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Monday, July 21, 2008

How do you say "sharp pain" in French?

Douleur aiguë (roughly pronounced "doo-lurr ay-goo"). Of course when I called the midwife station Saturday after experiencing just that on my left side, my French abilities kind of went out the window and I said douleur aiguille ("ay-gwee"), which would translate as needle pain. Hey, same difference. It did feel like a needle. The doc or midwife on call seemed to understand anyway. His advice: take a bath and your anti-spasm medicine and wait two hours to see if it's better. And it did seem to get a bit better.

So, I'm still hanging out in the apartment, occasionally trying to find just the right position to avoid this sharp pain which comes and goes. According to the baby books, could be that baby is moving down (does seem that way) and pressing on a nerve (thanks, baby). I told her she needs to make up her mind and get things moving or just calm down. Give poor mom a rest!

Because of said sharp pain, my husband and I didn't go to the restaurant yesterday as had been planned for a few weeks with his parents and grandad. Not twenty minutes after I called him at the greenhouse to ask him to come home early the other day, his mom called back to see if were still on for the "resto". "Er, not really sure how things are gonna go," I said, "but please don't cancel on my behalf. You can go ahead without me." They don't have/take many occasions in the year to go out to eat, and I don't want them holding a "missed" opportunity over my head. The prospect of sitting in a fairly rigid chair for three to four hours (French meal standard), leisurely waiting for each course and discussing our dismal summer weather wasn't very appealing with this pain looming over me.

So the husband and I stayed in the apartment and watched the least annoying stuff we could find on TV, dozing off from time to time when it got too boring. And he sweetly prepared all the meals since sometimes standing in the kitchen was too much for me. He has been a very supportive guy lately, saying in a fairly convincing way that I look nice in my maternity clothes and with these chipmunk cheeks on my face. Maybe my family has paid him to say that! Plus he's gonna do the food shopping today since I don't feel like driving about. No doubt he'll go wild in the paté/cheese section, but at least I won't have to deal with loading and unloading the cart and the crowds. To be continued...

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