32 weeks: Jicama

No, not this (Jamaica):

We will discuss this topic in a few more weeks.

This:

I know, much less beautiful. I'm *sure* it tastes delicious though. From the looks of it, I imagine somewhere between a potato, a rutabaga, and an Asian pear. Anyway, Raina weighs about 3.75 pounds and is 16.7 inches long. I should be gaining about 1 pound a week, and about half of that goes right to her. She'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival in this cold world. She now has cute little toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or maybe some peach fuzz if she's going to be a baldie). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up.

She certainly is growing, because I'm feeling her all up in my ribs. I'm ready to start the rapid outward expansion at this point so she doesn't end up in my throat someday soon.

Go here to see an interesting visual on how, as the baby grows, organs are moved out of the way: Penn Health Slide the sliders to watch the growth. Wowzers, right?

FYI, I hate these pants. The belly band part just drives me nuts. Unless I'm wearing a shirt that goes way past my butt, you can see it in front. The fact that I've outgrown this maternity shirt also doesn't help.

And my tailbone hurts. Storytime:

Presidents Day, 1999. I was a senior in high school. Due to the holiday, I didn't have school so I headed up to the Mall of America with a friend for the day. I walked out of my parents' house and down the sloped sidewalk they used to have connecting the house to the driveway. Of course it's February, so it's icy. I found a nice little patch of ice, and did one of those banana-peel falls, where my legs shot in the air and I landed square on my derriere. Ouch. The tailbone was injured, but I knew there was nothing any M.D. could do for me, so I bucked up and lived with the pain for pretty much a full year after that. The end.

Fastforward to 2009. That same pain is back. My chiropractor told me yesterday that when tailbones heal, they never heal correctly, and they create a "false joint." So now that there's pressure (baby) pushing down on it, it's like it's broken again. Fabulous. My friend/co-worker told me that she had injured her tailbone prior to being pregnant, and it started hurting during pregnancy, and that it still hurt every once in awhile. She had her baby LAST MAY. Yeah...9 months after giving birth, it still hurts. Awesome.

I'm telling you people, if there is one thing you can avoid breaking, try to make it your tailbone. You won't be sorry.

Kev and I went to a breastfeeding class last night. That was interesting. I learned a lot, but was sort of uncomfortable at first seeing the instructor squish her boobs (while fully clothed, of course). Granted, without the visual, things would have been much harder to understand, so I thank her for that. And I know boob-squishing is part of her daily job as an OB RN, but still. In just about 8 weeks, I'll be squishing the boob, and I'm sure I'll be manhandled by someone else too. There's always something to look forward to!