Prepared? Yeah, right!

NOTE: This post is more than a bit outdated, as I wrote most of it two weeks ago, and then -- silly me! -- never wrapped it up and "published" it here on the blog... But just thought I would do so now, before moving on to my latest thoughts...

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Boy, I'm so tired of that question already, and I guess I've been getting it for weeks: "Are you ready?" "Are you prepared? Have you done everything?" And I never know whether people mean physically, mentally, emotionally or just materialistically prepared... I guess it's a combination of all of these, of course. And I know that it's meant with the best of intentions. But how can one ever be really and truly prepared for such an experience, and is there really ONE tried-and-true, specific way of preparing yourself?! Who knows...

Okay, so the past few days I have been spending a lot of my time preparing the baby clothes for the maternité and just trying to take my time washing them, folding them, and putting away as much as possible in the one piece of furniture I have for the baby so far -- the mint-green dresser! I quite like it, although the quality is obviously not fabulous -- it's pretty-much the same as Ikea-quality, but I guess I couldn't expect much more than that for the price I paid. Still, I'm hesitating about the matching bed, and I have a feeling the decision won't be made before the Little Bean arrives. In the meantime, I'm bound and determined to get us either a couffin or a landau, barring an actual combination stroller. My boyfriend did finally make it up to his sister's place in Lille this past weekend and drove back in her car, that he will be buying from her used -- so we officially have wheels again, and therefore a way to get to the clinic on the Big Day! But apparently her baby's stroller was in pretty bad condition and didn't seem to be working very well, so my boyfriend said to forget about it... Which leads us back to square one in that department. I think we may very well end up buying our own stroller; I may bite the bullet and convince him to go with me at the end of this week, when he finally has a couple of days off and we can go to a shop or two. But managing to convince him to go to some shops with me will be quite the challenge, to say the least...

So no, my life is not very exciting right now, but that's OK (and of course that will change any time now!). I'm feeling the constant need for rest anyway, and I'm also feeling excessively lazy -- it's insane! I keep telling myself I need to be doing more housecleaning (story of my life -- how many times have I mentioned this before?!) but all I want to do is kick back, relax and read, get my mind off my worries and just not think too much at this point. I put off going to bed at night, though, and I'm becoming more and more nocturnal; I'm really going to have to kick this habit soon, as I will regret it later on... But I think it's psychological, because now when I go to bed at night, I either wake up really early in the morning, or whenever I do wake up, I'm aching all over, mainly in my back, my feet and my hands, strangely enough. I get that my feet are swelling and I may be retaining some water (mental note: really need to watch my salt intake a bit better, I guess!), and also that no matter what I do, I can't seem to stay asleep in the right position at night, but what's with the achey hands?! Is the swelling thing meant to apply to ALL extremities, and not just my feet? In any case, I find myself occasionally cracking my knuckles during the day -- which I know is far from pretty, much less healthy, and not exactly a recommended little habit to be acquiring. But it seems to temporarily ease the pain, so...

Yes, there you have it, my blog has officially transformed into one of the expat expectant mommy blogs -- I guess this has been coming for a while! I try to alternate posts and talk about other things, but obviously this is what my life is revolving around right now, so what can I do? No matter what I read, the subject is always there in the back of my mind. For example, when I read last week's French Elle horoscope, I almost fell off my seat in the RER -- you see, my birthday falls on August 22, so I'm right "on the cusp", as they say, of both Leo and Virgo. I often jokingly like to say in French that I'm "Lion, presque Vierge" -- not too many out there who can say that, right?! In any case, these days I don't even know which sign to read, because Elle has stopped Leo at August 21st, whereas all my life I've pretty much considered myself more of a Leo than a Virgo. But I guess my personality is a mix of both... Then again, it's not as if I take all that much stock in horoscope predictions, trust me! It's just that on occasion I find them uncannily accurate... For example, in the week from June 30th to July 6th, Lion says: "... si vous ne partez pas encore en vacances, relâcher la pression, celle que vous mettez sur les autres... et sur vous. De votre capacité à vous détendre et à accepter les choses telles qu'elles sont dépendent vos succès futurs [!!!!]. Nés autour du 21 août [!!], agissez pour le changement."

Um, sorta kinda makes you stop and think, non ? I mean, trust me, with getting out to spend time with friends, I've definitely been making time to relax, but admittedly I'm the worst about "accepting things the way they are" -- I'm always wanting to somehow "fix" things at the last minute, and I'm definitely not a planner. I know this is kindof the stars' way of telling me that I'm going to have to learn to live with things being less-than-perfect for a while!

And if that one wasn't uncanny enough, read Virgo's from the same week (keeping in mind that I have usually considered myself more of a Leo up until now, but again, this was freaky nonetheless...): "... ne cherchez pas à tout résoudre, procédez par étapes. Nés autour du 24 août, préparez-vous, la semaine prochaine peut être importante [!!!!]." Of course, since then, that week has come and gone, and the "big event" hasn't happened yet -- but STILL, at the time it surprised me to read that!

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People also keep asking us if we're going to be leaving on vacation, and obviously that hinges on the baby's arrival: due date being the end of July, early August, there's just no way of knowing when the Little Bean will officially pop out! I really hope that we will be able to head down to the Atlantic Coast for at least a couple weeks after the birth, but I imagine it all depends on how well the delivery goes, and obviously the baby's and my health afterwards. Although the sage-femme did say last week that normally a week to 10 days after birth was plenty of time to allow before going away, I'm just wondering how I will be handling everything. So no predictions at this point... It would be SO nice to get away from the city and to enjoy the ocean a bit after the baby's birth, but again, I'm obviously going to focus on making sure everything just goes well before thinking about all of that...

Oh, and I looked a bit into both the Bum Genius and Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers -- and OH my WORD, I must have been living on another planet, because I had NO IDEA how expensive they were going to be! Then again, I know a baby goes through a heck of a lot of disposables in one day, so I imagine the cloth diapers are not only the better long-term investment, leading to less spending in the long run, but they are also so much better for the environment. But *gulp* that first order is going to be painful, to say the least! Aimée has given me some good advice in that department as well, so I may plan on putting through an order for a starter kit to give the Bum Genius diapers a try, and have my parents bring them over from the U.S. when they come to visit in September...

In the meantime, I'm busy preparing my valise for the clinic, for both myself and the Little Bean. I've been dragging this out, though, and still need a few things from the pharmacy. I hope to wrap that all up very soon!