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.