Daily Note: May 17, 2009

Well, I'm back. I didn't die in a plane crash and my conference went really well. Unfortunately, it ran me a bit ragged and on Thursday I woke up with a sore throat. By 1:30pm, I was in bed, full of snot, swallowing what felt like cut glass but was really water, sneezing up a storm, and feeling very sorry for myself. The flight home on Friday was miserable. My ears were killing me and for some reason I pulled a Shelby (from Steel Magnolias) about 40 minutes into the flight. I'd felt sort of light headed a few times on the flight to DC, but this was different. When they were coming through with the beverage cart for the first time, I suddenly got really light headed and weak, then my vision and hearing started to dim and I got all sweaty and cold. I started to panic and was envisioning calling an attendant over, laying in the aisle, M'lynn telling me to "drink some juice, Shelby, drink the juice!", and the humiliation of an emergency landing, but then it passed. I think it lasted maybe 5 or 10 minutes? Either way, I was left exhausted and totally freaked out. I spent the rest of the 5 hours in a state of mild panic that it would happen again, but it didn't. I still have no idea what caused it - low blood pressure? dehydration? low blood sugar? the cold? Maybe the combination of all these things? Either way, I'm terrified to fly again in my pregnant state, so I think my next flight might not be until when we take Edie to Disneyland for the first time.

On a more positive note, here was my most entertaining moment from my week in DC:
I was riding the elevator up to my room while eating a blueberry bagel with cream cheese when an large, older African American woman got on. I think I may have been resting my other hand on my bump. She was wearing the hotel uniform, looked at me chowing down on my bagel and said all sassy-like, "Mmmm HMMM, for me it was chocolate puddin'." Then the doors opened and she got off.

So I'm home now, still horribly sick, but SO relieved to have this hurdle behind me. Despite eating nothing but fatty hotel food all day, for 5 days straight, I somehow managed to lose a pound this week, so I quickly made up for that with burgers and fries for lunch yesterday and mac and cheese for dinner. Jeff painted the master bedroom while I was gone, which was a total surprise. This would mark the 156th time we've painted the bedroom, but he says this color is here to stay. He kindly used the expensive, non toxic paint so that I could return to sulk in the bed with my cold promptly upon my return without inhaling paint fumes.

Now that the conference is over, I finally feel ready to get this whole baby show on the road. We need to do some serious shopping and get some SHIT DONE. Edie's been kicking up a storm lately. I find that some days she lodges herself up higher and it makes eating very unpleasant. After a few bites of food, I feel sickly full for hours and hours. She's also started to do what I'm calling the bladder-dance, where for a few seconds she'll tap dance directly on my bladder and I literally fear I might pee my pants. Then it passes just as quickly. She's become noticeably bigger this week. Yesterday I'm pretty sure that I felt my first jab to the ribs. I'm not sure, but given that my ribs start about 3 inches above my belly button, it seems distinctly possible. Something else seems to have happened yesterday and I went from having a little pregnant bump to feeling unwieldy and bulbous. I can't believe that she's still got so much more growing to do; I already feel like I'm spending all day with a cat sitting on my chest - where else does she have left to go? I'll confess to feeling slightly panicked about that sometimes. My skin is stretched so tight you could play me like a bongo and a few days ago, my belly button made its first move indicating that any day now, I could wake up to an outy.

Anywhoo, I'll get my act together and post some photos either tonight or tomorrow.