Brother Matt, guest blogger on board here.  Carole asked that I jump in for a quick pinch-hit just to let all her friends know that Little Ms. Jenna arrived this morning.  We got the details from Dad over the phone, so the vital stats that all you ladies seem to live for were a little sparse.  From a "Dude" perspective though, it's about the perfect amount of info.  But since this a ladies' blog, the important info came as follows:

Bittersweet.

That is the word I would use to describe this day.  Knowing the exact date your child will be born is an odd, otherworldly thing.  I know that tomorrow morning at 7:30 am my life is going to change forever.  Every day after today will be completely different.  Nothing is ever going to be the same again.  Yet today, the day before forever changes, is just a day like any other day.   Here I am calmly folding laundry and making Michael a peanut butter sandwich, knowing that in less than 24 hours I will be having major surgery and bringing a long-awaited new life into this world.

Today is the last day of my pregnancy and more than likely the last day of my life that I will ever spend pregnant.  The Muffin and I have discussed it at some length, and we are 99 percent sure that Jenna will be the second and final child for us.  I am not saddened by this fact; indeed, after all the issues I've had with my cervical health, I am eternally grateful for having had two healthy, successful pregnancies.  And tomorrow I will be grateful that the uncomfortableness of late pregnancy is over.  I will have two beautiful children.  I could not ask for more in this lifetime, and I don't want to.

But today… Today is the last day that I will ever play with just Michael, the last day that it will be just the three of us.  Tonight I will lay Michael down in his crib an only child, and tomorrow morning he will wake up a big brother.

This is not to say that I'm not excited, because I am beyond excited.  I am so thrilled to be having my daughter (and I would be even more thrilled if the history-making remains of this week-long coastal blizzard would clear up so that we could get to the hospital without risking our lives).

I cannot wait to be a mother again, to complete my family.  I can't wait to see the beautiful little girl that I've been so longing to meet.

And yet, bittersweet.  So in the meantime I am going to savor every last moment that belongs only to Michael and me.

Stay tuned, Internet… the next time you hear from me it will be to tell you that we've welcomed a daughter!

…Because I am SO DONE.  Today I am 37 weeks pregnant, which is considered by our OB practice to be full term.  This means that the baby can safely arrive at any time, something I highly encourage her to do prior to our scheduled c-section (7 days away), but damn it all if she just doesn't seem content to stay in my giant, stretched-out belly.

There are no words to describe how miserably uncomfortable I am at this point, much, much more uncomfortable than I was with Michael even at 40+ weeks of gestation.  Like me to elaborate?  Here we go:

1.  Active, active, ACTIVE!  This child just DOES NOT STOP moving, and quite frequently she is pushing/punching/kicking onto some nerves that I can only presume are related to my cervix/vagina/anus/sciatic nerve, because the pain is God-awful and stops me dead in my tracks, groaning, wincing and panting.  Last night I was in so much pain and discomfort that all I could do was writhe around on the couch in agony, sweating bullets.  Can this be normal?

2.  I've reached the point in late pregnancy where even my largest maternity clothes are snug and all my shirts reveal two or three inches of swollen belly at the bottom.  I have one pair of decent pants left, and I save these for the days I visit the doctor, so he will not think I have totally given up on life.

3.  Hemorrhoids.  That's all I'm going to say.

4.  Overnight I am awake every hour on the hour, either trying to shift my tremendous weight from laying on my right hip to my left hip, or getting up to pee.  If one more person tells me this is Mother Nature's way of preparing me for getting up with a newborn, I am going to punch them square in the mouth.

The Muffin has suggested that I could perhaps try to induce my own labor naturally, because if I can show up at the labor and delivery unit with proof that labor is happening they'll go ahead and do my c-section early, but there are several problems with this.  The first problem is that I tried every method in the book for self-inducement when I was pregnant with Michael, and not a one of them actually worked.  The only thing that has ever worked slightly to get my contractions going is walking, and oh, did I forget to mention that our area is covered in snow and ice?  Normally the planets have to align just right for it to snow here, but the one week I might actually like to go for a long walk it is a complete winter wonderland.  Plus, I have that pesky cervix that my doctor kindly terms "disagreeable," so I don't think any kind of labor inducement would really "take."

I keep thinking that if Jenna moves around enough that she might break her own water, but unless that happens it looks like I'll have to endure seven more days of pure hell discomfort.

Come on, baby Jenna.  Be a good girl and come on out for Mommy, please?

Yesterday we had our weekly doctor's visit and have the following to share.  Internal examination by both our doctor (Ouch!  Ouch!  Ouch!) and the OHSU intern studying with him (double ouch!) reveals that I am not dilated at all (quelle surprise), although the doc can feel the baby's head, which is engaged in my pelvis.  Since I will be having a c-section (FYI, our hospital doesn't "do" VBACs, and I don't feel the need to try for one), it doesn't really matter if I'm dilated or not, but it would have been nice to know that my cervix was trying to do something cooperative for a change.  Weight and BP are good and baby's heartbeat sounds good.  Therefore we are all still on track for a December 23rd morning delivery.  Yesterday I gave pre-op bloodwork, filled out all my hospital admission forms (including the one where I sign my name showing I understand that the c-section could kill me), and was given my pre-op instructions (no makeup?  They're kidding, right?).  Suddenly this is all very real.

Pack your bags, baby girl.  Twelve more days!

Sometime during the second and third trimesters most moms experience the "nesting instinct," a sudden, inexplicable desire to take on cleaning and organizing tasks ranging from the minute to the monumental.  Nesting chores can be as niggling and anal as rearranging your spice drawer in alphabetical order or major enough that you need to hire a contractor.  As you may remember, during my first pregnancy my nesting instinct led me to completely tear our kitchen down the studs and redo it, replace the old windows with new, energy-efficient ones, and install new carpet and flooring throughout the entire house.  Then when we were trying to conceive baby Jenna I had some sort of fluke, wild nesting urge that caused me to knock out a wall and rip out our existing bathroom.

When my friend The Duchess first found out we were expecting again, she commented that she couldn’t wait to see what we would remodel this time, and here’s the bitch of it all; there’s not a single room in this house left to remodel (remodeling, in my estimation, can only be called such if you need to hire a contractor, plumber, or electrician).  Therefore, each and every day I manage to find some ridiculous organizing task to try to quiet the loud voices in my head that are shouting, "Rearrange your sock drawer!  Dust the baseboards with a Q-tip!  Organize your shoes by both heel height and color!  Do it NOW!"

So far I have put all our DVD’s in alphabetical order, cleaned and reorganized our bathroom vanity, bought several matching frames and hung important photos that were just laying around willy nilly, and rearranged the contents of some kitchen drawers.  Then I did a mini-remodel of Michael’s closet (which will now be Michael and Jenna’s closet).  I forced encouraged the Muffin to give the closet a nice fresh coat of bright white paint and then had him hang up a second wardrobe rod for baby Jenna’s clothes.  Then I bought some closet organizing shelves and boxes (color coordinated in blue for Michael and pink for Jenna, natch).

But the crazy nesting voices kept telling me that I had not spent nearly enough money in my nesting endeavors yet so I got on the horn and ordered a brand new bedroom set for the Muffin and I.  Now this purchase has been a long time a-comin,’ as the Muffin and I have never had what you might call a proper matching set of bedroom furniture in our six years of marriage.  What we have is your basic college Goodwill special; an old brass bed that I rescued from my parent’s attic, the white dresser I had as a kid, the black dresser Muffin had as a kid, a garage sale dresser, an antique vanity my mom bought for me when I was in college, and a couple of nightstands I bought new a few years ago.  So next week we are movin’ on up to a beautiful, Louis Phillippe-inspired cherry sleigh bed set.

After that’s completed I’m thinking of repainting the laundry room and installing some new cabinets above the washer/dryer for extra storage space.  And then maybe some new window treatments.

And then I’m done.  I swear!

But by far the BEST thing I have done so far in my nesting mania is the simplest of all:  I created a JUNK DRAWER in our kitchen, and ever since I did so, I have wondered how I managed to live here the last three years without one.  The junk drawer is perhaps the solution the every organizing problem I’ve ever had, problem being, too much random shit and no place appropriate to put it.  I mean, where else do you put a laser pointer?  Half a pack of gum?  Take-out menus?  Odd screws and bolts that go to something, somewhere in your house?  The answer?  JUNK DRAWER, BABY!

I’ll try to post some photos when all this mania is over.  Muffin would like to posit that he hopes the nesting instinct never dies, as he claims I have never been so productive in my entire life.

Since we found out three weeks ago that we’re expecting a girl I have nagged Muffin nonstop to help me make a decision on a baby name.  After all, we have just 16 weeks to go (if we make it to our December 30th scheduled C-section at 39 weeks, that is).  Sixteen.  Weeks.  That’s nothing!  I’ve had yawns that have lasted longer than that. 

Because of this I have been pestering the Muffin nonstop to just commit to a name already.  I am convinced that he is being surprisingly evasive about this issue because he is trying to give me that tiny nudge I need to cross right over into COMPLETELY FREAKING NUTS.  Anyway, we had managed to narrow the name list down to four possible names that we could both live with: Ella, Jenna, Paige, or Chase.  We agreed that we would choose one of these four and then we could all be happy.  Only how do you choose from such a lovely list?  It’s like someone asking you if you’d rather have your toes licked by Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey, Johnny Depp, or Patrick Dempsey.  I mean, how are you supposed to make any kind of sensible decision with just so much deliciousness on the line?

At any rate, we have finally chosen a name.  Please put your hands together and give it up for…

Jenna June Karnofski!

One thing that really helped me in my half of the decision was taking a look at this book, which surveyed 100,000 different parents and basically asked them what first impression they imagined upon hearing a particular name.  Most parents polled pegged Jenna as "cute, outgoing, and the fun-loving life of the party" (like mother, like daughter, right?).

We chose the middle name June as a tribute because it was my grandmother’s name, and also my mother’s middle name, and I love my mom more than anything.  Also, my mom just flat out DECREED that Jenna’s middle name WOULD be June, and if I didn’t like it then TOO DAMN BAD.  You will learn soon enough, dear Jenna, that your grandmother is not a woman you wanna F with.  Also, that closet of yours that is already chock full of adorable baby clothes awaiting your arrival?  Mostly purchased by your grandma.  So follow my lead on this one and let’s just roll with it.  You must admit that Jenna June is a pretty adorable name, after all.

My mom told me that before settling upon the name Carole, they noodled over Dawn, Carrie, Michelle, or Mary Jo.  So someday, I will tell Jenna that she COULD have been named…

Imogen
Addison
Tulley
Bryony
Angelina
Brett

These are just a few of the names that were on my list, rejected by the Muffin.  I don’t care what anybody says, Imogen is gonna be the new hot name in a few years.

See you in sixteen weeks, baby Jenna!

I am happy to report that the Muffin and I are expecting a beautiful, healthy…

GIRL!!!!!

I am truly just beyond words, just thrilled.  I can remember when I was about six years old that I asked my mother if she could have another baby so I could have a sister.  Being 46, my mom assured me that there would be no sisters for me unless a miracle occurred.  I decided right then and there that the next best thing would be to have a daughter of my own one day, and now that day is here.

A girl!  Oh my!

Tomorrow is our big ultrasound where we’ll find out, among other things, just what sort of baby the Muffin and I can expect to bring home in four short months.  As Bon Jovi once said, "Whooooooooah, we’re halfway there…" only I’m not living on a prayer (alone, anyway).  In fact I’m more like living on Tums and green olives.  More than halfway to week 38… can you believe it?

Here is a parting shot of my belly for your last minute baby gender speculation.  The last time I posted about this topic, the vote was "girl" by a landslide.  Perhaps I am just not tuned into my mom’s intuition, but I have absolutely no inkling one way or another about whether it’s a boy or a girl.  I will be thrilled with either, of course, although I will say that producing the one and only female grandchild for my parents would instantly skyrocket me to permanent, shining golden status.

We’ll let you know tomorrow!

Hello, blogosphere, how the hell are ya?  Just so you know I only have ONE MORE DAY left in my four-credit biology tour de force, and in case you’re wondering, I am acing the hell right out of it.  I credit my success in the course to the fact that I have a wonderful teacher, a brilliant husband, and unlike my days as an undergraduate, I am not spending the entire class period trying to shake off a Coors Light hangover.  Anyway, once I am done I plan on having a lot more free time to blog.

In the meantime, I thought I would give you a shot of the ol’ belly and an update on my pregnancy.  We are now in week sixteen, the so-called "honeymoon" of pregnancy, and I am feeling mostly good.  The most notable thing is that the nausea has mostly subsided (except for the occasional dry heave that just comes out of nowhere), and I am regaining my energy enough to tackle the massive pile of laundry that accumulated during my first trimester hibernation.  Right now you’re thinking two things.  One, is there NO ONE else in this house capable of doing laundry?  Answer: Apparently, there is not.  And two, you can’t really have three-month old laundry laying around.  Oh really?  Then you should check out a pair of the Muffin’s socks that I found, a pair of athletic socks that actually walked themselves out of the hamper and into the washing machine.

So far I have noticed the following differences between pregnancies one and two:

1.  Heartburn.  I had the occasional bout of heartburn during Michael’s gestation, but this time I have some form of heartburn pretty much all day long.  I am relying on Tums and milk to get me through.  According to old wive’s lore, this means that I’ll have a baby with lots of hair.

2.  Boobs.  The Breasts of Epic Proportions are ba-ack, and with a vengeance.  During my first pregnancy I didn’t really have that early pregnancy "my boobs hurt all the time" thing too badly, but this time it is horrendously awful and continues to be so.  Also, my boobs are as giant now at week 16 as they were at week 40 last time around, which is both awesome and frightening.

We are now a mere 4 weeks away from  THE BIG ULTRASOUND  where we will find out the sex of our little jelly bean.  A few weeks  ago our friends Matt and Chanel  were visiting  and they had  the Muffin perform a little experiment to determine the sex of our baby, a sort of off-the-wall trick that Chanel claims was successful in determining the sex of her children and the children of several of her friends.  What you do (have the hubby do it) is put a few tablespoons of Drano crystals in a glass (a glass you can toss when you’re done).  Then you urinate a bit into a separate glass.  Have hubby take the two glasses outside and pour the urine into the Drano, and then GET THE HELL AWAY.  The mixture will bubble, fizz, smoke, and smell God-awful for a few minutes (and get super hot… don’t touch the glass).  Once the chemical reaction is complete, check the color of the mixture in the bottom of the glass.  According to Chanel, a brownish result means a girl is on the way, and if there is no change, it’s a boy.  Our results indicate a girl is on the way.  Tell me, Internet, what do you think?

I apologize for being such a crappy blogger as of late, but if it’s possible, Internet?  I feel even WORSE than I did a week ago.  Last week I came down with what I thought was a terrible cold, chills, fever, snot, cough, the whole nine.  It has carried on unabated ever since and the really terrible part of it is that the constant coughing triggers my ridiculously sensitive gag reflex, meaning I often cough myself right into puking.  So apart from the cold I continue to vomit every evening and it has gotten to be such a routine that often all I need to do is SEE the toilet sometime after five pm and I will be ralphing in seconds.  After having a disastrous experience throwing up sushi and wasabi (don’t worry, I didn’t eat anything raw) a few weeks ago, I have opted to eat only mild and bland foods at dinner time to either avoid puking or just make it a little easier on myself.  So far I have gone through two boxes of Honeycomb cereal and am halfway through Honeynut Cheerios.  Mmmm.  Gourmet.

This morning, on the dawn of day seven of feeling like I had the world’s worst cold it dawned on me that, hey, MAYBE IT’S NOT A COLD.  I know.  I’m a genius.  But what with my busy schedule this week and taking care of a sick baby (Michael had a fever for two days, which has miraculously disappeared), silly little things like my own health and wellbeing have had to go on the backburner.  Luckily for me I happen to have a good friend who is a family nurse practitioner and after calling her and describing my symptoms, she surmised I have a vicious case of bronchitis that’s been making the rounds and she promptly dispatched me a prescription for a baby-safe antibiotic.  I could just kiss her.

Now I mentioned that Michael was sick, too, but after driving him over to the urgent care for a visit that probably cost about half of a monthly mortgage payment, he made a complete wellness turnaround.  Parents, are you aware of this phenomenon?  On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Michael was sicker than I’ve ever seen.  He had a 100 degree temp that couldn’t be controlled by Tylenol, was totally listless and lethargic, and even fell asleep for the night at 7:00 in daddy’s arms.  This is totally unheard of, as usually you have to wrestle Michael croc-style into submission around 9 pm, after which he tosses and turns for an hour before finally giving in to sleep.  In the car on the way to the urgent care his poor little cheeks were bright red and he was even WIMPERING for God’s sake.  I’m thinking, wait until the urgent care doc gets a load of this terribly sick kid.  Yet somewhere between the parking lot and the registration desk, Michael made the world’s most dramatic recovery ever seen by modern medicine and seemed like the picture of health.  Running all around, smiling at everybody, and pointing out all the pictures on the wall in the pediatric room.  Fish!  Boy!  Girl!  Bear!  Elmo!  For the record, there were not actually any photos of Elmo on the wall, but when Michael cannot identify what a picture is, it is always Elmo.  He has been fine ever since.  I guess just being IN SIGHT of the urgent care facility was the only cure he needed.

So to make a long story longer, we’ve been sick.

Another thing that’s making me sick to my stomach has a little something to do with our GD cat Buddy and the carnivorous bloodlust that has caused him to bring dead or nearly dead animals into our home the last two nights in a row.  Let me take a step back for a minute.  Around the same time we brought Michael home from the hospital we started letting Buddy out at night.  It seemed that being an indoor cat was making Buddy go a little stir crazy and he was taking it out on our furniture in the form of scratching and our feet in the form of biting.  Ever since that time Buddy has woken us up around three times in the middle of the night, every night, meowing and scratching the door to be let in or go back out.  A few weeks ago we finally decided we had had enough and decided to install a pet door so that Buddy could go in and out as he pleases without waking us.  It worked great the first few nights.  Then the other night Buddy bounded in with a half-dead shrew, which he let go in the kitchen.  The shrew scurried under the oven, where he remained for several minutes until Muffin finally moved the oven out and trapped the shrew under a drinking glass.

Then tonight he brought in a partially eaten bird and plopped it in his water dish.

We are really at the end of our rope here, Internet.  Tell me, what am I gonna do with this cat?