Wednesday, December 12, 2007

And now begins the psychotic dreams...

For the last week I've woken up at least once every night in a sheer panic. First there was the dream about someone kidnapping me and cutting Julian out of me. So horrifically gory and real. Then there was the dream that I gave birth to him, only he was see-through - like this phone I had when I was a freshman in high school - and I could see each vein, artery, organ, etc.

Last night was a doozy. I had a dream that he was huge when he was born, and he was possessed. He could talk and crawl immediately and was saying the most vile things. Then I had a minorly weird one that everyone in my dad's family sent shower gifts, but they were each personalized, and none were his name - as they didn't like it, so they each named him something different. The last one, he developed sharp cat-like teeth in utero and chewed himself out through my belly a la alien style rather than be born.

Yeah. I don't sleep so well at night anymore.

Since travel has been such an important part of our relationship, we decided to go with a travel theme for the nursery. Patrick found an adorable screen-print painting at Land of Nod of the ABCs where each letter is a different world city. We're going to paint the ceiling blue with white clouds (and glow in the dark stars) and the walls will be green with a mural of a city and train tracks. We found an old 1950s biplane that's about 2 feet wide and bright red in the basement of the house, and we're going to clean it up and suspend it from the ceiling. Patrick bought a huge lot of Dr. Seuss books and Richard Scarry books off ebay. So, Julian's library now includes over 70 total - which means the world to me as we both love to read.

I've made a few compulsive purchases - some onesies and a few all-in-one cloth diapers and some vintage diaper pins. We're likely going to do a combination of cloth and disposable diapers.

We've started the internal debate on circumcision, and I have to say it's a lot harder decision than I expected. (I want to forego it as I'm afraid they'll mangle his wee little penis - Patrick wants him to have it done).

I've got to start being better about my weight. After all my bragging that I haven't put on hardly any weight (3.5 lbs at 18 weeks) I somehow have put on over 7 in the last week and a half. And I'm having huge issues with swelling. I've always managed to have very slender ankles, but now - at night, I can barely take my shoes off because my feet are so swollen. My ankles literally disappear into the vast rolls of flesh that used to house my slender ankles. The same thing is happening with my hands, though to a lesser degree. I'm having to take my ring off during the day at work because it's starting to cut into my finger.

Patrick saw my ankles last night after I had them propped up for a few minutes and was really concerned. But the swelling isn't pitting - (i.e. if you poke it with your finger the dent doesn't stay) and I'm not having headaches (any more than normal, anyway) or other symptoms of preeclampsia. I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones for whom edema seems to happen early in the pregnancy and when it's less than thirty freaking degrees outside. I shudder to think what would happen if I was pregnant in the summer.

5 comments:

Ms. Pants said...

I believe you already know my opinion, but maybe show this to Patrick:

Snipping off wang parts is not a nice, gentle, cozy way of welcoming a little dude into the world. Further, the foreskin contains nerve endings that Julian will probably miss if you get rid of them. The foreskin is also there to *protect* the wang. Why you wanna let the guy go all unprotected?

And I know you don't want to think about this because he's your kid n' all but.... Foreskin makes it way easier for dudes to masturbate (don't even need lotion!) and it's my personal opinion that uncut men are better lovers. Extensive research in the name of science was conducted and that's my official finding.

Helen said...

Not like you're overwhelmingly comfortable thinking about Julian's sex life, but I side with Pants - men with foreskin have greater sensation in the loving area. And I have sampled party platters on both sides of the Atlantic and can confirm that, like Pants, the men with the foreskin do seem to have the better deal.

Our son's "uncut", as it were, and I am pleased with the decision (wasn't too hard a decision as circumcision is only done over here for religious reasons).

At the end of the day, it's a personal decision though. Good luck with the debate!

zhendirez said...

We didn't snip, either. Mainly because of Pants' first sentence.

MissDirected said...

I'm a member of Team Foreskin as well. I, too, have conducted some research in this area and conclude that uncut is better.

MsPrufrock said...

This is so strange - I used to have dreams about P being possessed and evil before birth, and when she was a newborn. Rest assured that she is only occasionally taken over by the devil these days.