Biding my time

Well, I'm officially on day 4 of "maternity leave" although right now it's just "me leave" since I'm still not a mama...even though I'm thisclose.  Baby is just holding out it seems, stringing everyone along to get as close to her due date as possible.  10 days left until that date that has been looming for 40 weeks arrives, and with it either a baby or not...we'll all just have to wait and see what she decides.  I hope that she is able to choose her own birthday without being coerced to join us by chemical hormone induction...but I guess time will tell.

So, what am I doing with myself while I sit and wait, wait, wait?  Well, the first two days were pretty much that - sitting, and waiting - and it made me a little crazy.  I decided I need some things to occupy my time, even if they aren't major tasks.  Baby stuff is pretty much ready - the nursery is set up, her clothes and diapers are ready, her gear awaits her tiny body.  In another life, I might have attempted to pre-make baby announcements by hand and pre-address/stamp envelopes until she is here, and then we could tack a picture on and send 'em out...but I'm thinking Shutterfly has just what we'll need and I am perfectly happy with that! However, I have been working on scrapbooking my friend Abby's wedding album that was promised to her as a gift nearly 5 years ago...and has been sitting in a well-intentioned to-do pile for that long.  I've had a sudden burst of creativity and I feel good about the pages I'm turning out! I'm happy to be working on something for someone else right now, too, because I know that once our little girl arrives, she will be the only someone else who will be getting my undivided attention for a while.

At this point, the one thing that has increased my overall discomfort the most is this rash...I'm 95% sure it's PUPPs - Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy.  It sounds nasty, and it is.  It's basically itchy welts that start within stretch marks most commonly on the lower abdomen during the 3rd trimester, and often spread to arms, legs, hands, and feet. The only real treatment for it is delivery...and symptoms vary in their ability to be managed with topical creams/ointments, oral antihistamines, or steroids. I do not want to take steroids at this point being so close to delivery and hopefully the end of this madness, so I'm just hanging out with my itchy welts and taking Benadryl as often as allowed, while icing and slathering and oatmeal bathing and any other means of managing the head to toe itchies that seems to help at a given time.  Such joys, pregnancy.

On a sunnier note, the weather seems to have finally settled on spring in Southeast Michigan.  It was a warm 82 degrees here on Sunday, followed by some awesome midnight thunderstorms that have brought green to the grass and blooms to the crocus and iris shoots.  While I don't think temperatures like that are quite here to stay, our 10-day forecast seems to favor highs in the 50s-60s, which is definitely acceptable!  The geese seem to have returned as well, and I'm sure we'll soon be seeing little goslings trotting along behind their parents.  Here's what it looks like out in our garden today: 

Yellow Crocus

Miniature Iris

Cute little sprouts...not sure what these are

Matt and I are off to the theater to catch a movie in a little while, and I'm enjoying just spending some time together while it's still just "the two of us".  Who knows...many mamas that I've talked to said they were in the theater at a movie when their labor started/picked up...so maybe it's a good luck charm to get things going! No matter what, it will be nice to get out together on one of what may be our last outings without any baby baggage (other than the load I'm carrying around the front!).