Nine Weeks and Counting

Sometimes I seriously wonder, “what were we thinking?” My guest room is starting to look like an awesome version of Babies R Us (at which I refused to register due to that company’s horrible commercial involving a field trip to a park that ended shamelessly in a trip to Toys R Us for some good old fashioned commercialism). My bladder is squished on a regular basis. I ALWAYS feel like I have to pee. It’s ridiculous. And the dogs have no idea what’s coming.

This week I did a lesson and a training for the Nordic program at Disabled Sports. I’m trying to squeeze it all in. I know my days are numbered. I briefly pondered pursuing a PSIAA Nordic cert, then realized, I’M HAVING A BABY in like nine weeks. So that got kicked off the table. But it took me a while to kick it. Maybe next year. I’m not sure I’m always entirely realistic about this process, but maybe that’s because I’m a little afraid that being “realistic” might be met with mixed results. I’ve definitely been able to manage this pregnancy in my own way. And I have a sneaking suspicion that this little guy will dictate his own limits just fine. Why should I put that on myself at this point? There are so many different stories out there about recovery, activities with the kiddo, and just life after the arrival. Every single one of them is all over the map.

I got a lot of “you shouldn’t be doing that” today at training. I understand that this is coming from a place of concern. Here’s the thing. At this stage in the game there are two things that are going to hurt the kiddo: blunt force trauma to the abdomen and, oh, blunt force trauma to the abdomen. So, really, it’s one. There are a few more things that could hurt me. Like falling. Interestingly enough, in the last two days I’ve skied for approximately five hours, and do you know when I fell? Getting out of my car at the post office. I was still hanging on to the car door, so it wasn’t that bad, but walking is treacherous. I’ve stayed active and moving this whole time. I’m not too concerned about a sport that I’ve been doing off and on for a huge portion of my life. I have, however, made some adjustments. I do go slower on the downhill. Where I would normally ride it out, I actually do brake and slow myself down a bit. I also don’t take Sam. He’s a puller and that tends to make skiing with him more of an adventure than I need it to be right now. I really focus on balance and technique. Balance is key at this point. So far I think my muscles are compensating for the unequal weight distribution, but as things loosen up, I know that I have to focus even more. And oddly, given that my belly is ginormous, the core is still clutch. And I’m trying to be mindful of pain and take it easy when I need to. This is hard. I want to go and do. A lot. But it wears me down right now. By 7-8:00pm, I need to just sit and do nothing. And after six hours in the cold and snow today, I’m looking forward to whatever crummy sleep this pregnancy throws my way tonight. I’ll take what I can get.

I know that once this kid gets here, our lives are going to drastically change. But I also think that everyone is different and how that change happens and how we handle it is really a mixture of totally out of our control and totally in it. So why worry about it? Why not just plan on everything going fine one way or another. If he’s a crier, fine. If he’s not a good sleeper, whatever. If he doesn’t like the stroller… We’re sending him back. With nine short weeks to go, I am going to have to slow down. I think. But hopefully, once he gets here, the three of us can figure out how to get moving again.