put on their cars, so that I can get my feet to the pedals as my belly grows.  Somehow that didn't appear on our baby registry suggestion lists...

Also not a surprise: At the last ultrasound the baby was "larger than average."  Grrrrreat.