Moving along…like one of those high-speed Japanese commuter trains.

The prodding worked. Thanks to all of you who have emailed and told me to get back to the posting. I apologize and hope you will resume checking the blog periodically for new and hopefully interesting updates. As the title of this post indicates, all things including time itself seem to be moving rather quickly now. We’re well into the third trimester, and A not only appears but also feels like she’s carrying a rather large bowling ball around her midsection.

Wanting to spend some time with us before the baby’s impending arrival (somehow nine weeks feels more like nine days), A’s mom traveled from Ohio the first weekend in November. She has missed being near A as she moves through pregnancy, so it was great to have her here for a few days. I think the highlight for Bonnie was going with us to one of our prenatal visits, meeting our fabulous midwife and getting to hear the baby’s healthy heartbeat (one of the many rapidly moving things). The high point for us may have been the day she held our hands as we made our first foray into the wilds of Babies-R-Us. We were petrified. Truthfully, we had been avoiding it. We thought we’d be able to get away with never setting foot inside, but Bonnie expertly navigated through aisles of car seats, bottle brushes, sippy cups, and crib bumpers (no, we’re not getting one). For all our reluctance, we had to admit there were some pretty damn cute outfits that any infant would be happy to parade around daycare (and from the look of our baby’s closet, it appears that Bonnie may have gotten us every one in the store!). But truly, Bonnie did us a solid. She sought out the essentials – like a car seat with awesome orange fabric – and things we never would have known we needed – like the t-shirts that fold over and snap down the side so you don’t have to wrangle them over the baby’s head, and baby nail clippers with a teeny magnifying glass so you don’t snip off the kid’s tender little digits.

Speaking of grandmothers, our moms already have their grandma monikers picked out. A’s mom will be Mammaw, a tradition on the Ohio side of the family, and my mom will be Mimi, as my grandmother is to me, which means I might have to start calling her “Big Mimi” to minimize any confusion, although at 96 she’s hardly a largish woman. But I digress.

Back to the business of the speed at which things are progressing. You wouldn’t believe how much the baby is kickboxing inside A’s ever-growing belly (maybe still celebrating the Obama victory.) Weirdly, it is very similar to the scene in the movie Alien, right before the creature springs from the guy’s chest. There is an enormous amount of rolling and protruding from within that is, in a word, freaktastic. Unfortunately, it’s pretty uncomfortable at times, and A’s ribs take a beating. We’re just hoping that as the baby grows it will become more difficult to dance on her kidneys and turn somersaults across her uterus. But things are a bit different from my perspective. I can hardly suppress the giggle that races through my heart when I rest my hands on A’s tummy and a tiny limb or back or bum pushes out, and I know that I am holding this baby.

election night distraction

Ack! A and I are watching the election returns and need to busy ourselves with something other than fretting over who will ultimately win this crazy race. The early McCain lead is freaking us out, but as CNN tells us, he was expected to win South Carolina and Tennessee, so no worries…yet.

That said, let’s spend a few minutes reviewing all things pregnancy. First, the nesting. Oh, the nesting! Here’s a photo that encapsulates the madness. In a word, quilting. I believe A was in the 5th grade the last time she made a quilt. She’s planning a gorgeous one for the baby as you can see by the fabric strewn across the length of the crib rail (yep, that’s the crib we got off Craigslist). But the nesting hormones are truly amazing. At this rate we are bound to have the cleanest, most well-organized house in South Minneapolis by the time the baby arrives, which is fine because it’s not likely to ever be that way again.

This pregnancy has been so perfect in so many ways – A has been healthy and passing all her tests (the glucose test was negative, meaning no gestational diabetes), the baby has been growing well and passing all it’s tests (obviously, we still don’t know if we’re having a girl or boy, but we’ll find out soon enough). So, it would seem inevitable that we would experience something less than positive at some point in this journey, and we did over the weekend. A got into a car accident on Saturday–not a bad one, and no one was hurt–but it was scary when it happened, and we did spend a little time in the hospital monitoring the baby to be sure everything was ok. And everything is fine, but then the day after the accident, A had what she thinks was her first Braxton-Hicks contraction. The timing was nothing more than coincidental, but given the recent events we weren’t entirely sure. A called our midwife and moved our next prenatal visit up a couple weeks–again, just to make sure everything continues to go smoothly. Once we figured out that the contraction wasn’t a pre-term labor situation, but something normal and common and nothing to worry about, we have been gradually gaining back our confidence.

And now, Barack Obama appears to be ahead in many states and has just been predicted the winner in Pennsylvania. The experts are assuring us that things are almost certain. The night seems to be moving in the right direction, and we are gradually, ever so cautiously, regaining our confidence. It’s only a little while longer until we know for sure.