Friday, July 30, 2010

112 days to go? Whaaaaat!

As I’d long suspected, baby is two weeks older than they kept telling me. I was told repeatedly that our first ultrasound at 7w1d was absolutely accurate, but I never fully bought it, knowing that Toby wasn’t in town on the said date. No Toby - no Dana getting knocked up. So, it was nice to get confirmation.

This puts us at twenty four weeks pregnant now! Six months pregnant! Yay! How exciting!

I’ve already updated my baby ticker on the left side of the screen and baby is looking huge, isn’t she?

In my mind I’d had week thirty as a deadline for certain things (packing my hospital bags, choosing a name, getting her set up on our insurance, telling the HR department that I’m leaving) so this gives me a bit of a shorter deadline. I’m on vacation for a week, and fully intend to have a name picked out by my return.

I’ll be back in a week – for now I’m off to rest and grow and play in the sun.

So far so good

Yesterday’s ultrasound was absolutely fantastic. At first I was a little weary, because not only was the ultrasound tech there, but there was also a lady in a white doctors’ coat. I lay there silently with my mind working on overdrive about why the hell there were now two people in the room after being asked for an extra ultrasound. How could they have not told me that something was wrong and that they needed an expert there to oversee things? After a wee internal freak-out I casually said,

“So, why are there two of you guys today?”
“Oh, sorry!” said the young one, “I’m a student and she’s just overseeing me.”

I thought that was cool and proceeded to ask all about her new career. Did you know it’s a two and a half year course to be an ultrasound tech? There’s tons of information to know. Also, they don’t just look at babies; they have to look at cancer and bad things also. She said that she doesn’t mind doing diseases because when people come in to scan those, at least they’re expecting the news and know what’s going on. Her least favorite part of the job is when there are actually things wrong with babies, because unlike cancer, people come in expecting good news and it’s difficult to give them bad ones. I felt a bit validated in the fact that I always hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Back to the ultrasound. She started scanning me and I was kind of craning my neck to see, as usual. My barrage of questions started, and she said, “Oh! You can look on the screen!” and turned on a huge fifty inch TV mounted on the ceiling! Can you friggin believe that?! It was a dream come true! Toby and I stared at her forever, and she looked really happy and comfortable in her apartment. The reason we had to return was because at the last ultrasound she was curled in a little ball so they couldn’t get proper pictures of the four distinct chambers of her heart, but they did see that she indeed had four chambers. This time she was stretched out fully and they got every picture they needed. The neat thing is that the tech really didn’t know what she was doing, so she kept asking her instructor for assistance. This led to a very long and detailed ultrasound. We looked at baby for well over an hour and it was perfectly fine with me. So long it was that she had to re-gel my tummy about six times. It was also great to have Toby there because he held my foot the whole time. (Got it, Becca? Hold my foot next time! :P )

All in all, she looked amazing. She was doing flips and turns and little jigs. At one point we had a great look of her face, which includes eyes and a nose and lips. She was moving her little mouth in a suckling motion also! It was awesome! There was a huge “awww” in the room when we saw that. She’s absolutely healthy and normal and freakishly smart and beautiful.

A brief recap on the most important information learned:

Weight: One pound, eight ounces
Height: Twenty three centimeters long
New Due Date: November 19th 2010.

Yay!!!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Yesssssss!

I’m giddy and excited and thrilled because… I GET TO SEE MY DAUGHTER TODAY!!! I can’t even WAIT. I bet it’ll be this exciting when she’s on the outside also.

That is all.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Jewish Jumping Beans

My daughter seems to love Bean coffee as much as her dad does – she hasn’t stopped jumping around since the moment I had my first teeny sip of coffee this morning. I’m loving how active she is lately and relishing it now that it’s just movement instead of actual kicking and punching once she starts to outgrow her uterine apartment.

I keep getting the inspiration and motivation to write really deep and meaningful posts, but then I end up scratching the whole thing. I have so many ideas about parenting and how life will be after baby but I don’t want to jinx myself by writing them/saying them out loud to anyone but Toby. I realize that everyone has grandiose plans about what they will and will not do as parents, but those theories sometimes get tossed out in practice. So, we’ll see. I’m finally reconciling the fact that there will indeed be a baby here in fifteen or so weeks, and that’s a good start.

Tomorrow I get to go for another ultrasound and Toby will get to see his daughter for the first time. I’m thrilled to see her again and to get clear and certain “it’s all good!”

Monday, July 26, 2010

No complaints

This weekend we were loitering around a big Philippino house warming party filled with children and families and Toby’s tugging friends. I was stuffing my face with Lechon and being grateful that the food was so plentiful while Toby enjoyed the beer. The hostess walked up to me and said, “This’ll take some getting used to, huh?” motioning towards the shrilly screaming children, and I said, “Uh… yeah…” being too embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t even heard them. Like, there had been children screaming at the top of their lungs for about seven minutes and I’d tuned it out completely. I really hope I’m better when it comes to hearing my own child scream. Then again, this might be a good skill for not getting too stressed about the whole thing.

Eventually a girl came in who looked incredibly pregnant, and I was just dying to talk to her. Toby told me that her husband is an MMA wrestler and I was like, “Really… Wow…” and he totally played into this charade until the instant before I made a fool of myself by asking him about his wrestling career. He’s a deckhand, not a wrestler. Should have known. Anyway, I stage-whispered to Toby to ask how far along she was since I’m generally too shy to approach strangers with such a question. She was seven and a half months, and soooooo huge. My eyes widened with the realization of how much I truly still have to grow. She looked beautiful but said that her pregnancy had been horrible due to her hips separating. Like, her hip bones moving away from each other. She’s not confined to bed rest, but said that she can only walk and do no other extra activities. “What else would you be doing?” I asked, imagining her sky-diving or jumping on a trampoline. She pointed out that there was no walking in sand (no beach time!), swimming, climbing stairs, no anything but walking. Wow. I’m so appreciative that my body is being good and receptive and going along with these changes so well. All I really have to complain about is constant heartburn all the time, and compared to most things people complain about, that’s truly no complaint!

Twenty Two!

Our twenty second week bring a lot of stress and anxiety. We’ve got so much going on in life and are in a very transformative and changing period of life. It’s all good stuff, but I sort of want to fast-forward through it all. Toby is especially quite stressed about work, so Baby and Sandwiches and I are all trying to be as supportive as we can. Baby is moving so often, especially when I eat ice cream (ie, all the time!). We’re just realizing that we’ve got a mere month left of the second trimester! Can you believe it?! She’s very much proportioned in the way she will be as a newborn, minus her baby fat that she hasn’t grown yet. Hey skin is all wrinkly for this reason – she hasn’t grown into it yet! Sometimes I notice that my tummy is super hard, and I figure that it all depends on the way in which baby is lying. Every time I Doppler, we hear as many moving noises as we do heart beats. She’s such a tap-dancer already!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Not much

I’ve been in a funk and just haven’t really felt like writing at all. I feel fairly crappy about the fact that baby doesn’t yet have a room or a bed or a stroller or a car seat or a bathing suit. I realize it’s all just material crap that can be picked up in the matter of two days, but I still wish I was prepared in some way. So far she has a pair of slippers, two pairs of converse shoes, one pair of Toby’s baby shoes, one jean overall, and one hoodie. That’s not even enough to bring her home from the hospital! Whenever I bother Toby about it he says we can certainly go buy it, but makes the point that it’ll just sit in storage for the next four months, since we’ll be moving houses and are currently living with minimal stuff.

One productive thing that I’ve done this week: I signed us up for a prenatal class. It’s the day after my 28th birthday and less than fifty days before our daughter is born. I’m loving that my first child is coming when I’m 28 – I’ve always known it would be this way.

So, really nothing new and no news is good news when it comes to babies. She’s wiggling around and learning how to break-dance and I’m counting down fifteen more weeks of work!

Monday, July 19, 2010

21 weeks!

As of right now we’re not certain that baby is actually 21 weeks, but I’ll keep on tracking this way until I know for sure. This week she’s almost as long as a foot-long sub and her face is fully formed. She’s settling into established sleep patterns now – she sleeps 12-14 hours a day. I’m feeling her all the time, so I doubt that she gets her whole 12-14 hour span in a row. She’s swallowing and digesting like crazy and able to hear everything around her. When Sandwiches cuddles up on my lap I wonder if she gets scared about the groany monsters that live outside her apartment, so I’m also trying to expose her to as much music as possible. I’m sure her dad will expose her to tons of punk and ska when he returns from his long stint away. We’re seriously starting to consider a few names and it’s really sinking in that baby girl is coming!!!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Question of the day

Is it okay to paint my baby's nails?

Probably a crazy question, so probably not.

ETA: Oh, yeah. Babies put their hands in their mouths. It just came to me. But when she's 4+, we're SO going for manicures&pedicures!

No test drives.

I’m having a really hard time finding blogs to read. I was really into reading the deadbaby blogs for quite a while, and now I just can’t handle it. I still like reading infertility ones, but ones that are stillborn at full term, or even at twenty five weeks are just too close for comfort. I just can’t read them and cheerfully sit and feel my baby wiggle around all happily. Anyway, there seems to be a shortage of “everything is great! I’m having a baby blog! Hooray!” so here I am.

There’s been a customer that’s been coming in for a while. She was pregnant with her first child and around my age, so we were constantly asking questions of each other. She’d been gone for about three weeks and yesterday came in for the first time with her beautiful baby girl. And the whole thing, it was just amazing. I can’t believe that I’d just seen her mere weeks ago and now she had a whole baby in her possession! It was just so shocking and overwhelming. I asked her if labour was as she thought, and she said “not at all.” Like me, she was opting for no pain meds, but ended up with an epidural. She kept stating that she was glad she was open to it in her birth plan, because she couldn’t even imagine otherwise. It’s so… weird that this will be one of those situations that I have no idea how it will be until I get there. Sometimes when I have to somewhere for the first time, I’ll drive there beforehand to test out the route and to see what it looks like. I certainly won’t be doing that here!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

The good.

I’m so appreciative of all the outpouring of support regarding my midwife situation. It’s really encouraging to know there’s all that caring and listening out there. Thank you! It was really helpful to just write about it and move on. If it keeps going negatively I’m just going to move back to the original clinic I was at and otherwise stay and hope for the good midwife that I really liked. Regardless, I’m delivering at the same hospital, and regardless I’m having a baby. The rest is just details.

Some important new developments:

-At the ultrasound I asked if she was measuring big, and the tech said something about 21/22 weeks. At the midwife I was measured as 23 weeks. Hopefully with the upcoming ultrasound on July 29th, we’ll have a date for certain, be it the original of November 28th or perhaps even earlier! The way they measured my tummy is really neat – I’d read about it in lots of books but never really understood what it meant. They put the measuring tape at the top of my pubic bone, and run it up my tummy towards my head. Then they feel where the top of my uterus is (because it’s grown so much!) and with that measurement they’re able to tell roughly how many weeks you are along. So, supposedly, I’ll be growing a centimeter a week in the area between pubic bone and rib bone. So cool!

-My tummy is looking sooo pregnant and round these days! It touches things when I’m just doing the usual stuff at work and catches me off guard. Today I almost closed my tummy in the ATM when I was loading it!

-Knowing that baby is coming so soon gives me flutters in my tummy. I can’t even believe that she will be here so, so soon!

-The above statement also makes me feel a bit scared – not about the parenting and having a baby bit of it, but about where we’ll actually be. We’re in a bit of a transitional housing stage in life right now, so I’m still unsure about whether we’ll be in a new house by the time the baby comes. In that regard, I’m not envisioning myself having a nursery in our current house (even though there’s a perfect spot) and I’m not setting up anything at all. This is a bit difficult, seeing as reading all the pregnancy boards makes me feel like I’m very behind in actually acquiring stuff for baby. On the other hand, I don’t want to acquire a bunch of stuff when I know I’ll just end up lugging it around to a new house.

-Baby is moving! I seem to feel her swimming around in there both first thing in the morning and in the evening when I’m laying in bed. It’s nothing like a kick yet, but still more of an inside-my-tummy twitch. So cool!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Two more grievances until I’m done airing it out

The first thing that bothered me when I walked into the appointment was that the room smelled intensely like sweat. It’s true that pregnant women sweat more, and it’s been rather hot lately, but I’ve managed to keep myself scent-free for these past five months, and I’d expect others to do the same. As the midwife got closer to me, I realized that it wasn’t the room, but just her. It’s fine if she’s all natural and stuff, but it doesn’t mean she has to reek. I could recommend an excellent crystal antiperspirant, in fact, that’s both good for the body and for the environment.

She also said that there are problems in one percent of pregnancies. I commented that one percent is actually quite a large number and this is precisely why I like to be prepared for all possible occurrences in pregnancy. She looked at me like I was crazy and said that one percent is an insignificant number and not big enough to think about. Really? The world population of Jews is 0.7% and I know a hell of a lot of Jews. 1% of Vancouver’s population is 300,000. Three hundred thousand people are not insignificant and would fill an auditorium quite nicely. In this case, it’s not a matter of the one percent per se, but the blatant refusal to acknowledge my genuine concerns.

By writing about this I’m not trying to dwell on it, but rather just trying to process it and let it go. I’m happy that my pregnancy is going so well, and I’m happy to have all the resources and support that I need in Toby and in my friends&family. I’ve tried to think about this situation from both ends of it, and now that I’ve been able to write it all out, I’ll just leave it behind me and focus on the good. In the next post!

Ugh

My last midwife appointment, instead of being “a celebration of pregnancy,” as it’s been touted to be in their reading materials, was more of an exercise in making me upset, annoyed, and resentful. The whole thing started off badly. Since they’d already received the data from the ultrasound people, I asked for more details as what I was told from the tech the day prior was pretty basic. While I was told that she was about eighteen centimeters long, I wasn’t given any specifics on whether we were actually further along than we thought (as I’ve suspected from the very beginning). I also asked for reassurance about being asked to come for a second ultrasound, as I know it’s not the most common situation when it comes to ultrasounds. And then it went downhill.

She said, “Do you want something to be wrong with the baby?” she asked me.

I looked at her without replying, because I didn’t really understand the question. She went on to spout out new-agey crap for the next half hour (truly wasting my half hour) about how even thinking a bad thought will harm me and my baby and my spouse. By being knowledgeable about other people’s histories and situations (by reading books and blogs), she says, I am harming my family. Instead of being armed with all of the possibilities and information, I should walk around in a little dumbass lala-land stupor and just assume all is well. When I asked a basic question about which prenatal class to take (as I’ve never done this before and don’t know about the resources available) she told me that it was a decision I’d know how to make. Obviously. But I still want her to tell me where/when they are. At the hospital clinic they had a clearly posted sign on the wall. I wasn’t asking for a metaphysical speech on each thing I asked, but instead that is what I got. If I “already know” all the answers, as she kept asserting, I’d fucking crawl into the woods and birth my child amongst the trees and return to society with my face gleaming from eating the afterbirth. WTF? The whole situation was irritating and incredibly frustrating.

I want my medical professional to offer me medical advice. I understand the point she makes about a woman’s body “knowing” what to do, but I’ve never been in the situation of being pregnant and giving birth, so some input from the person who supposedly knows what they’re doing would be really appreciated. In the end, I didn’t even get to ask the questions that I’ve had written down for three weeks (which, thank you very much, ARE important to me) because I felt so frustrated about being given some hippy-dippy nonsensical answer to really concrete yes or no things I was asking.

When I got home I was really emotional and upset and Toby basically told me to ignore it all and to hope that we got the “good” midwife when it comes to giving birth. He also suggested going back to the clinic, but I don’t want to be so wishy-washy. I’m really regretful for not trusting my initial intuition about the place and at least I’m letting it be a lesson to myself to trust my mom intuition because it does indeed mean something. I’m fully aware that giving birth will be one day of my life and all I can do is concentrate and work with my man and my baby to be the best that it can be. And in the meantime, I will not go around dangling crystals over my belly and not reading books because that’s what this flake believes.

The ultrasound!!

A very quick post, since it’s a very important day but apparently it’s also a day in which everyone has to do their banking…

The big ultrasound went well. The tech quietly did all her work for quite a while, and most of it was out of my view, while Becca had a perfect view of the whole thing. The small bits I saw were: her little spine being all wiggly, her cute foot, and kind of a side-profile of her alieny face. And what did Becca see first? The lack of penis&balls! We’re having a girl! Although the odds of that occurring were totally 50/50, I’d grown so accustomed to calling her “him/he,” so in the past few days we’ve adjusted our thinking. For much of the ultrasound she was curled up into a little ball, so all of the pictures that were needed were not acquired which means another ultrasound in two weeks. We were assured that everything was indeed fine, and that the extra visit was simply due to her positioning, which was great since I’ve read a lot about second visits for not such simple reasons. Also, it’s great that we get to see her even more grown up before her birthday! They gave us four pictures to take home: one of her cute little fully-formed foot and three of her face in various smiling positions. She’s lovely and gorgeous!

Now I’m rushing this post, just because I really want to write about my midwife appointment while it’s still fresh in my mind. Stay tuned for more tales of our little baby GIRL!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Neat symptoms du jour.

My belly button is getting very shallow. For someone with a very deep belly button, this is really weird and exciting.

My nails are growing at a freakishly fast pace. I cut them on Wednesday, and now they’re super long again.

Supposedly, from now until the end my tummy is supposed to grow one centimeter a week and I’m supposed to gain one pound a week (whaaaaat?!). So funny this pregnancy thing.

Week Twenty!!!!

So, here we are, halfway though pregnancy! Look back and remembering how far this point seemed (from week seven, or nine, or all those other early weeks) I’m so amazed and happy that we’re already here. His or her genitals are fully formed already, and the digestive tract is hard at work creating that yucky first poo. He’s about 17 centimeters long and eleven ounces in weight. And today is our ultrasound!!!! I’m so excited to see baby for the first time in thirteen weeks and for the last time in the next twenty!!!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Almost...

All has been very quiet on the pregnancy front, while I wait with baited breath for the next exciting week to come. Monday is the big ultrasound, and Tuesday is an appointment with the midwife to look at said ultrasound data. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this, and I just want it to happen already. Three more sleeps until we know the sex of the baaaaaaby! I really know that I should not be wishing time away because as everyone says, all this goes by in the blink of an eyeball, buuuut… I’m just not good with surprises and waiting. So, while I’m not wishing time away at all, I’m anxious for just that tad bit of info. I want to know how long he is, how much he weighs, and if he is truly a HE!

Last night I was talking to Toby about the ultrasound. He’s not going to be here, so after much, much thought I decided on the next best person. I’m a little sad that he’ll miss out on seeing baby for the first time since he was 7w1d, but I’m glad that Becca will be there, since she’s going to be super involved in baby’s life and has been already. Anyway, I asked if he’d be disappointed for either gender, and he very convincingly said no. I said, “Just as long as it’s healthy?” and he said that he hadn’t even considered an alternative. I think it’s such an amazingly fantastic thing that we can counter my doomsday paranoia with his all-around nonchalance and positivity. He just knows things are going to be great, and he doesn’t really allow room for anything else. And that is how you manifest good things!

Week twenty, he we come!!!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Touch me baby, one more time...

Yesterday was met with two unsolicited tummy touches. I’ve realized that if the toucher isn’t some drunken dude cocking his head to the side and asking, “Who knocked you up, honey?” in a condescending way while patting my tummy in a swirly Buddha-like fashion, then I don’t mind it at all. Both touches were in a “WOW, COOL!” sort of way and both by girls, so they were both totally okay. I don’t think it’ll take long at all for me to adjust to people invading my bubble.

Last night while having dinner with a friend who’s not particularly keen on the baby-having thing, she bombarded me with a whole bunch of questions that hadn’t even crossed my mind yet.

“How will you discipline it? What if he’s a mean baby? What if you drop it? What if you forget to feed it? What if it gets sick? What if you turn into your mother? What if you don’t like holding it? What if he doesn’t like you?”

A lot of those aren’t really a huge concerns at this precise moment in time. At this point in mine and baby’s life we’re focusing on it being happy and comfortable in my melon-sized uterus and shooting it out in a healthy and timely manner. For the three months after that, we’ll focus on eating, sleeping, pooing, and dressing in the cutest outfits and hats we can find. Maybe I’ll worry about the rest of the stuff once we get there, but at least I know we won’t be dealing with talking back for a long time to come.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

I saw the sign

My most persistent pregnancy symptoms right now (other than my tummy gaining about an inch a day) are: heartburn, horrible nightmares, and congestion.

Heartburn: All the time. No matter how much or little I eat, or what I eat for that matter, it’s always there. Chewy Rolaids have truly been my best friends.

Nightmares: Everything I read says that nightmares manifest as fears you have about raising baby. Yet, none of my dreams even involve baby. In waking hours I don’t have big fears about dropping baby, forgetting him somewhere, making him turn into a crack head, or anything of the sort so it’s odd that these things should manifest themselves into nightmares about loved ones loosing limbs and me falling off of buildings.

Congestion: I start the morning with about eight really loud hiccups. I think Toby and Sandwiches think I’m faking it, but for some reason I feel the need to hiccup really loudly first thing in the morning. After that, I’m stuffy and congested until my shower and fairly okay thereafter.

Seeing these, I know I have it really good in pregnancy!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Number 40

My fourtieth post! And I have so many yet to go!

The best part of my weekend was spent at Baby's World. Well, the part that wasn't spent at Home Depot was spent at Baby's World, which was significantly better. It was so awesome in there; every single salesperson we talked to was so incredibly kind and helpful. They were also all really young and cute, but each one we talked to had children of her own, thus more relevant advice. Also, they were really non-pushy either way, and rather than automatically steering us in the direction of the most expensive items, they really recommended what was best for our particular situation.

I'm happy to report that I won't be having to trade in my car for a stroller! The leader so far is the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle with the "Carry Cot" thinggie so the baby can "sleep on the go." We'll definitely have to look at it again, especially to see if it fits in the back of my car. We'll be pretty squishy in there pretty soon - Sandwiches, baby, baby's car seat and stroller... and me! It was reassuring to get a start on this stuff, and we'll probably go back a few times. Also, they have my perfect reusable diaper system! It looks like baby will have to wear disposable up until he hits ten pounds (like a week or two) and then he'll be the most environmentally friendly soft-butt baby on the block!

Nineteen weeks

This week baby is developing all of his sensory equipment - he can taste, smell, hear, see, touch, and talk. Heehee! Actually, he can do all those except for talk. I read something super gross last night: the amniotic fluid that he’s swimming in tastes like whatever I’ve been eating. So, if I eat a banana, all that fluid tastes like banana water. Yuck! This leads me to believe that baby is really getting a good taste for cream cheese. Supposedly, he’s moving all around in there, but I’m not one hundred percent positive that I actually feel him. I’ve felt “flutterings,” but until I’m absolutely one hundred percent sure, I don’t want to say for sure that I feel him.

The most exciting development: ultrasound in exactly one week!!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Tummy!

Fourteen weeks pregnant:




Seventeen weeks pregnant: (at the happiest place on earth!)




Nineteen weeks pregnant:

Friday, July 2, 2010

Just shut UP!

I spent my Canada say stuck on a boat with a bunch of drunk people. Sometimes I can handle the situation better than others, but on this particular day I wasn’t at my most understanding. I had at least three men come up to me at touch/rub my stomach and at the time I did not appreciate the unwanted touching. I had a wasted young lady come up to me and slur, “I’m not just a dental hygienist, I’m also a great babysitter!” I opened my mouth to say something to the effect that my baby was not really allowed around controlled substances so it probably wouldn’t work out, when Toby shot me a look basically telling me to be nice. The only decent part of the day was going home, when everyone was so wasted that I had to drive the boat myself.

As time goes on, I find myself less and less patient with these situations. Perhaps it’s a bit better when I’m in an environment that I can actually leave (ie, not a boat in the middle of the ocean) but it’s also the fact that I’m finding these people not very relatable to relevant to my situation. Plus, it’s plain not fun hanging around everyone who is drinking and smoking when I’m not. However, it’s not a great idea to just suddenly stop interacting with everyone that I’ve hung around with for the past few years. The last thing I need to do is isolate myself further.

On the other hand, it’s been neat getting a different perspective into these sort of shenanigans. I’ve never noticed how annoying drunk girls were. Everyone just gets so petty and mean to each other, and they seem to think that the sober person is the one to vent to. For a brief glimmer when I got on the boats and saw all the pretty little girls frolicking in their bikinis (even though it was like ten degrees out) I thought to myself, “Oh, to be twenty two again…” and then I thought, “What?! I’d rather die than be 22 again!” I love the age I’m at, and where I am in my life! I wouldn’t trade that for a million string bikinis – and even if I could, I would never (ever!) wear them.