I'd just like to advance this notion on behalf of women who are "great with child" everywhere. Do NOT ask somoene close to her due date if she is "still pregnant". We don't like it. The closer we get to our due dates the less we like it. Once we're past our due date it makes us think violent thoughts about you and due to pregnancy hormones there are no promises that these urges will be met with restraint. Besides, if you are standing there talking to us it should be fairly obvious whether we are pregnant or not. If you're far-flung family on good terms with us the chances are that we're not going to forget to tell you about the birth of a child.

So, that's that. Moving on.

Since my last post things have improved. I don't know exactly what happened, I guess the baby moved farther down, but I am exponentially more comfortable than I have been for weeks. It's been about a week now that I've felt so much more comfortable that I can hardly believe it. It's made life much easier especially since my due date has now come and gone. At least I'm not miserable anymore. Sleeping is still not good, but that's not going to change anytime soon... :)

I have to say that I've been a little emotional(er) lately. I've been saying for nine months that I just wanted there to be some separation between the baby's birthday and Christmas because I don't want poor little Xander to feel gypped about birthdays for the rest of his life and because I don't want to be anywhere near the hospital over the holidays. So, as we're now solidly in the week of Christmas and I'm still pregnant it makes me a little sad.

Then, just to spice things up we have this newest development. Yesterday we put a perfectly healthy Ben down for a nap before he and Andrew were supposed to go to San Francisco to pick up Nana & Papaw for our Christmas visit. A few times during his nap we heard this sound and thought, "What is that?" We thought it was something outside, NOT something inside and definitely NOT something inside our son!

We got him up from his nap when we realized that he wasn't sleeping. Not only was he not sleeping, but he was the one making that noise. At first when we got him he was crying and having trouble breathing. Want to freak out two intelligent, generally calm people? Hand them their child who can hardly catch his breath. Instant panic. He was struggling enough that we wondered if he found something somehow in his crib and had put it in his mouth and was choking on it. I was trying to calm him down so he could catch his breath when he started coughing. As soon as I had him in my arms and heard him cough like that I knew what it was. Croup.

I was still very scared because Ben sounded awful and it wasn't just the cough, but he truly was struggling to breath. I did feel a little better though because I knew babies didn't just up and die from croup, he wasn't choking on something he found, and this wasn't some kind of mystery. So, I did what any rational person would do. I came downstairs with my poor, still struggling son, and made my husband call my mother!

Once we got Ben to stop crying and calm down he improved a LOT. It probably took about fifteen minutes from when he woke up to when he was calm and it was awful. We probably would have lasted for another couple minutes before heading for the ER with him. Mom told us what to do with him to help him feel better, I checked out www.askdrsears.com, and we got him a doctor's appointment for that day.

Then Andrew had to leave for the airport, I had to bum a car off one of my friend's (THANK YOU!!!) and stay home with my poor little guy by myself for the rest of the day, nine months pregnant and counting... To shorten my already long story... Ben does indeed have croup. The doctor gave him a shot of steroids to help the inflammation and to decrease the odds that Andrew would have to spend last night splitting his time between the OB and the ER. (We managed to avoid both.)

Ben perked up pretty well yesterday, until bedtime. He wasn't coughing very much, thanks to the steroids, and the fact that he slept draped over an adult. I tried to lay with him for a couple hours, but being so pregnant I just couldn't lay still for long periods of time in the position that he needed me to so he could stay upright. So there's some Mommy-guilt for you that my poor baby needed me and I couldn't even lay with him. However, we were blessed with the world's best daddy who took over as human pillow without complaint and I came downstairs to sleep on the couch. With Andrew's help Ben managed to sleep most of the night, fitful though it was.

Andrew is upstairs now trying to catch up on the sleep that he didn't get last night because of his restless son. Ben is down here with me. (watching a video) Today seems like it might be a little rough. Ben is coughing more than he was yesterday, he's clearly tired and not feeling well and displaying all of the two year old behaviors that go along with those things. We'll see how it goes.

I can't imagine going into labor and leaving him when he's sick. I feel bad that his grandparents are here to see him and he's miserable. I can't imagine bringing a newborn home while he's sick like this. I feel bad for Andrew who will probably have to repeat his nonsleeping performance of last night again tonight. I feel terrible for Ben who obviously feels awful. I'm worried that he seems worse today than yesterday and that it's supposed to be worse at night than during the day which to me means that our odds of taking a trip to the ER tonight are higher than last night. It's going to be a Christmas to remember at the Hatter House.