The Seversons

This weekend it looks like it will be both hot and not raining constantly, so conditions should be good to finally make a venture out to the pool.

My belly is now enormous enough that all the so-called maternity clothes do not actually cover it.  In fact, I no longer judge how big I am by how big I look, but by how many shirts I can no longer wear.  When I finally found one that does cover it I bought it in every color.  I have also resorted to men’s t-shirts when I don’t have to be at work or impressing anyone.  I have never been a fashion-oriented person and I have no problem whatsoever spending my days wearing giant men’s shirts.

We just found out that we have to change Eric’s rotation schedule.  AGAIN.  So now he will no longer be on the low-hours, weekends-off relaxing rotation the month the baby is born.  Instead he’ll be on a relatively long-hours, very busy rotation.  Fabulous, right?  It’s particularly frustrating since we spent a lot of time and thought fixing things around so it would work out just so.  But this happened out of the blue and has nothing to do with us getting the schedule wrong.  While frustrating, it’s not the end of the world.  I figure after these two months it’ll feel like a break no matter what it is.

In my mind, I’ve created the nightmare scenario.  This way, anything that actually happens won’t feel so bad.  The nightmare scenario is that on the last day of Eric’s surgery rotation, the minute he walks out of his exam, I have to page him that I’m going into labor.  The labor to follow will be so long and exhausting, he’ll sleep straight through the actual birth.  And all of this will happen right before the weekend so he’ll still have to go straight in to work on Monday.

One of my things to work on over the last baby-less month is to scope out potential cities for residencies.  Since I need a project and this is there needing to be done at some point, I figure it’ll be a good opportunity to jump right on it.  Our hope is that as soon as we’ve matched we can already know just where we want to live and get everything set up quickly.  And this is where all of you come in.  I know there are some of you out there that have lived in some of the cities I am trying to scope out and I would love the feedback on different neighborhoods and areas and cost of housing.  Among the cities I’m checking out that we don’t know well are Boston, DC (Silver Spring-ish), Palo Alto, Ann Arbor, and Baltimore.  If you have experience in any of those areas we would be very grateful for any tips you could offer.  Feel free to leave a comment, drop an email, or even (gasp) make a phone call.

At some point in the last few weeks, Eric started calling the baby by a nickname I found unacceptable.  I have not yet come on the record with the baby’s actual name, which has been chosen for quite some time, and it is relevant to the story.  When he comes, the little boy will be named Graham.  And when Eric recently called him “Grammy-boy” I had to put an immediate stop to that.  Nicknames carry great importance in my family.  Graham already has more than his fair share despite the fact that he is still in utero.  “Nugget” was his first name, before we knew if he was a he, to help us avoid using “it”.  I talked Eric into choosing the name Graham by revealing my secret pet nickname: Pico.  (We are science nerds.  A picogram is one trillionth of a gram.  He will be tiny, ergo Pico.  Nano will work, too.)  Clearly these nicknames weren’t enough so I had to add another one before Eric got too locked into it.  My quick and inspired choice: Grammar.  So now we have not just a science nerd pun nickname, but a language nerd pun nickname.  Happily, it has stuck and replaced the former, completely unacceptable nickname.  Eric is still somewhat new to the family.  He is still learning.  (I’m wondering if my mother will call Graham “Babycakes” just like she calls my nephew or if he will get his own special grandchild nickname.  I tend to call my nephew Babycakes more than I use his actual name.  It’s catchy.  The other question: will he still be Babycakes when he’s 25?  Yes.  Yes, he will.)

So we’ve made it over 2/3 of the way through May.  The end is in sight.  Next week is Eric’s last with his current surgical team, then there’s a week of anesthesia and then he switches to a Surgical Oncology team for the last three weeks.  I have my last day of work on June 5th.  We are getting there.

Actually, last week after I got back from Utah, we were able to see each other for 7 days straight.  It helped to make up for the week before when we didn’t see each other for so long.  Since then it’s been off and on, some days we do others we don’t.  It always ends up that he gets off early on the days when I’m working late.

Last night, Eric had trauma call after his normal shift.  (It’s his second trauma call this month, much better than the last one which started at 6 a.m. and ended around 11 a.m. THE NEXT DAY.  Also, Eric would probably like to add at this point: do not mess around with guns or knives, wear your seatbelt, do not go climbing tall trees or up on your roof or else you will end up as a patient for someone else’s trauma call and it will not be pleasant for either of you.)  It also happened to be one of my nights I commute for work so I usually don’t get back till 11 or so.  He would be done by midnight at the latest, so I stayed up waiting for him and we actually had a chance to see each other and talk even though we were both tired.

BUT.  After tomorrow, except for a brief session with a student, I will have four days off in a row.  I will be able to spend them in my own house.  And Eric may actually have two days off in a row.  Not only will we be able to see each other, but we will be able to get stuff done.  Like get the car seat.  I have been booked so solid lately that despite the fact that my actual teaching gig is in the evenings, between meeting my private students and working the phones, I am literally going all day long.  I have realized that it is not possible for me to be working this hard, be 7 months pregnant, and have a clean house at the same time.  One of them must go.  The job is here to stay.  The pregnancy is here for about 8 more weeks.  So the house has suffered.  Even if I was having nesting instincts, I would not be able to do anything about them.  Especially because the exhaustion from all the work has me barely able to move when I do get an hour here or there to relax.

But with a little break ahead and the end drawing near (of work and the pregnancy) things are at least looking up in some respects.  Outside of the chaos, I was disturbed this month when I had my sister take a couple of pictures since I hadn’t taken any since March and the belly is much bigger now.  I was horrified when I saw the pictures and saw that I look like a mammoth.  It was the first time I’ve ever wanted to stand up and say, “No, I can’t possibly look like that.”  I have stared at the pictures for a while trying to figure out why I look huge when I know I am not that huge.

Now when I say huge, I don’t mean the belly.  Obviously that is huge.  I don’t dispute it.  I just feel like I look quite chunky.  Especially in the larger version.  (I have mercifully decided to keep it small here, for your sakes.  Those of you on facebook can see not only the frightening larger version, but the other head-on photo where I don’t look pregnant, just fat.  Awesome.  At least my nephew looks cute in that one.)  My final diagnosis is that the problem with this picture is not just a trick of the light or the upward angle.  It’s a combination of pregnancy arm flab plus some new swelling in my face.  I hadn’t noticed the swelling before last week, but lately when I check in the mirror, there is definitely more than before.  Still, it seems pretty extreme in this particular picture.  To prove my point, I show another picture taken just a couple weeks before:

Not only do I not have the face swelling, I don’t even look pregnant.  (I think it’s a trick of the angle since I’m bent forward a little bit.)  The giant face also happened to arrive at the same time as the carpal tunnel, which is more evidence to the swelling theory.  It also seems to come and go (like the carpal tunnel) since I definitely noticed it in the mirror a couple days ago, but today it’s gone.  (I would show photographic evidence but I still don’t know how to use our new camera and Eric is, of course, asleep.)

I’m not sure if my obsessing over pictures to see how fat I look is a sign that I have remained sane despite how crazy life is now, or whether it means that I really really really need a break.

So the mystery seems to be solved and I’ve decided to agree with all the people telling me I look great.  I know everyone says that to pregnant women, but I think in my case they really mean it.  And this weekend, me and my sore shoulders, feet and hips will be relaxing in the pool.  If I’m lucky, maybe Eric will be there, too.

It is May.  The best thing I can say is that at least it’s already May 5th, so we’re about 1/6th of the way through the month.  While I have Memorial Day weekend off, that’s about it.  I am working like a maniac and Eric is, too.  Tomorrow he has to be at work at 5:45 a.m.  I go to bed around 1-ish.  This weekend I said that the best shot we have of seeing each other is for him to wake up at 3 each morning while I stay awake until 5.  Sadly, it’s not very feasible.

On Friday I leave town for a few days.  I expect that on Monday evening when I get back, Eric and I will both be in the same room at the same time and both be awake for the first time in a week.  It’s not that we never see each other, it’s just that one of us is usually out cold in bed.  Normally weekends would be our salvation, and the time when he’s less likely to be at work, but this month I will either be out of town or at work on the weekends.  Awesome.

In June, I will finish with work for a good 4 months or so.  And in July Eric will start a rotation with light hours.  This is temporary.  But it’s both sad and exhausting in the mean time.

This weekend, our last one together before he started the dreaded Surgery rotation, was quite lovely, though.  (Despite the fact that I had to work.)  We picked up our crib and Eric put it together.  The nursery is still more of a room-full-of-stuff than a nursery, but we’re getting there.  I also put my foot down and in one of my very few pregnant demands, insisted that we go to lunch at Pappasito’s.  It’s a family favorite in Texas, and I found out there was one here.  The crazy thing is that I’ve known this for years and this was the first time I went.  What is wrong with me?  The good chips that are thin and salty, yummy fajitas with that sauce I love that will probably give me a heart attack, and chocolate bread pudding for dessert.  Ah, TexMex.  How I miss you.  A 30 minute drive is certainly worth it.

As for my pregnancy, I’m still back to feeling more bad than good.  I realized this week that I’ve been in a bad habit of feeling triumphant about things that haven’t happened.  Normal-looking ankles, no back pain, no stretch marks: in my head I take these as a sign of a personal triumph.  This is incredibly stupid.  There’s still 10 weeks left and I’ve learned that these things can come on suddenly.  Now it just means that when they do happen, it won’t just suck that they’ve happened, it’ll be like I’ve somehow failed.  So I’m trying to break this mind set.

This was brought on in part because since my bad weeks have started, I’m back to all the same annoying things as before, but in the last few days I have a lovely new problem: carpal tunnel.  I wasn’t expecting it.  The swelling in my hands has been pretty minor, and has stayed the same for the last few months.  But now my wrists have swollen a little and it is not fun.  It requires incredibly fashionable wrist splints to keep it at bay.  Sleeping in them is disconcerting, hopefully I’ll get used to it.  It’s definitely better than sleeping with numb fingers.

It’s also because my last couple visits to the doctor, I’ve seen a few women who are ready to burst and they look like hell.  And I cannot look at them and think, “Well, they just didn’t try hard enough not to get that huge and have monster hobbit feet.”  I just can’t.  Because surely they would have prevented it if they could.  So I’m just trying to get by.  And I’m annoyed that I have to buy more maternity clothes because my shirts are all getting too short to cover my belly.

The highlight of the last week?  My first sets of baby clothes.  My Mom sent a box that she’d been collecting (I’m sure there’s already a second stack now that she’s sent the first) and shortly after I got a couple things myself.  Turns out there’s a kids consignment store right next to our house where I had to make myself stop looking.  The clothes were all in good shape and nothing was more than three dollars.  I also got what I expect to be our coming-home outfit.  I got it in both of the smallest sizes just in case he comes early.  I didn’t want anything too fussy, just something that looked snug and cozy.  (By the way, if you’re curious about our baby clothes preferences, we like the typical baby stuff: onesies and rompers and gowns.  We’ll save the jeans and button down shirts until he’s older.)

For the next few weeks, we will work, we will continue to accumulate our various baby items, and hopefully I will stay at least reasonably mobile.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to quit typing and put my oh-so-styling wrist splints back on.