Christmas: Prgenancy – 34 weeks

I can’t remember what time we made it to bed on Christmas Eve. I just know it was too late for our early wake up the next day. Luckily my in laws was going to mass early, so my husband didn’t insist that we should sleep in and have breakfast with them before the drive north. But it was all pretty exhausting. His little kid bed is not comfortable at the best of times (I just never do well the first night in a new bed), so it was a stretch at nearly 8 months pregnant.

We then did the drive up to NJ – which included a few extra bathroom breaks (and get out of the car and walk breaks that my doctor suggested – which then turned into bathroom breaks when I got out into the cold. My side note here – I have always been cold. My hands and feet are always freezing and I carry a sweater in July because I know I’ll get cold at some point during the day. On our honeymoon in Hawaii we went snorkeling and the water was somewhat cold. We got back on the boat and I noticed my feet looked a little off color. My husband looked and said he’d never seen feet so blue on a living person and made me walk around. He laughed that he could take me to a tropical island and still have to risk hypothermia if I wasn’t wearing layers. Anyway, you see my point. Now I was sort of interested in seeing how the other half lives in pregnancy – as I’ve heard you’re supposed to be too hot all the time. This past summer I noticed I had no tolerance for heat (I think that was also morning sickness related), but I didn’t seem to get hot faster. But that was early. This is the third trimester. I know it’s winter, but I still see NO signs of this side effect. I still think my office is always freezing. My boss has suggested that I won’t think it’s cold because I pack my own heater, but nope – I’ve still got two sweaters on and am drinking tea (yes decaf!) to try to warm up.). So right, the drive to NJ! We got there just a little later than planned so we rushed to get changed / put together and head to my aunt’s for dinner. Considering the day we’d already had, we really weren’t that late. We had dinner with the family and gave gifts to my cousin’s children (we’ve FINALLY updated our exchange in the past few years to keep it just to kids as it was getting quite ridiculous. On the one hand, I did get some awesome gifts from them – one cousin worked with some designer brands and would present us with Burberry or Gucci – but it was awfully hard to keep up with my outlet bought gifts…).

We finally got back to my Mom’s who asked if we wanted to exchange gifts with her then. I said I just needed to lie down for a few first and went up to my own little kid room - not where we slept at my house, as mine has a twin bed. My husband followed me up a few minutes later and climbed into said twin bed with me! Now not even accounting for the size of my belly, My husband is 6’4 and NOT a small guy. It would have been comical – had I not been too tired to care. We got up about in time to head over to my other cousins.

We did the other side of the family and got to catch up with them which was nice. It was a pretty relaxed post dinner event and enjoyable, but we were really starting to drag. We finally got home after 11, but still hadn’t done gifts with my Mom. On the one hand, there’s no reason it had to be done right then, but on the other – it’s Christmas and it felt wrong to wait – esp. as we had brunch plans with a friend the next day and it felt like this could keep getting put off. So after accumulating what seemed like the rest of our baby gift registry, we finally hauled ourselves to bed around 1. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!