6 weeks (or so) to go

Where to begin? I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a month. And so much has happened. (Perhaps I'll be writing the same thing after Benjamin is born.) Here's a quick rundown, going backwards in time -- that is, starting with today and moving back towards the beginning of the month:

1. We are well into the third trimester (Week 34 starts today! 6 weeks until Benjamin's due date!!)
2. We have finally started prenatal classes at our hospital (more on that later.)
3. I turned in my grades and am more or less finished with my obligations to my college (Still have an incomplete out there and can't get in touch with the student because her email bounces back to me. I also have a few student emails to answer -- people wanting to know how they did on their final papers.)
   
4. We moved back to Charlottesville. (The paint job looks wonderful, but there are still boxes everywhere because I need to figure out where things go and what to get rid of -- I don't think that moving back into your old house is that much easier than moving into a new house. Of course, we also reorganized the house -- we no longer have studies upstairs.)
   
5. I finished teaching on the last Friday of April and I finished in-house departmental obligations the first week of May (oral exams, a thesis defense).

During all of this, of course, the pregnancy has been progressing. Still having plenty of Braxton-Hicks contractions, which can get pretty unpleasant. And I still don't quite understand how I'll be able to tell the difference between the bad BH contractions and the "real thing". I've been told by one doctor that real contractions would hurt and that I'd feel like my uterus was trying to push the baby out (for me BH contractions feel more like my uterus is giving the baby a tight hug). Both my PA and Cville doctors have told me that real contractions have a rhythm, that they get longer and that the time between them gets shorter. And that a real contraction lasts maybe a minute or a minute and a half, whereas a BH contraction can last much longer (Cville doctor said they can last an hour or two and I know I've had some that have lasted about 10 minutes).

I'm also getting bigger -- as the pictures from last week show. I am not really aware of this when looking down at my belly, though I know that we are still growing right on target (weight gain and fundal height are normal). My mother came to help out with the unpacking and to spend her birthday and Mother's Day with me (fun celebrations for her! cleaning, unpacking, weeding...). I had told her that I didn't think I was very big and she basically laughed at me at the airport. The thing is, Benjamin is all out towards the front, like I have a basketball (or perhaps something bigger now) under my shirt. We don't have full length mirrors out in our house (the one we have is in a closet) so I don't look at "all of me" often. I did have a bit of a shock at Target last week when trying on maternity shorts. Yes, when I look at my profile my belly certainly juts out! And it's true that the muscles that hold up my belly are beginning to feel a little strained.

I also know that Benjamin has grown a lot because he's having a harder time moving. Brian may have thought of Aliens when he felt that first strong kick weeks ago, but now this is a usual occurrence that we can see -- some body part pushed up against the inside of my belly, a little protrusion, as Monsieur Benjamin kicks or rolls around. Kicks and punches are rarely quick little jabs these days and instead a tremor that makes my whole belly shake or change shape. Yesterday I was sitting on the bed reading and noticed my belly was moving side to side as Benjamin rotated in the womb -- it felt like he was crawling up the side of my belly.

(It's Tuesday morning now and I started this post several days ago, so I'm just going to post it now. I'll write about birth classes later!)

-maman