pregnancy update

I am thirty weeks along in my pregnancy now. That means I have about ten more to go. I am feeling pretty well. Just starting to feel a little tired and creaky, especially in my lower back.

The only issues I have had this time around are the fingers of my right hand going numb at night and some veins on my legs popping out and looking a little scary. The hand I have been able to resolve with proper support, which basically consists of piles of pillows around me that make me feel like I'm sleeping in a fortress. Poor Tim. The veins are not dangerous, but their purple-color bulging tentacles creep me out.

Like many Czechs, I am superstitious about buying anything for the baby before its time. But now that I am far enough along I gave myself the permission to buy a couple of used sleepers - those pyjama-like things with feet - for fear of the baby coming and us not having anything for him or her to wear. You see, we gave all of Jonah's clothes for the first eighteen months away because I decided I did not want another biological child. A couple of months after we did that, I changed my mind. Funny, isn't it?

For the last three days, Jonah has been very interested in gently touching my stomach and hugging me. He now wants to lay on top of me - and my belly and hug me quietly for extensive periods of time. I have never seen him like this. He must be bonding with his sibling. It seems almost metaphysical in a way. Yesterday we cuddled quietly for an hour!

A friend just told me about someone she knows who has two children and is expecting a third one. She did not tell the older siblings for a long time that she was pregnant. They started coming up to her belly spontaneously, hugging it and touching it. They "knew."

Jonah also loves to play "midwife" and "ultrasound man." He examines my belly using a closed marker and his keyboard, which makes all kinds of strange and obnoxious noises. He calls it his computer. When I get tired of being examined, he examines Tim's belly and asks to be examined as well.

The other thing that goes hand in hand with pregnancy that I have been experiencing once in a while are odd dreams. Last night -warning: not for the faint of heart- for example, I dreamt that I had found a decapitated dog head in the grass. Someone had mowed the lawn and beheaded a dog in the process. The dog's body was still sitting there, frozen in attention mode. Those crazy pregnancy hormones!