Pepin

My shoulders are just too sore to allow me to sleep right now, so I thought I'd do another blog post, even though it's 4:23 am.

This past Saturday night, David and I were driving home from seeing a play with my family, when we spotted a small cat on the side of the road. It's never a good thing to see domesticated animals running around up the canyon, because they're either going to get eaten by something or hit by a car. David pulled over and went over to see if she was friendly, and as she ran right over to us to jump in the car, David cried, "Holy cow, it's a baby bobcat!" and quickly shut the car door. Upon closer inspection, we determined that she was not a baby bobcat, but she did have a small, poofy tail like bobcats do. We decided to take her home for the night so we could take her to the Humane Society, in the hopes that she belonged to someone. We tried to put her in the back of our Yaris, but she just jumped over the seats and came and sat right on my lap. Isn't she cute?

So we took her home, gave her some food, and kept her in the bathroom for the night. We determined that she is an American Bobtail, which is obviously a crossbreed between a domestic cat and a bobcat. She has a docked tail, huge paws, and short, thick legs which make her an excellent jumper. She is also extremely friendly. She doesn't meow for some reason, but purrs like crazy whenever you come near her.

She seems to like David the most. She always wants to be in the same room with him, and follows him everywhere whenever he moves. We've decided to call her Pepin because of her short tail (her name referring, of course, to Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne who is remembered only for that achievement and his diminutive stature, poor man).

Right now you're saying to yourself, "Rachel, you already have two cats and are 35 weeks pregnant, you cannot have another cat!" I know, I know. David and I would like to keep her at least long enough to find a decent home for her, but we honestly have no idea of the gender of this cat, whether she's been vaccinated, or how old she is. If we had any extra time or money, we'd pay to fix and vaccinate her ourselves so more people would be interested in adopting her, but, as I could basically have the baby almost any time now, it's just not practical to have to worry about a newborn and trying to find a home for a stray cat.

So, as much as we will miss her, David's taking her to the Humane Society today. They'll fix and vaccinate her as part of the price of adopting her, and maybe her owners will be able to find her better this way.

 Our other two cats won't miss her, though. They don't understand why they don't have the run of the whole house and why something else is eating up our time, attention, and their food. It's kind of been a small preview of what they could be like when the baby comes and eats up a lot of time, attention, and food (although not theirs). Cats are extremely jealous creatures, I've discovered. I'll have to make sure to still pay attention to what I term my "fur babies" as well as my human baby after she comes. :)

35 weeks

Yesterday I reached 35 weeks! The baby is about 5 1/4 lbs and 18 inches long, about the size of a honeydew melon. I'm almost a month away from my due date of January 17th, which is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. It's terrifying because David and I still have so much stuff that we need and I have so many things that I still want/need to do before the baby comes. It's exhilarating because I am so ready to be done being pregnant. I'm sure I'll be eating my words in about a month when I think, "Why did I ever want her to come out? All I had to do was take care of me and my body took care of her, and I didn't really have to do a darn thing." I noticed last night that my feet were a little swollen. Curses! I had hoped to avoid that. I sat with my feet up at work all day today in an attempt to prevent them from swelling again. I'm considering wearing my mary jane crocs to work tomorrow; I defy anyone who's not carrying around an extra 30 lbs to stop me. :)

Here are some 35-week pictures for your enjoyment:

 

 Overall, I think I've had a fairly easy pregnancy. I still have four weeks to go, and I suppose that all sorts of complications and additional discomforts could appear between now and then, but it really hasn't been that bad. Reading about all of the things that could go wrong or the symptoms that I could have, I consider myself fortunate. I've never thrown up or had heartburn; I didn't develop terrible acne or seriously unruly hair (although it is a lot thicker). My legs and feet cramp and twitch, I can't sleep at night, and my shoulders ache, but I can deal with those.

David and I have our list of possible names narrowed down to four. We want to wait until we meet the baby to pick one to see which one fits the best. In the meantime, David has come up with a nickname for the baby: he calls her Baby Bug (say bug with an "ah" sound in the middle). I like it. :)

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season, and that you are all enjoying spending time with family and friends. I just hope I can stay awake long enough to enjoy that, too. :)

34 weeks (almost)

So here we are, in the third trimester, with only about six weeks to go - and these are the first "belly pictures" that I've taken. Sad, but true. But here they are, nonetheless!

 

The strange thing is that my belly doesn't seem to go up or down, it just goes straight out. This is making clothing particularly vexing, because almost all of my shirts are now too small, but any maternity pants that don't come up over my tummy just fall off my hips. I have figured out a temporary solution to the pants problem, though - suspenders. David has a few pairs, and I just put them on before I put my shirt on and they work great. I do feel like a secret agent or a mobster with suspenders under my clothing, though, like I should have a gun under my arm and maybe a knife in my sock. I'm actually wearing the suspenders in the pictures above. And could you tell? No, of course not. Yes! :)

Baby's doing well, too. On Monday (when I'll be 34 weeks), she'll be almost five pounds and about 18 inches long. She is very squirmy, and since there's not a lot of room in there, it's probably just as uncomfortable for her as it is for me at this point.

I'm wondering when exactly the baby plans on making her debut. I'm 37 weeks the last week of December, and there seems to be about a six-week window in which she could come. I don't like the unpredictability of this whole operation. It's like waiting for a bomb to go off without being able to see the ominous red numbers counting down to zero. Oh well, I suppose there's nothing I can do about that, and it doesn't make any sense to stress about things I can't control.

Well, there you go! A baby update and pictures. Your day is now complete. :)