Tonight I was feeling the urge to blog but not knowing what to write. R said “write about the new bed, and our big baby.”

So here goes.

The New Bed
R and I have been married for almost 11 years. Every night of those 11 years, except when we have been traveling, we have slept side by side on what started out as a very nice, thick, firm cotton futon mattress. It served us well. In recent months the mattress has developed twin valleys where our bodies go. We are separated by a small ridge that one must roll up to reach the other one for a hug. We would frequently wake up and get out of bed creaking. The pregnancy was the last straw. It had to go.

Like the frugal engineer he is, R researched mattresses extensively, or at least enough to know that buying a new one is a major pain. Inconsistent models from store to store, wild fluctuations in price, etc. We had also been told by our movers two years ago that a traditional queen mattress would NOT fit up our stairs, and that it was a good thing we had a futon which bends. So we were expecting to take our time and put up with the deep valleys for several more weeks while we shopped for just the right thing, compared, haggled, etc. Then we were expecting to get it home and not be able to get it up the stairs without removing the banister, which is, I will admit, quite ugly.

Anyway, on a whim, we decided to start at Ikea, because hey, Swedish meatballs for lunch!

When we walked up to the store and spotted the “Four Day Mattress Event!” sign we started to feel maybe this would work out much more smoothly than we’d thought. Sure enough, a few hours later we were taking the backroads home with a new queen mattress (discounted 20%) strapped to the van. It was a little tricky up the stairs, but fit.

It’s wonderful. The first night we had it, we had to get up earlier than usual the next morning, yet we both felt quite well rested. R wonders whether we’ve been chronically sleep deprived for years. I doubt it, although my back feels so much better. Still, I’ll miss the old gal.

Side note: We also shopped for a big-girl bed for C. Yes, (sheepish) she is still in her crib. But graduation day is upon us. She tried several out and was heartbroken to come home to naptime in her same old crib. Sunday R went back and purchased—gulp!—bunk beds. That felt like a big step, but they were very reasonably priced and will each work as a twin bed, so we have flexibility as the girls get older. We haven’t put it together yet, but we did buy a rainbow canopy which is installed over her crib. Last night as R was putting her to bed C sighed, “Thank you Daddy for my rainbow.” Aww.

The Big Baby
Yesterday we had an ultrasound because last time they didn’t get a look at Gertie’s profile, which apparently is important. At least it better be important enough for insurance to deem it medically necessary; it seems a little bogus to me but I’m never one to turn down an ultrasound. Anyway, all is well; and, (or should it be “however”?) the technician estimates the baby at 3 pounds. (I am about to enter week 28.)

That’s either 2 weeks or so “ahead of schedule,” which is not possible, and/or it puts her in the 90th percentile, depending on how you look at it. The tech was unconcerned about the size; then again, it’s not her vagina. I had planned to go next week to do my glucose screen (test for gestational diabetes), but I decided to go today just to get it over with, and if there’s something amiss, better to know now than later. (One of the effects of GD is big baby.) So I drank the nasty orange drink, waited an hour, got some blood drawn and should know something tomorrow.

The significance of all this is the realization (one of my patented aha/duh moments) that this child is going to be different from the last one. Everything up to now has been the exact same—same sensations, same pregnancy symptoms, same gender of child—but now, the roads diverge. This is different. Not necessarily bad, but my false sense of security (we’ve got this parenting thing figured out) is being disrupted. As it should. So all in all this is a good thing.

Of course I’m a little worried, although I’m trying not to worry unproductively. I know some of you are thinking, is there such a thing as productive worry? Yes there is. Allow me to demonstrate.

What if I have GD and the baby is getting huge?
Well, you’ll visit the dietician, you’ll follow their regimen, and you’ll be more intentional about exercising. You'll just do the best you can. If you do have it, you're catching it early enough to do something.
What if I don’t have it, and I just end up with an amazon child?
Well then, you’ll do the best you can with labor and trust your midwives and doctors to take care of your baby and you. (And besides, even ultrasounds are inaccurate. Remember how they thought C was going to be 8 1/2 pounds at birth?)

There. Simple.

One of my pregnancy/labor books has a chapter entitled, "Worry is the Work of Pregnancy." This is what the author's talking about. Explore the what-ifs, get educated, decide how you'll respond, get all the anxiety out, and move on.

At any rate, we’re hoping that this Big Baby thing will turn out like the New Bed thing; that is, we thought it was going to be a big hairy deal, and everything turned out, as Goldilocks would say, “juuuuuuuuuuust right.”

I should hear something on Wednesday.