The Romaezis

Day 43: Belly Envy

Yesterday I got to go to the “social hour” that they hold for all of the mommas on the floor.  It is basically a baby class that is held for one hour each week and a great excuse to get the doctor to let me out of the room.  The topic this week was baby care.  I was the last one escorted to the class, via wheelchair of course and got in as everyone was finishing up their introductions.  There were 11 of us and the girl directly to my right was also 29 weeks 2 days pregnant with a little boy.  She shared the story of why she is here like everyone else before her did and I picked up the trend.  “I’m Jamie, 29 weeks 2 days pregnant with a little boy.  I have been here 6 weeks today and was admitted just before Christmas when my water broke at 23 weeks.”  I didn’t hear all of the introductions but the “oh wow’s” went around the room and I realized that I have been here the longest out of everyone in the room.  I also learned later that some of these women even get to go HOME before their baby is born.  That happens here, who knew!?  The charge nurse went through how to care for a baby from birth in the hospital to at home bathing and sleeping.  At the end of the class we got to mingle for about 5 minutes as wheelchairs took everyone back to their rooms one by one.

I told the girl to my right how incredibly envious I am of her adorable belly.  Here I am in my own little bubble for the past 6 weeks thinking my belly is growing and just getting HUGE.  Then I walk into this room of pregnant mommas and the first thing I notice is that my belly is nonexistent in comparison to all of theirs.  Some of them are pregnant with twins, some are a good 6 weeks ahead of me but the girl to my right is the same gestational age as my little one and her belly is so much bigger!  I have always had a small waist.  I have a hard time calling myself teeny because I think I’m pretty “normal” in size.  So it makes sense that my preggie belly would be smaller for that reason and then you add in the whole issue of not having much amniotic fluid in there.  I’m not a jealous person by nature so I got over the whole envy thing quickly.  It would be harder to get around and to sleep with a bigger belly anyhow, right?  Like I’m going anywhere–HA!

My cousin Crystal and her son Dez stopped by for a while yesterday too.  Dez played with every electronic device we have in the room and even investigated how my bed works for a bit.  I love that he has always been like that–even as a toddler.  If you didn’t want the little 3 year old Dez playing with your new phone, you had to make sure he didn’t see it.  3 year old Dez took better care of my electronics than I did though.  Same goes for 10 year old Dez–I think he’s 10.  I keep losing track.  It was good to see both of them and to catch up on how everyone in the family is doing.  Momma-in-law stopped by for literally a few minutes with dinner for us.  She brought yummy yummy Kabob.

I have a nurse I haven’t met today.  At first I wasn’t happy with the fact that she made sure I was up by 9.  Normally the nurses let me sleep until breakfast comes and I get up on my own.  What else am I going to do?  Especially when I was wide awake for about an hour and a half at 5:30 a.m.  She started asking me how I’m sleeping at night and if I have this thing or that thing.  Before you know it she has me loaded up on lots of new goodies.  When I got out of the shower and my bed was changed they put an air mattress topper on the bed for me since my back has started bugging me so much.  This thing is COMFY!  I quickly decided that I like her.  🙂

***UPDATE:  You CAN win my love.  Our nurse just brought a mini fridge for our room.  Further proof that she is flat out awesome!  We can now keep our leftovers for more than two days!  Score!***

Non stress test went well, baby was rolling around a lot so I had to make sure he stayed on the monitors.  At least he was awake and showed LOTS of variability this morning.