Yesterday afternoon I spent about 15-20 minutes on my hands and knees trying to decide if I was in labor or not. Clearly I wasn’t. Last night I kept dreaming that my water broke. Over and over it seemed. I’ve come to believe that pregnancy definitely comes full circle. At the beginning you’re paranoid about every twitch and cramp because you think it might be the end, and now, I’m paranoid about every twitch and cramp because OH MY GOD! It might be the END!
Then, this morning, I threw up.
But still, I’m not ready for it to be over. I find myself feeling a bit crampy here and there and suddenly I’m making deals with the baby. Don’t come out, PLEASE, don’t come out until X is done. Then you can come out anytime you like. Of course, the days continue to drag at a god awful slow pace, but yet the projects keep piling up and nothing seems to get done. Of course, I can’t work as hard as I’d like. I’m in the middle of going through all these boxes of papers that need to be piled and filed and after about an hour I have to get up and lay on the couch for like two hours. Then I can go back and work for another hour. Then I have to rest for THREE hours. So you see why nothing is getting done.
The pediatrician was great – we felt a very good vibe. She was excited for us and I just know she’ll be loving toward our kid. Philosophy wise we meshed well and the office was friendly and big and I’m confident. Also, at least one of their offices is open 365 days a year. Very nice.
The other day my mom told me she really wanted to see my nephews and niece on Thursday and I was like what’s Thursday? Valentine’s Day! It’s such NOT a big deal in our house. Kind of the way we feel about Thanksgiving – like if you need a day to remind yourself to thank all the people around you – that’s kind of lame. Same thing with love. I’d like to think that my husband and family and friends know how much I love them because I tell them and show them all the time, not because I gave them lots of candy on a particular day in February.
That said, when I got home from taking my husband to the train station this morning I found the sweetest box of Curious George chocolates on my desk chair. The box said, “I’m bananas for you!” I totally burst into tears. Many of you may think it about your own mates, but I KNOW I’m the luckiest girl in the world. My guy has taken such unbelievable care of me and our baby – there aren’t words to describe my gratitude. Not that I didn’t think he would, but he’s stepped up in ways that I couldn’t even imagine. Thank you my love! Thank you!
I started a new pair of socks. I wanted another pair of monkeys because garter stitch and monkeys are about all I can handle these days and I wanted to go in a different direction with the yarn. So far all of my monkeys have been heavily variegated, but I sort of fell in love with Claudia’s Chocolate Monkeys and I wanted to try more of a semi-solid. Then I decided that I wanted them to be red. And that they should be my going home from the hospital socks. My baby will be head to toe in red so why shouldn’t my feet be clad in red? (Of course, the way my luck is going it will be 90 degrees that day, but still!) So life-affirming. And seemingly a good color for labor, you know? Placenta socks, if you will. 😉
I went through my STR stash and pulled out all the semi-solid reds I had on hand. There were a lot of them, surprisingly and it was kind of hard to decide. Then I found this skein:
Mystery Monkeys
The only thing about this skein? I have no idea is what it is. I’m 99.9% sure it’s STR – it feels the same and looks the same and was in with all my other STR (yes, I do keep the STR separate from all the other sock yarns!) But there is no label. Or at least none that I could find. And I compared it to all the other red STRs and it’s definitely different. So don’t ask me the colorway, or if it’s available or anything because I have no idea. Mystery Monkeys. I’m thinking the yarn was some kind of stash gift and destined to be my birthing socks. [ETA: I’m fairly certain it’s not Ruby Slippers. I made a pair of jaywalkers from Ruby Slippers and the repeats are very long. The repeats in the mystery yarn are much shorter and there are more color variations.]
I’ve barely started them, but I’ll have some train time tomorrow as I’m going down to Philly for the weekend. This will most likely be my last trip down there before the baby comes and changes everything. We’re doing a belly cast this weekend! I’ve done one for my sister for all three of her kids, so it’s pay back. Pictures next week hopefully! Have a great weekend!
Pretty.
Please don’t wear a pair of beautiful hand-knit socks while you are in labour. There are all kinds of ugly fluids and you might want to wear a pair of socks that you can just throw in the garbage. That’s what I did with mine.
I’m all for red Monkeys to wear home that match little baby though!
I love that shade of STR! I had some that I think was very similar, called Ruby Slippers? http://www.geocities.com/scarfire2001/Bertha/str.jpg
I didn’t wear socks during labor (they had a jacuzzi tub in the delivery room so I spent all but the last 20 minutes in there!) but I loved having handknit socks to wear around the hospital for those couple days. So comforting.
Yeah, it definitely looks like Ruby Slippers, which is perfect for going home day, since “there’s no place like home!!!” 😉
Red will be perfect…just perfect.
Whatever fluids there are will wash out – I’m mean the babe’s been living in these fluids so they can’t be all bad!! I was wondering when we were going to see another shot of the baby belly – you’re just so darn cute. Maybe we could see a row of belly casts – with little balloons for comments!!
Mystery Monkeys sound just right for coming home socks. Have a great weekend:)
Call me cranky, but I hate this holiday too. I think Thanksgiving, VDay and Mother’s/Father’s days are holidays that excuse treating your family like crap the rest of the year. At least, in my experience, the people who go ape over how much they love so-and-so or how grateful they are for X are neither nice nor grateful the rest of the year. *sigh* But you can never argue with chocolate, can you?
I love your sock yarn. It sure looks like STR. I hope you can whip out some monkey socks for labor and delivery!!
I love that yarn- it’s gonna make some kickass monkeys! Have fun in Philly!
that yarn will make great train knitting. and aren’t you glad it’s finally going to be sunny this weekend!?
can’t wait to see the belly cast : )
That is some pretty yarn and it most defintitley looks like STR. What color? I dunno –actually it kind of reminds me of Mustang Sally or a rare Gem I received last year as a club installment.
I am sure your mystery monkeys will turn out fabulous and they certainly would come in handy and be very stylish and comforting for the post labor days:)
Have a great weekend in Philly!
When you go into labour you will KNOW. It is not an ambiguous feeling, lol!
Nice yarn, whatever it is.
Ooh, I’m getting so excited for you! The yarn will make smashing monkeys, too.
I immediately thought of Mustang Sally (from the Dec. 2006 kit) when I saw the color. Can’t wait to see how they turn out!!
I immediately thought of Mustang Sally (from the Dec. 2006 kit) when I saw the color. Can’t wait to see how they turn out!!
Valentine’s seems to be more a big deal for for my mom since she became a grandma. 🙂 My nieces and nephews get the royal grandma treatment for Valentine’s Day. 🙂
Umm..placenta socks? Eww..
Haha, love the idea of you wearing the same color as the baby, though..xoxo
I thought Mustang Sally RIGHT away.
Yay for the pediatrician good vibes. That is awesome. Placenta socks- rock on!!!! Your Ann should love that. The color- my guess is backstabber- one of my faves. It is hard to tell how much red vs purple quantity, so maybe not. But still backstabber is awesome. Have fun in Philly and CANNOT wait for the bellycast/ If you recorded it you could put it on YouTube as a Bellycast Cast. I digress. I am sure there is someway to make it a podcast Pod Cast. Signing off now!
Placenta Monkeys! That’s perfect.
My thought on that colorway was Backstabber, but after reading the other comments, Mustang Sally also seems like a possibility
Yay for you and the ped! That must be a great relief to know that you like her and feel good about the office.
And, know how you’ll know it’s labor? The same way you knew it was love, not a crush or lust or whatever…you just know. If you think maybe, then it’s probably not. One easy to tell that it was explained to me was like this…imagine doing a sit-up. Don’t really do one, you’re pregnant. But imagine what your stomach muscles do when you do a sit up. Now, imagine that yout stomach is doing a sit up without you trying to do one, and it doesn’t stop for several seconds. A contraction is just that…a muscle contraction. Same way you’d contract your bicep when exercising. Now, the difference between those fun Braxton Hicks ones and the “real” ones…the “real” ones make your cervix change. There’s not much difference in how you’re feeling, except that sometimes the BH ones go away if you do something other that what you did when they started. Like, if you’re laying down when they start, get up and move around. Or the other way. If they stop, they were the BH ones. I had them off and on for a few days, and kept thinking, please don’t stop, please don’t stop, but they did. Until they didn’t.
And good for you for getting in a little more knitting for you. You deserve it!
I have a question, how do you pixelate the pictures (the large blobs of color)? Do you use Photoshop? I love the idea of using that image to pick colors.
This way your socks are a surprise just like the baby will be! You can name the colorway the same name as the baby when he or she makes its appearance :)!! We never found out with any of our babies, either, and I loved the element of surprise-even if it did piss everyone else on the planet off!! oh well, not their baby!
Great news about finding a pediatrician you like. About Valentine’s Day–not a big deal in my life either. Thanksgiving though, is my favorite holiday. It is not that I need a day to remind myself to be thankful. I am thankful each and every day for all that I have. I just love having a day set aside for nothing but food and family, with no religious overtones. Having a couple days off from work doesn’t hurt either.
Are you sure it isn’t Mustang Sally? I’m knitting with that right now and it sure looks like it. The reds are pretty true to red, if that makes any sense in the world.
As for labor, you’ll know when it really kicks in. And I love Valentine’s Day. Not because I need a day to tell my family I love them, because if that were the case, every day would be V day. There is just something I like about it. And I love Thanksgiving. For the food and the traditions. I am thankful all the time. I know how lucky I am.
Okay, here’s my weigh-in: yes, socks in the hospital (it gets cold and you want to be comfortable and you can always throw them out, but it’s so nice to have your own stuff on when you’re stuck in the hospital); yes, a good pediatrician is the best thing for a mom and dad to have; and yes, the waiting part is VERY hard. I cried every night when I was due with my first, convinced that I would never be un-pregnant again.
Hmmm, frantically trying to get the last chores done? That baby is almost here.
I figured out I was “nesting” in preparation for going into labor when I caught myself mopping the garage floor.
Have fun! Can’t wait to meet our new friend.
Placenta socks, LOL! That yarn is gorgeous.
We don’t do v-day either unless we feel like it, which we didn’t this year (when you’re not allowed to eat chocolate it kinda puts a crimp in the whole chocolate-hearts thing).
Your feelings about ending are perfectly normal. Well, I shouldn’t say that: I should say that they’re the same ones I had.
I have loved reading how the different stages of pregnancy are channeled through you and your words! Hope all stays well as you get so close to the baby’s arrival.
I’m sorry. I forget when your due date is. Would you mind telling me/us again?
What a perfect little surprise, to find the box of chocolates. And then the yarn.
I vote for Bleeding Hearts, but I know I’m wrong, because that has more grey in it.
I totally had a dream that you had the baby last night!
Actually, when I went into labor I didn’t know it was labor. It’s not as lame as it sounds, honestly.
It felt exactly like what turned out to be a scary/weird bladder infection experience I had at 14 weeks where I thought I was having a miscarriage (and I was treated like I was an idiot for thinking that…) Turns out that was, in fact, EXACTLY what early labor felt like.
Then I went from a couple of hours of that (pretty easy, if not terribly comfortable) to suddenly contractions every 90 seconds. I knew by then, but never felt I got the hang of it.
So I understand your feelings perfectly. (Oh, and my water broke about 10 minutes before the baby was born, so that was no clue either.)
And you’d be amazed at what you can get out of socks. I was wearing a pair of white socks (not handknit, just warm and close by when I gave birth and they washed up perfectly. What stained them was the dirt from walking around without shoes!
A few weeks before my baby was born I had a pedicure with red nail polish. I had such a precipitous labor that it really scared me (though in the end I had a great experience with great care–just remember YOU CAN DO IT). Somehow when my life had suddenly been turned completely inside out and upside down it felt good to know that my toenails were perfect. And red.
Best wishes.
I totally thought Bleeding Hearts, but only bcause I just knit a sock with Bleeding Hearts. I love the STR reds!
It’s beautiful. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s dream in color though. It looks really familiar to me.