29 whole weeks

They say to forget the insults you've heard and remember the compliments, right? Welp, one of Dylan's co-workers was rife with compliments about me and us. Here she goes, as Dylan relayed them to me:

• She looks great!
• She must be one of those pregnant ladies who pregnancy just suits.
• She looks like she's carrying low now (OK, not a compliment, per se, but a keen remark.)
• I can't tell she's pregnant from the back at all (Then Dylan went on to tell her what we've mentioned this go-round vs with P =); funny she should say that just now!)
• (To Dylan) You must have something good going.

P in pj's early one morning

It's been really amazing to see and feel development over the past almost 6 1/2-7 months, and not only the physical ones but the emotional, too. What a clever thing God did in making gestation take a while rather than just - bam - dropping a baby on a family within a week. I remember being excited near the beginning, of course, but I also remember feeling a strange sadness soon after about Paul not being on his own or my not getting to spend all my time with him. Maybe sad that he wouldn't be the baby and my only child. Now, neither Dylan nor I ever intended Paul to be an only child, but, admittedly, I never actually thought about additional children for their own sakes. Anyway, now, it's a totally different picture. I'm so looking forward to introducing him to his little Bee and seeing them interact together. And what a big brother Bee's landed with Paul! Watching him change over the last 6 months has been so incredible that I couldn't imagine not having little Busy Bee to watch grow, too. I guess you could say I've graduated from what feels like the stagnant baby stage and realize - and love - that they're little people growing up. To match this positivity, I've also grown more physically comfortable, which has been great. It seems as though the toughest phase was before I'd accommodated my activities and really let sink in what was happening to my body. I've got this huge (to me) baby bump and have really quite liked it the past couple of weeks, whereas before it was just an inconvenient means to a beautiful end. Remind me of this in 10 weeks at 38...

In other news, we had our first appointment through Mayo on Wednesday. It's the local hospital - there aren't any private practice OBs in town. We saw the nurse practitioner before we could be transferred to one of the doctors. We picked a Dr. Nace after much hemming and hawing over the individual stories we've heard from couples here, mostly the Momtime moms, but there's one other one we could turn to if the first appointment with him doesn't go well ... there's a third I'd rather not have to meet. There's a chance that any of the 3 will deliver Bee, though, depending on private and on-call schedules. So there's that. Anyway, the appointment went fine. There was lots of new patient and family history paperwork, but other than that, Dylan and I both left with neutral--positive impressions (which were improvements on our negative--neutral prejudices). There was brief hesitation from the nurse about not signing the circumcision payment authorization and also some "I'll work on this with the dietician" about requesting an alternative method to the high fructose corn syrup + artificially colored ultra sugary drink method of testing my glucose level.

Now, about that last point, I've felt a little conflicted. While I habitually avoid those ingredients in my regular food (and therefore don't understand how it could test my body's normal response to high levels of sugar better than, say, a larger portion of pasta and juice), I do reach for the occasional - and since Halloween more frequent - Butterfinger. In all of its artificial coloring & flavoring glory. Hypocritical, right? Either I eat the Butterfinger and drink the damn drink or refuse both, right? I don't want to be ornery just for ornery's sake, so perhaps I should work out what aspects of the rest of my prenatal care and the labor & birth are most important ... and just take the rest with a grain of salt.