Hmmm… what to report for 28 weeks. Well, she’s moving a lot. You know how a lot of mom’s swear their kid is going to be a soccer player because they kick so much. I think my kid is going to be an interior decorator because her movements are big and sweeping. They are not quick and athletic. I think she’s moving furniture in there. I should have illustrated her moving my stomach around or switching places with my spleen and my intestines instead of furniture but it feels like furniture. I think she’s saying, “hmmm… it would look so much roomier in here if we moved mom’s gall bladder over there. And those intestines, they need to be boxed and stored. Can I get some rubbermaid dividers puleeze?!! We need some proper feng shui in here people!” Scrape, scoot, scrape, scoot scoot…

Things are not so bad though. In spite of the shocking movements now and then, I’m not in any major pain. The only pain that really bothers me is when I’m trying to sleep. I don’t know what my hips are doing but I think they are slowly dislocating. I feel like an old German Shepherd. When I sleep, I feel like they are just going to pop right out of their joints. No position, except on my back which is forbidden because they say it puts pressure on a major artery supplying blood to the baby, relieves the pain. Every night I have a battle with myself. Relieve the pain and starve my baby of blood or sleep on my side and bite my tongue off because it hurts so bad. I really hope I’m not starving my baby of blood but I have to give in once in a while. I don’t think I lay on my back more than 20 minutes a night but I really have no idea. It’s just crazy making. No amount of pillows between my legs seems to make a difference. I think I am just deformed.

I’ve always had trouble with my hips. I wish I had an xray of them because I swear they are not like other people’s. I remember doing yoga (long before I was pregnant) and not being able to do some poses just because if I did, I would crumple and fall to the floor. I really wonder what is going on in there now. Sometimes when I get up I hear strange popping sounds. I know my ligaments are getting softer to make room for baby but I really wish I could see what is really happening. I’m worried that I’m going to expand and expand and expand and I’ll never fit my old jeans again. I was already pretty hippy as it is.

You know the irony of having good “breeder hips”. They don’t always necessarily mean you are a good “breeder”. I bet Toby’s thinking he got a bad deal when he picked me to be the mother of his kids. From looking at me, you’d think I could pop out kids like a factory. But I have an Aunt who is twice as hippy as me and she had to have FOUR cesarians. Why? Because her birth canal was too narrow. So big hips aren’t always good for having kids. And now that it looks like I have a fibroid tumor in the way of having a baby, I’ll probably have to have a cesarian also. These hips are good for nothing. Except keeping my pants up. But I’d trade them for a good belt any day.

Here I am just starting the first days of my third trimester. Woo Hoo! I’m almost there. I’ve managed to wear some of my non-pregnancy clothes all the way up until now. Woo Hoo #2, I’m not as fat as I could be. Or maybe some of my non-pregnancy clothes are pretty big and forgiving. Like for example my most favorite black walking pants. They are the best. They’re cut in such a way that they swish at the bottom when I walk. And they have a draw string. So they are never too tight and they always look flattering, as far as exercise clothes go.

But lately the draw string just isn’t working for me. I tie it at my belly button, which is roughly the circumference of a beach ball these days, and then two or three steps later my pants fall down below my belly. Not a good look for me since I haven’t really been tanning and it’s kinda chilly out when I go walking in the morning. So it’s like this: Walk, walk, walk, slip! Stop, retie. Walk, walk, walk, slip! It’s kind of annoying. Then I try method number two: I hold my pants up while I walk. That’s also annoying as I like to keep my hands free for talking on the phone with my mom (yes, I’m one of those kind of walkers–but hey, I have a great relationship with my mom) or taking pictures (for you internet, for you!). It’s just not working for me. By the end of my walk I get a little warm and I can take my sweatshirt off and tie it around my waist as a super bulky belt. That works. But it doesn’t work soon enough.

So I went to Target and I bought some new el cheapo black walking pants. They’re nice and big. They have a waste band that comes up to my chin that folds over. This seems to be a common design feature in maternity clothes. I haven’t really come to appreciate it yet. It seems a little bulky and I can never decide if I want to pull it up and tuck it under my bra or roll it down and give myself extra bulk around my middle. I shouldn’t complain, it’s nice to have choices. But even though they are nice, they’re just not my old walking pants. They’re bulky and they’re actually kind of too big. They weren’t too big when I tried them on in the dressing room but they are now.

Maternity clothes are a trip. I usually wear mediums in pants but I think I need to wear smalls. They just feel slouchy and they fall down after a while. They don’t fall down and show my belly but they get baggy in the crotch and I end up walking on the hems. Half way through my walk I want to pull out a safety pin or a belt and cinch them up. I tried to shrink them in the dryer but that didn’t work at all. I think they might have even gotten bigger. What kind of lycra gets looser when you dry them in a super hot laundromat dryer?

When I take them off, they look so humongous. Embarrassingly humongous. I can just imagine Toby grabbing them for me for my trip to the hospital and the thoughts that would go through his head as he holds them up and sees that he could easily pitch a tent with them if he had to. Or maybe it’s just Target sizes. I’m very flattered that they think I’m “small”. But I just don’t think I should go for a small. I think they would be small in places I don’t want them to be small. So for now I’m stuck. Maybe I’ll just grow into them. I do have three more months of growing afterall.

Three more months to go! Woo Hoo!