Babies and Maybes and Bears, Oh My!

You'd think that most of the women in my family were of childbearing age or something, but there seems to be a rash of babies over the last few years. Specifically the last 2...My sister N had her second baby in June 2007, J was born in January of 2008, then my sister M had her son in March of 2008. Now N is pregnant again, with twins. I strongly suspect that my newest sister-in-law, D, is pregnant but she is being understandably secretive about it if she is pregnant (see the Unfairness post below). However, given that she is not drinking coffee or alcohol, and her husband said something to the effect of "Yeah, she's not drinking but I'm not allowed to say why..." is a pretty good indication. May they (and any other ladies who jump on the baby train in the next couple months) have happy, easy, and healthy pregnancies and deliveries in the coming year!

As for bears, well...J likes his teddy bear. That's about it.

That Bittersweet Ache

I am sitting here watching J drink down a couple ounces of goat's milk with no breastmilk added. My throat tightens, I feel a deep pulling ache in my core as I watch my baby guzzle down milk that did not come from me without a problem. This ache also brings a sense of relief that if I can't pump enough milk, he'll drink goat's milk without a complaint. He's old enough that we are starting to transition him to goat milk anyway, so that after he turns one he will only be getting breastmilk from nursing when I'm home. I will be able to stop pumping in 13 work days, and J will be fine. He'll make the transition just fine. He'll keep growing and learning and soon he'll be cruising around and then he'll walk. Someday I will put him on a schoolbus, someday I will watch him graduate. I may see him get married one day.

I will treasure that bittersweet ache that I feel at every new milestone.

Eulogy

Neith has gone home. Tonight I took the hound out at about 6:00, in the wild, cold and blowing snow and saw Neith slowly making her way from her little corner. I watched as she painstakingly started to make her way down the wall of the porch. An hour later, I took the hound out again (yes, he pees a lot) and Neith had finally made it to the ground. I watched as she determinedly pulled herself into a small pile of snow. I took the dogs out again about5 minutes ago, and Neith is gone, completely entombed.

She never laid any eggs, and C and I were honestly surprised she survived this long with all the freezes we've had, and she hasn't had any food in many days if not a couple weeks. I am grateful to the service she provided in removing the insects from our vicinity, and to the help she provided in my overcoming arachnophobia. I am no longer afraid of that particular spider, and I am sorry she did not get to pass her genetic material on to another generation.

Goodbye, Neith.

26 Things.

Inspired by Cyndi.

Adored: my husband and son are, by me

Beagle-y: how MacGuyver's bed smells

Christmas: so very excited for J's first

Dippy: my other dog, Athena, who has gotten out again

Elegant: what I want to be when I grow up

Frail: my grandmother

Gross: sputum

Hilarious: RoboSapien on RoboRaptor on other Robo Dinosaur action

Ignorant: people who really really irritate me

Jazz: C's beautiful music

Kangaroos: on the wall in J's room, make him smile when he "says" goodnight to them

Literature: I should read more of this

Mother: I am, my mother is, my grandmother is, my great-grandmother was...

Nut: hazelnuts + chocolate = soooo yummy

Open: what I try to be with C, and he tries to be with me

Prescience: would it actually be nice to have this ability?

Quilting: I love this, I should try to devote some time to it again

Running: escape, burning off energy, freedom

Sing: I love when C does this, even/especially his goofy lip-synching.

Turtle: ate the frogs. I swear!

Umbrella: only the non-natives use them in Seattle

Varicella: itchy, couldn't go to a birthday party when I had one spot in my ear that hadn't scabbed over yet

Water: my plants probably need some of this

Xerox: the machine at work is squeaky

Zebra: differences in pronunciation are amusing.

Watcher at the Window

I was looking at some of J's little baby pictures (I know, he's still a baby; 10.5 months and 21 pounds of baby, but a baby) and realized with a bittersweet ache how much he's grown. Every day he becomes more like a toddler baby than an infant. One of his favorite activities is to stand in front of the window and look out. Of course, that involves C or me placing J in a standing position, but once there, he grasps the windowsill with his little chubby hands, stands up on his tippy toes, and strains to look out the window, since the windowsill is about level with his nose. He will spend as long doing this as we are willing to spot him for, until his legs get tired. He had never really showed any great interest in standing until fairly recently, so while most babies will stand with help from a few days/weeks old, J would not. He would tuck his legs up and just laugh. Occasionally he would indulge us by standing for about a second on both legs before tucking up his feet, but that was all we'd get. We never got him a jumperoo or anything (*gasp*) so he's got some strengthening to do of his legs.
When his legs get tired, he prefers to be held up to the window, where he can press his little palms against the glass, and rest his face on his hands, and just gaze out the window. I wish we had a windowseat, that would make this much easier on my arms. His keen interest in observation, and his stubborn desire to keep looking out the window at the tree and the grass and the cable box are just markers of his blooming personality. He's really turning into a little person, reflecting Mommy's desire to study the world and Daddy's stubborn insistence that he do things just so.

A Happy Goat

This seems to be the world's happiest goat. Click the picture to get to the blog from whence it came. Happy Thursday!

Things I Miss, and Don't, About Being Pregnant

I know that I am getting closer to ready for baby number 2, since the thought of being pregnant, and morning sickness, and a risky delivery no longer scare the bejeezus out of me. I do still worry about my next delivery, wondering if I will have the massive hemorrhage that I did with J, but hope that the placental abruption was a one time thing.

Things I miss are feeling those first little kicks and jumps, and then the later rolls. Seeing the heartbeat, and my baby, on an ultrasound for the first time. Watching my belly grow, and making fun of my freaky belly button which never even flattened out, just got really small like a teensy star. Feeling the kicks from the outside, playing with him during meetings and talks. Knowing that I was going to have a baby after so many years of longing but waiting. Hearing the heartbeat on the doppler. Being spoiled rotten by my husband.

I do not miss the morning sickness (all day nausea, daily puking), meat aversion for 18 weeks. Having to sleep elevated, on my back, for the first 15 weeks so I wouldn't gag. The lack of sex drive. I do not miss my boobs getting ridiculously big (started out as Ds, went up to Fs, then after my milk had settled they were Gs. They still haven't gotten back to a D). I do not miss the stupid comments from strangers at work. Gestational diabetes. Contractions 5 minutes apart regularly from 33 weeks onward. Sciatica. Being uncomfortable for the last 5 weeks. Having to pee all the frickin' time. Hormones running amock. Heartburn.

I hope I will be ready to have a second child in another couple years. I think I will. I'm actually starting to get excited about it...

Updates and Randomness

The spiders are both still alive, and since we've only had one freeze they don't seem to be suffering for want of food. Neith has not laid any eggs, so I don't know if/when she will but I will be keeping an eye out to have an idea of her remaining life.

J has learned how to pull himself up to his knees, and sometimes will stand up (supported, of course) for a few seconds until his legs get tired, but he is definitely showing an interest in it! He is also a champ at sitting up from crawling around. It's amazing to me how much more toddler-like he is becoming, and how much less baby-like. He has fortunately not lost any interest in breastfeeding (yay!) so it looks like we can continue to nurse for at least a year. I am, however, counting down to when I can quit pumping (<2 months!) when he turns one.

C and I had a date on Friday (#12). We went out for coffee at this cool local place that we usually like, that has live music on Friday nights. Their coffee was not very good, the service sucked, and it was so loud we could hardly have a conversation. I overall enjoyed myself, but C didn't have that great of a time, unfortunately. Well, at least we went out and spent time together without the baby! That counts for something, right?

We are going down to see C's parents on Thursday to get our Christmas card pictures taken, which I normally would wait on since I do respect the turkey but Snapfish is having this great deal on holiday cards that I just cannot pass up! (Enter CARD08 at checkout, get your first set of 20 4x8 photo cards for a penny each! Good through Nov 23.) So naturally, that entails figuring out what C and J will wear, since I already know what I am going to wear. I think we will have to go consignment store hopping and find J something cute since I will not pay $20 for an outfit that he will wear once.

Do Spiders Hibernate?

Sweet Neith (dear god, did I just call a spider sweet?!) lives in a reasonably unsheltered corner of our porch. It is very cold here tonight, and I am a little concerned that she will perish. Bud at least has siding to hide under, Neith wouldn't fit any more than a few legs under the siding. She is currently huddled up in a pathetic little blob in the corner (in the picture below, she is the little blobby thing; sorry for the craptacular picture quality). I hope she survives the night, and then when it warms up tomorrow she will find a place to hibernate. Do spiders hibernate?
Ok...following a quick Google search, it seems that Neith and other spiders of her ilk (orb spiders and some others) do not, in fact, hibernate. They live for one year, lay their egg sac, and die during the winter. Sad.

On a related note, tarantulas do hibernate, and some females have been found to live 30-40 years! I think that Bud may be of a hibernating variety as well, but since I am still not sure what kind of spider he is, I don't actually know that.

Accomplishments!

Yay for getting things done! I have found a psychiatrist (#21), AND closed one of our credit accounts (#20). Woot! Go me! Plus, I am now about 1/4 of the way done with my list.

Of Dates and Money (or Lack Thereof) and Blessings

As I finished reading Cyndi's most recent entry, I realized that I am also blessed. Yes, C and I are struggling. But we have each other, and my job is not going anywhere unless the NIH gets shut down. C's job at BabiesRUs, well, that's not so stable. As of this week, he is now working a grand total of 7, yes, SEVEN hours per week. A month ago, he was working 15. *sigh* But, we're lucky, because he does have a job. He's looking and applying to at least 3 jobs every day, which is made much harder by the fact that he does not have a college degree since the U screwed up and told him he was all set, but left him 2 classes short of graduating when it came time to graduate. But that is neither here nor there. I am horribly stressed out about money, but at least we have enough to pay our bills, we own our house and it won't go anywhere no matter what (Grandma's the bank for our mortgage, we bought the house from her and she owned it outright. WOOT!), and our car runs.
All this considered though, we are fortunate.
5 things I am grateful for:'
1. my family, the whole mixed up bunch of them
2. my job
3. my friends, however little I actually see them
4. our house
5. my husband, who is such a wonderful father to our son and even though he is having trouble finding a new job and is stressed out, manages to make me feel loved

Speaking of C...while he was taking me to work this morning (after his whopping 2 hour shift), I mentioned that GoodTimes has a new pumpkin cheesecake spoonbender, and that we could probably go on a super cheap date and have a spoonbender and go to the dollar movies or something for under $10. We both admitted that it would be a lame date, but realized that we have not been out on a date since our anniversary which was 4 months ago. And we have only been on 2 dates since J was born, the other one being for our birthdays. Yeah. 2 dates since January. Of course, this defines a date as "without the baby." C tried to tell me we'd been on one more recently but I had to remind him that it doesn't count if we bring J. I need a date with my husband, to reconnect with him. Screw the movies. I just need to be able to do nothing with him, or go on a walk, or something, just the 2 of us. Something that doesn't require much money, since, as C is so "fond" of reminding me, we are poor and getting poorer.

Blessed. I am blessed. I must remember how many people are worse off than I am.

Apparently 5 of you like chocolate

At least, the 5 of you that took my poll. I would have thought that someone would not like chocolate, but I guess everyone likes it! Really, I can't blame anyone, I really like chocolate. A lot.

My 101 things to do in 1001 Days!

Having read Kate's blog, I got the idea for creating a list of 101 things to get done in the next 1001 days. Starting today. I think this will be a great experience! I may not get all of them done, but I hope to get most of them done! My list will be off to the side of my blog by all the stuff I've got stowed away over there. It is a work in progress and may take a little while for me to get everything listed, of course, but I am trying!

Another Spider Buddy!

Apparently Neith has the upper part of the porch covered as far as bug control goes, so a new, smaller spider, Bud, has moved in. I don't know if Bud is actually male, but I have decided that he is. Bud takes care of any bugs that happen to get near our doorknob. I actually watched him catch a mosquito a couple of nights ago; it was very interesting. Unlike Neith, who weaves lovely "traditional" webs, Bud seems to take the more minimalist approach and made a small, maybe 1" wide web that spans a corner for a few inches. The mosquito walked up the corner and was trapped under the web, at which point Bud struck and dragged the bitey bastardess to her doom. Bud seemed to enjoy his meal. I am currently researching what kind of spider Bud might be, but here is a picture of Neith's cousin, who looks very much like her. Same color and markings. It's pretty easy to see where the species gets it's name, huh?

Yay for Free Stuff!

Free stuff for voting!!

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?threadid=989221

Not that this should be your only incentive, but hey, it's a nice reward.

Really?! Rocko Diesel?

I really have no words to express this, other than WHAT?! I know that I probably have a different upbringing, and background, and experiences than these people, but really. I just can't understand being so...closed minded. Telling people that gays shouldn't be allowed to have children, they shouldn't be allowed to marry, and to take your child to the doctors office wearing a onesie about how "Mommy didn't think I was just a ball of cells." And in Seattle of all places. I have NEVER encountered quite such an odd person...
The Tale of Rocko Diesel.

Well, actually I worked with a guy (in Lynnwood, north of Seattle) who was very nice except on the topics of Muslims (well, extremist towel-heads is what he called them, I am only assuming he meant Muslims), gays, and liberals. Then he was a raging bigot. It is truly bizarre to me that someone's sense of self can be so tied up in being upstanding and "good" and yet that person can become a raving lunatic, and literally be beyond reason, about things that they find obscene or offensive to one of their other beliefs. Do these people feel about me (being pro choice) the way I feel about people who torture/burn/kill/rape children and animals? There seems to be a huge gap in logic somewhere. I only hope that children born to these people don't perpetuate the hatred of others for blind reasons, but deep inside I feel that hoping that is an exercise in futility.

Unfairness

My newest sister-in-law (DRK, married to C's oldest brother, DSK) recently lost a baby. She has a daughter from a previous relationship, but this would have been DSK's first kid. They were devastated, and the whole family was very sad, when we all found out that DRK had miscarried. They are moving on, and going to try again in a few months.

C's sister's (R) brother-in law (Ron) and his girlfriend (Jenny) have a 1 year old. They hadn't wanted any children at all, aren't married (not that this really matters) and quite frankly are too selfish to be what I (or anyone else in the family) would consider truly devoted parents. Jenny is also a pathological liar (i.e. said her OB told her not to stop smoking while pg, b/c it would hurt the baby...also pretended to have gestational diabetes, which I did have, so this really pissed me off; she also just lies about all kinds of crap regarding their son). Anyway, they have just found out that Jenny is pregnant again, by accident. OK, if you don't want kids, period, and you've already had one "accidental" baby but don't want more, there are PERMANENT OPTIONS. There is no reason to bring another "unwanted" child into a house with 2 selfish parents, and a mother who is a chronic liar, when people who deserve to have kids like DRK and Bada/Dulce and many others want babies so badly but have lost their babies.

This is why I have a really hard time believing that God/Deity of your choice actually cares about things like this. Don't get me wrong, I still put requests/prayers out into the universe, but the unfairness of it all is a bit depressing and frustrating sometimes.

Politics+Religion+Hormonal Women= A Frigging Circus

Whoa nelly...I can hardly wait for this election to be over. I support people's individual views, so long as they aren't hurting anyone else. However, when anyone on any side of the political spectrum says things that aren't true, I take issue. For instance, someone on a Nest board had a picture in her signature that apparently depicted Barack Obama as a Muslim (wearing a turban) and said under it "Change you will submit to." Some people thought it was funny, more were offended, and many thought it was racism. Either way, the whole nest seems to be in a uproar, with the racists/religionists and the uneducated taking offense at the offense that's been taken, and the overwhelming majority on all sides of the spectrum in a tizzy. The hormones just make it more fun. I would like to state here and now that Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He is a Christian, and he converted of his own free will as a teenager. I am sure people would be making the same stink about John McCain if he'd been born a Muslim and converted later, just in the spirit of being "patriotic." (Or would they, since McCain is all white, and everyone is a little bit racist sometimes? If you don't "get" that: Avenue Q)

I say "patriotic" because it is apparently the "American" thing to do to hate people of the muslim faith and call them terrorists. Two of my older siblings think that Senator Obama is a Muslim, masquerading as a Christian. Of all people I would expect that they had more sympathy to his situation- they were BOTH born and raised Christian, and now have converted to Judaism (well, sort of, they're Messiahnic Jews, which is a whole other can of worms). So apparently they are the only people allowed to convert to a different religion. I work in a hospital that treats everyone in need of help for respiratory or allergy problems. My older brother actually told me that we should turn away everyone of the Islamic faith because they're all terrorists. What the fuck? Since some crazy people decided to be terrorists, we should assume that everyone of their faith is, so not treat them? How the hell is THAT a Christian/Messiahnic Jewish thing to say?! I don't think that Christianity has any room to talk (Inquisition, anyone?). It wasn't everyone of the faith that promoted that, yet somehow Christians are not branded as terrorists. Hmm. Perhaps its a matter of recent versus distant history.

For the record, I am a Liberarian. I don't particularly love any of the candidates, but I agree more with Senator Obama's views (like say, 60% agreement) and on BIG issues (for me) like the right to choose and scientific funding (ok, DUH) than Senator McCain, Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, or Ron Paul (about 10-20% agreement). I do not like Sarah Palin, and the fact that she could potentially be president scares me. She is too much like a small town girl in a big city. Sure she's intelligent or she wouldn't have become governor. I just don't think she's even remotely a good leader or sub-leader for this country. She promotes predator-control hunting, which I, as a wife and daughter of hunters who is pro-hunting, have serious moral issues with. If you need to control the population, great, but chasing animals down in an airplane and shooting them is not the way to do it. Would it be so hard to shoot them with tranquilizers and then euthanize them (perhaps this is costly, but surely the government could find some money to fund this option...after all, they found enough to bail out the banks. Hell, maybe AIG would fund it. You know, instead of the spa)? Growing up I was taught that if you aren't going to eat it or use it, don't kill it. Even animals being raised for fur are killed more humanely than that.

There are some things about Palin that are good. She's a good mother, she chose to raise a baby with Down Syndrome when the overwhelming majority of women given that choice choose to terminate (I had once found the stats on this on cdc.gov, but don't feel like tracking it down right now). She may very well be a good governor when she isn't abusing her power. I just don't want her near the White House.

And now I am tired of writing/thinking about this for today.

Summary of my Polls

Apparently, after a whopping 5 people voted, total, between my two polls, I should be an ultrasound tech, and name our spider Neith. Not sure who voted for monkey trainer, but thanks anyway. Now I made a new poll!

Fall Pictures of J

I went up to my mom's house yesterday to take pictures of J. She lives in the mountains so her autumn is better/further progressed than ours in the "lowlands" (of course, still over a mile high, ha ha). And of course, J's lucky shirt worked because the Broncos won!! YAY!


In other news, the new Nest/Bump/CRAP format SUCKS ASS. I hate it. I want my old nest back.

Also, a fun spider name poll has been added. We have a cat-faced spider living on our porch (no pictures here, because well, some people are freaked out by them. Myself included, but I am working to overcome it.). If you want to know what she looks like, feel free to Google the species.

What a pain in the ass

I don't know what to do. I am supposed to work M, T, F approximately 9-5, and W and Th I come in later because C works those mornings and I stay with J, so I end up working about 11-7. Which *seemed* to be fine, but lately every week on either W or Th or both I have sputum to process or a bronch to collect samples from at like 8 or 9 in the morning. So I have to find a sitter for J, which is a pain in the ass, because none of our family is really very close by (at least, none that can babysit, my mom is close but works 50+ hours a week), they are all 40+ minutes away from our house. The closest is my older sister, but she is 40 minutes from our house and about 30 from my work, so my commute time about doubles. She's great, but I cannot drive that far more than once every few weeks, so it's insane to try to use her as our emergency sitter every frickin week. We could put J in daycare, but what's the point for 3 hours at a time? Also, if we had to take him to daycare a couple days a week, there goes everything C makes, so therefore defeats the purpose of him having a job.

I am just so fed up with this bullshit. I need a new fucking job but there's nothing closer to our house that I am qualified for, and we can't sell our house in this market and even if we could we wouldn't be able to afford anything else. This institution claims to pay within the average range for technicians, but that's a load of crap. We looked on the state's website, we get paid in the 10th percentile. Yep, they sure love their research bitches. I could earn 40% more at another place doing basically the same job if I was willing to have an hour long commute, but I'm just not willing to spend 2 hours a day-minimum- driving instead of 1 to 1 1/2...I also can't quit right now anyway because I am indispensible. I would have to train my replacement, which would probably take a couple months. In the meantime, our money is all going to pay our bills, we don't really have enough for all that plus gas and food.

Oh, and C didn't get that job we were hoping for after all. And Sarah Palin scares me, and she gives Alaskans, women, and hunters a bad name.

Yeah, I'm just having a fan-fucking-tastic day. Is it 5 yet?!

Yay for Fall!!

Happy October! It is a lovely, albeit warm (like 80 degrees...) autumn day, and I am stuck in the lab. I have a lovely view of downtown Denver from my desk though, where the leaves are just starting to turn and the mountains are slightly visible through the haze. I took a picture with my phone, but I don't think it will turn out terribly well. I am posting it anyway though.

See? Kinda craptacular picture, but nicely represents my view...I think...

I just got off the phone with C, he may have a full time job lined up at a law firm doing clerical work. Paying 20-50% more per hour than he makes now. This would mean that I could cut down my hours to 4 days a week, and we'd only have to put J in childcare (boo!) 4 days. Hopefully with my mom's friend part of that time, maybe my older sister could watch him another day, and we did have a potential in home caregiver that would cost $110 for 2 days a week...I love when things start to work out!

Poor J, though, is cutting all 4 of his top incisors at once. There are actually tooth shaped bumps, where you can see that the teeth are just stretching the gums, so he's absolutely miserable. I really hope they pop through soon, he comfort nursed for 2 hours this morning, so I got nothing done at home before leaving for work.

Argh!

C is a musician, a bassist more specifically. He plays jazz, usually, but can play other genres if he so desires. Anyway, he was in the process of working with a local singer in trying to get a small group together for gigs, probably by next summer. If this were to work out, 10 gigs a month would replace my income and I could stay at home part time, and cut back my hours at work to half time(ish). Well, it turns out the singer isn't going to be able to do it after all. On top of it, we have no money. What else is new, right? Yeah...so we're going to try everything we can to get some money to make it through this month, but that's what we do every month. I am going to sell (hopefully) my MK inventory to another MK consultant, which will help somewhat, and we're going to sell our entertainment center. Between all this, somehow, we are going to pay our mortgage. Hmm. Not sure how that's working out, but I guess we'll manage. We are very fortunate that our mortgage is financed through/by my grandmother, since we bought the house from her, so payments are more flexible than they would be with a bank. I am just really frustrated and stressed about all this right now. But hey, at least my meds are working so I'm not fighting off a panic attack as well.

I'm also really not so thrilled with my job anymore. I mean, the people are okay but I don't really have any friends here. Well, I have one friend. I really don't have many friends in general, at least not that I see on any sort of regular basis (like more than once or twice a year...). It's really hard to have friends and do stuff with them when you live far away from them, when you are the only one with a kid, and when most things friends do cost money (i.e. shopping, dining out, meeting for coffee, etc). But I digress. My job is really not very interesting. I process samples that come from people's lungs, one way or another. I listen to the other people in the lab bitch about things that I have no interest in, or make plans with each other for the weekend, or whathaveyou. I feel isolated. I know they aren't doing it on purpose, but my part of the lab is naturally isolated; I work on human samples, and with our research clinic, and the rest of the lab does not. They have other projects and collaborators, and they have a different boss than I do. So there's sort of a natural division there, and I know that nobody is consciously pushing me to the periphery, but I really does feel that way. I miss my grad school lab, we all got along great and had a blast together. Of course, I don't miss anything else about Seattle, but that was a big thing. I am now in such a quandry, because I need the money from my job, and I need something close to my house (which my current job is not especially, but it is the closest job in molecular biology that I could get), and we need insurance, but I am not happy at my job. I could get a higher paying job elsewhere (maybe) but it would mean spending 2 hours a day commuting instead of 1.5 hours a day. I want to teach, but that requires getting certified, which requires classes that cost money (though my work reimburses up to $2000 a year for full time employees to further education) and I don't want to teach while I am actively having children because I've heard maternity leave is a pain, and pumping is near impossible to manage while teaching. *sigh*

In happier news, J started crawling yesterday! I was at work and missed it, of course, but I will see it soon.

My dog climbs trees

One of our dogs is a basenji-whippet-lab mix (best we can tell, we figure one parent was a basenji and the other was a whippet-lab mix). She is gorgeous, and actually her nickname is Pretty Girl. I think she actually thinks that's her name, but she responds to Athena too, so maybe she just accepts her nickname. Anyway, as the shelter we got her from put it, she is "not small animal safe" in the least. She spends a good portion of her day looking out the window for bunnies and squirrels and cats that would be good to eat.

When we take her to the dog park, she invariably finds a tree to climb. Yes, that's right, a tree. She is very good at climbing up, usually between 2 and 6 feet off the ground, usually after a squirrel. However, the getting down part is not so easy for her. It generally ends with her either jumping gracefully or falling ungracefully out of the tree. As C put it, he never thought he'd have to tell his dog to get out of that tree.

Here is a picture of our Athena, testing out the boppy.
Here's one of both dogs, trying to fit in the same kennel (it is the hound's kennel). The "hound" is MacGuyver, he's a 3/4 beagle 1/4 basset hound mix. His nickname is "hound."

Podcasts that I love

I have subscribed to a number of podcasts for a few years now, and I thought I would share some of my favorites. I am currently listening to Pseudopod, one about a bunch of evil leprechauns. Highly entertaining. Pseudopod is a horror podcast, featuring short horror stories of all sorts. You can find it at pseudopod.org.

I also really really enjoy Escape Pod, the science fiction short story podcast (escapepod.org). Interestingly, Escape Pod is the "mother" podcast of Pseudopod and PodCastle, a fantasy short story podcast (which is at podcastle.org). I've only listened to one PodCastle, but it was pretty enjoyable.


I find that podcasts of this nature are far more interesting than listening to the radio during my commute to and from work each day, as well as during the day when my experiments are dragging along...

What to do...

C left for Wyoming to go hunting today. He's going with my dad, brothers, and one of my dad's friends. Last year he had a great time, lots of fun just being with the guys. He absolutely deserves his break from being a stay at home dad, and his job that he hates. I am just going to miss him because he won't be back for a week. J and I will have fun though, it hasn't been just the two of us together so much since I was on maternity leave! Well, actually even then C was around, so it hasn't just been J and me since last September when I was pregnant.

This should be fun! I will have the whole house to myself (well, with J and the dogs, of course). I am going to finish the new floor in the master bathroom, get the whole house cleaned, play with J, go on walks...and I don't know what all else. Wish me luck!

Things I'd rather have than a head cold...

I hate being sick. My whole family is sick. Poor little J kept me up all night (ok, every couple hours, for a half hour at a time, all night) because every time his nose would fill with snot he'd start crying. So now I am exhausted and my sinuses feel like they are full of cotton, and my head is all fuzzy, and my nose can't seem to decide if it would rather run or be stuffy. On the "up" side, I have paid sick days. C is worst off, he's got a horrible fever and the head cold. J is currently in his room, in his bouncy seat, taking a nap. He spent all night in his bouncy seat, since sleeping upright meant he woke up every 2 hours instead of every 45 minutes. Of all the colds to get, I hate having a stuffy/runny nose/head cold worst, because my nose gets all red and I produce more snot than should be legal. I produce copius amounts of snot anyway, when I get sick it just gets worse.

These are some of the things I'd rather have than a head cold:
cough, sore throat, and fever
laryngitis
the flu
stomach flu (because at least you'll lose weight, and it doesn't last as long as morning sickness)
horrendous menstrual cramps
a migraine
a broken finger or toe
a sprained joint
a regular headache
mono


Here are some of the things I'd prefer a head cold to:
Ebola
HIV/AIDS
morning sickness
diabetes (gestational or otherwise)
broken legs
flesh eating bacteria
abscessed tooth
hepatitis
cancer

Now, off to take a nap for me.

Tomato!

I got my first bitty little tomato today out of my garden! I have a bunch of green ones but this was the first red one. It was all of 1/2" across, and so sweet and yummy. My peppers are also getting fruit, and one of my zucchini plants is producing like crazy (ok, it's made 2, but that's pretty good for my first one!). I love harvesting stuff I grew from seeds! It's so cool.

Idiots

I had to send a sample to a central processing center in Kansas, because I have to prove to the company that I am trained and know how to process the samples for their studies. I sent this sample, on 5 kg of dry ice, on Monday. It arrived in Kansas, and they promptly forwarded it to...Quebec, Canada. Why? Because they are stupid and do not read the shipping labels addressed to them. Now I am trying to track down the person who called me from the pharmaceutical company in Quebec (she didn't give me her contact information, and I didn't catch her name when I spoke to her) and tell her to throw away the sample, not ship it back to us. Ugh. What a pain in the ass. This study is SO not worth it. But that's why they pay me the big bucks (as my dad would say).

I do NOT need this stress right now. My meds have been adjusted to 75mg sertraline instead of 50 (yay, I hope). I am in the process of finding a psychiatrist (since my midwives have about the same amount of expertise as a GP, so they can't do much more for me) and waiting to hear back from my insurance about what they cover regarding mental health care,. I know it will be a $40 copay, but I don't know how many times I have to make the copay, etc. It ain't gonna happen if I have to make a $40 copay twice a month or something, we just can't afford it right now. We actually can't afford anything right now, we already overdrew our checking account with our mortgage payment and we're maxed out on one credit card. We're desperately trying not to use the other cards, since we're trying to get rid of our debt. We actually had PB &J for dinner last night. When I called the bank Tuesday to find out if they could/would lower the rate on one card, they pretty much told me that they can't do anything, and that nobody will help us until we've defaulted on our payments. Nice. So, all you people out there in our shoes, where you know you're heading toward financial trouble, just keep on truckin because no one will help til you're already totally screwed. Awesome.

Irrationality and Zombies in my Head

C had a dream about killing zombies last night. Maybe it was some sort of metaphor for killing the state of my brain.

I forgot to take my meds
Makes for fun today
Irrationality
Hating my head
Looking out through someone else's eyes
Zombies taking over
Killing my sanity
Pendulum of moods
Creates chaos
Makes me want to play with pain
But not really
Klassy people here can't stop swearing/whining/existing
Why can't they grow up
I know I'm not rational
Or all together
I just want to hate them
Without feeling unjustified
GET OUT OF MY HEAD

Container Gardens

Since we live in a townhouse, my garden is confined to our front patio. Over the next several years, I am going to try to optimize my space so I can grow us a substantial amount of food (we'll see how well this actually works). C made me a 4 x 2 x 2 foot planter in which I am attempting to grow the following:
10' tomato plant (climbs, with trellis)
2 zucchini plants
chives
wild spinach
2 regular tomato plants

So far, the spinach has done well, the chives are thriving, the zucchini plants are huge but have so far only produced 1 fruit, and my 10 foot tomato is about 2 feet tall and doesn't seem very happy. I don't think it was meant for this sort of climate. My other tomatoes are doing well and actually starting to grow a couple little fruits, so that's exciting. I had tried to grow some carrots in there too but they all died, I'm not sure what killed them.

I also have (next to my roses) two pots containing 2 pepper plants each (they seem to be getting close to making flowers), a large pot growing sugar snap peas (yum!), one pot with a tomato plant in it, and several potted flowers. The veggies are all doing well, the peas actually grew really well, then seemed to finish their crop, then died, but new pea plants began growing up just next to the old stalks, so there's a whole new crop of peas coming in now. I had no idea they would do that.

I am not sure my garden was started early enough...maybe next year I will try to get everything outside planted by the end of April, since it is now August and my garden seems to be lagging behind those of my friends and family. I did harvest the first zucchini today, though, and I am really looking forward to using it in chicken kabobs for dinner one of the next few days!

I would also really like to grow strawberries next year, and hopefully will have better success with sunflowers than this year. Mine are all scraggly and sad, I think I will have to plant them in the ground and not in a pot. I might eventually take some pictures of my garden plants, when they aren't wilty from the heat, to post here.

A Whole Bunch of Random

There are so many facets to what I want to write now... I guess I will just go and see where the words take me.

I was reading the blog of a Nestie who has lost 3 babies, all in the first trimester, but babies nonetheless. I am so grateful I have never been through that, and so devastated for her.

I know it isn't the same, but I still mourn what could have been. When I was 17, C and I had a condom break at the wrong time of the month, and I went to a local clinic with sliding scale pay and got Plan B. I feel in my heart that I prevented a pregnancy, I could feel her presence even in the few days between her conception and what would have been implantation. She was in my dreams, and for many months and a few years after that, I would find myself thinking about how far pregnant I would have been, how old she would be, what she would look like. I wonder what it would be like to have a 7 year old and J at the same time. Would I have gone to college and graduate school? Where would C and I be now? I guess it's probably time to let her go, since she never "really" existed...and maybe she will come back to me someday.

I keep hoping, desperately I fear, that this mental state is temporary. I keep praying that it is only PPD, because that goes away. Right? I want it to go away. As time passes, though, I think it isn't temporary. I am going to be like this forever, and there's nothing I can do about it. I can take my meds, I can go see my midwives for follow up appointments, I could go see a shrink. It doesn't matter. I will always be a mess, I will always have heart palpitations, panic attacks, OCD, depression. I wish it would just leave me alone. I want to feel comfortable in my skin again, all the time, not just occasionally. I can't stop this. I can't control this. I hate this. I shouldn't be allowed to feel this way, I have a good life. I have a husband that loves me, a wonderful baby, a wonderful family, two wonderful dogs. What is wrong with me?

There's a game someone at work found that we've all been playing. It is fantastically addictive. The goal is to make a disease to wipe out the entire planet. It is called Pandemic 2, if anyone cares to attempt it. It's on website called Crazy Monkey Games. Good times.

I've taken my first (little) step toward getting certified to teach middle school science. I found the CO state website detailing the requirements, and printed out a page that lists the coursework I need to have taken. Now all I need to do is go though my transcripts to fill it out, and see where I am deficient. I think all I need is a physics class and 2 environmental science/astronomy/geology or something like that classes (though my honors thesis was in ecology, it doesn't count because I didn't actually take any courses specific to that field), which I *should* be able to get paid for by my work since we get a $2000 a year tuition reimbursement for things related to our job. I think I can swing it right... So maybe starting next Spring I can start working on it! I want to stay at my current job till we have baby #2 though, since by Oct of 2010 I will be able to take 12 weeks of paid leave.

Why middle school science and not high school? I have a number of reasons. One, a good friend of mine used to teach middle school. She had originally planned to teach high school, but she discovered that in high school you teach subjects; in middle school, you teach students. I want to teach students. My own middle school sucked. We were treated like criminals, all of us. I want to show my students that even though everything seems crazy (since really, adolescence is about as crazy as it gets), they can succeed and there are adults that can show them some respect and that care. I want to be the one to plant that little seed of "Oh, so that's how that works." Also, I have taught college students. I found them incredibly depressing to teach, because they are idiots. Not all of them are, but by and large I was disappointed in the entitlement they seemed to feel, the fact that most of my students couldn't write a sentence to save their lives. The few "stars" I had did not compensate for the many others that made me sad for the future of the world. High schoolers are too close to college kids, I think I would be disappointed in them, too. Middle schoolers are intelligent enough to understand a lot of things, but not so far gone that I would feel that my attempts to impart knowledge were futile. We will just have to see what happens with this!

Here are some roses in my garden.


I call this one "Imperfection."

The Great Breastfeeding Controversy

My son is 100% breastfed (of course, he gets some solid foods each day now that he's old enough). I am proud of myself for having breastfed him for almost 7 months, in spite of clogged ducts, mastitis with a nipple infection, and thrush. I know that not everyone is able to breastfeed (let alone for this long), and not everyone chooses to breastfeed at all. I just find it somewhat upsetting that any time someone says anything about being proud of how they've been able to breastfeed for x amount of time, there is usually someone around to try to make them feel bad about their decision. Either they will be told that breastfeeding is gross, that not everyone can bf so they should just keep it to themselves and quit rubbing other people's faces in it, that babies should be weaned as soon as they get teeth, that formula is just as good (which is not true- formula is adequate nutrition, and has helped many babies, but not equal to breastmilk), or some similar sentiment will be expressed. No wonder fewer than 30% of babies in this country are breastfed up to the first year, with such prevailing views.

I know that I am doing what is best for my son. I love the closeness of breastfeeding, and was heartbroken when my mastitis was so bad that I couldn't feed him on the left or it would bring me to tears from the pain. But we overcame that, and I fully intend to breastfeed my son until he's 2. I am sorry that not every woman has a wonderful experience with breastfeeding (not like it's been all puppies and rainbows for me, either), and that some women don't get to experience it if their milk never comes in or something. If you choose to formula feed from the get-go, fine. Just don't take out your anger/frustrations/whatever about it on me and make me feel guilty or bad about breastfeeding when I am not judging you for using formula.

Happiness is a warm baby

J wakes up early, around 5:30 or 6 every morning, which is no big deal because that's what time I get up anyway for work, or to take C to work. Generally when J wakes up at that time, he's awake for an hour and then takes a nap for a couple more hours. I'm always amazed at how fast a tired baby falls asleep! Literally one minute he was playing with his toys on his playmat, and the next he was sound asleep. I took the opportunity to scoop him up and snuggle, since I rarely get to just hold my sleeping baby. He's so warm and sweet, and perfect, it reminds me that life is truly wonderful.

J's Birth Story

Blogger is really cool in that I can post things in the past! Here is my son's birth story, actually posted 15 months after his birth. How is that for some crazy...

If you don't want to know the details of my son's birth in all their goriness, I suggest you stop reading now. The times are approximate, as C relayed them to me, since I really don't remember much.

Preface: I'd been told I was in "early" labor for about 2 weeks before J actually made his debut. I'd had contractions consistently every 10-15 minutes during that period. I had sort of given up timing them and just finally decided to go with the whole "can't function through one" guideline rather than anything else for when to go to the hospital.

My water broke at 1am Monday morning, January 7. I absolutely felt J just pop his little hand right through the amniotic sac. Interestingly, I did exactly the same thing to my mother when I was finally ready to be born. For about a half hour the amount of water pouring out was really funny to me (I was walking around with a soaked towel between my legs, laughing my butt off) but then the contractions hurt too much for me to feel like laughing. There was some moaning, sitting on the labor ball and vomiting into a clothes hamper, and then we decided I couldn't handle being at home any more. Good times. We got to the hospital (and checked in) at 3am, and I was 3cm and 90% effaced. I spent some time in the tub, which was fantastic and honestly the best pain reliever/relaxer of my entire labor and delivery, and in retrospect I wish I had stayed in there longer. I labored naturally for a while, until my back started hurting too much and I couldn't relax well between contractions anymore. Basically at this point, every contraction felt like someone was stabbing a knife into my colon from the inside. Lovely, right?

By about 6:30 am I was 7cm dilated and decided I really needed an epidural because I just couldn't breathe and relax through and, more importantly, between contractions anymore. The back labor was a huge part of this decision, as was the 3 hours of sleep I'd had. On a scale of 1-10 I would rate my pain at this point at about a 9, and figured I'd better get the epi while I still felt like not dying. I got my epidural around 7am, they had to give me a bag (a bolus, I think they said) of IV fluid first. For the first few hours of the epi I felt great, and wonderful and relaxed. Then about 11am the epidural started to wear off. I first noticed that my back pain was coming back, then that I could feel contractions in my crotch and my butt (oh trust me, the details get much gorier than this). Within an hour it was to the point that I felt the need to push even though I was only 8 1/2 cm dilated so they tried to get my epidural to work some more, with no success. They ended up having to totally redo the epidural (so yes, I got two of them) at about 12. They also started pitocin at this point to make the contractions more useful in helping me dilate. The second time around was nice for a little while but right around 2:30 it started wearing off too.

I was finally 10cm (completely) dilated at 3:10pm (14 hours after labor began in earnest). Pushing is really really hard. I had no idea how hard it would be. We tried a whole variety of positions, the most effective of which ended up being with me flat on my back (which is usually the least effective and worst position to push in). Any other position I tried just sort of reversed what progress I'd made. Finally at 5:15ish (I think, my mind was obviously elsewhere at this point) they paged an OB (not the one I'd seen for ultrasounds, he was out sick) and we talked about the possibility of a forceps delivery (which my mom had with me, too). The doc and I decided that forceps was the best thing to do, and he mentioned that there was an increased chance of tearing, but I said that was fine, just don't give me an episiotomy. He fortunately shared my views on those. Since at that point it was pretty apparent that the baby was facing straight up, the anesthesiology department was called to revamp my epidural (one of my legs was still totally numb, but my crotchal area (is that even a word? Oh well, you know what I mean) did not feel very numb. The extra epidural medicine helped somewhat but holy lord does pushing with forceps hurt. I honestly am surprised I didn't tear more (but we'll get to that later...). Finally after pushing harder than I've ever pushed in my life and hurting more than I thought possible with or without an epidural, J's head finally came out. This part felt like my pelvis was going to break in half, I kid you not. As I've said, he was facing up toward my front rather than toward my spine, which was the cause of my horrible back labor and probably the slowness of my dilation (though I think that the limitations imposed by the epidural, had something to do with it as well). The midwife asked if I wanted to feel his head. I said "No, just get him out." As C put it, his head just kept coming and coming, and when he finally was all out I didn't even get to hold him. They rushed him over to the warmer, where his APGAR scores were 7 and 8- 7 at 1 minute, 8 at 5 after birth. No babies in CO get 10. In the meantime I was being prodded and delivering the placenta (a very very weird feeling by the way). They finally brought J over for me to hold while I was having my 2nd degree tear stitched up. All that and only 1 little tear, and it didn't even hurt as much as I thought it would. Then C took the baby and they started trying to get me to stop bleeding, which had I been more in my senses would have been really scary. C was totally freaked out. After all, if a little blood looks like a lot, a lot of blood looks like you don't have any left. Overall, during pushing and post-delivery, the midwife and nurses and OB were estimating that I lost 1200 ccs of blood (1.2 liters; this is about 1/4 of my total pregnant blood volume). I was very white. I only remember feeling really really weak and that they massaged my uterus which hurt a whole lot (worse than the contractions, I think, because I was so sore and exhausted anyway) and sent blood spraying all over. They gave me Pitocin and a couple other things to make me contract so the bleeding would stop, which eventually worked. By the time they were done the delivery room looked like a murder scene, and my midwife had to go change out of her blood covered scrubs before going to see any other patients and lead the tour of the L&D ward. I finally got to go to the recovery room at about 9pm, meaning it took about 3 hours to get me stable enough to go there. And by the way, in case you were wondering, a Tylenol suppository does not make your ass stop hurting after delivering a baby in the posterior position.

For my recovery I was put on bed rest for 16 hours every day, along with taking copious amounts of iron supplements and iron-rich foods. I think that the iron supplements and their after-effects were seriously the worst part of the recovery process. Hemorrhoids made their first appearance in my life, and my poor perineum was so sore from pushing and being stitched up that the last thing it needed was hemi's on top of that, but alas. Such is life, I suppose.

Introducing...me

I have never written a blog before, but I figured it might be good for me to start writing a journal again. I'm not entirely sure what on earth possessed me to make a public blog, but here I am. The title of my blog is of course taken from the lullabye, my son's favorite (well, I don't actually know if he likes it, but he stops crying when I sing it). I realized that there are so many levels of that song, but obviously, the whole premise of it is to bribe your child to stop crying. I sing the song, knowing that I can't actually buy J anything right now that isn't baby food (or otherwise fairly essential). Not that he really needs anything, we use cloth diapers, have a huge stockpile of wipes, and he's breastfed. We got most of his clothes from my brother-in-law and his wife, since their son is a year older than J, so that worked out well.

I may as well introduce myself a bit, at least. I am 25, live in a suburb of Denver, and work in asthma research. I have a BA and a MS. I am married to my high school sweetheart (C), and we just celebrated 4 years of marriage (9 years together total). We have two dogs, and own our townhome. Our son J is our only child so far, and he was born January 7. I used to do a lot of short fiction writing, but lately I haven't had the time/motivation to do so.

I have struggled with depression for a very long time, since I was at least 12 and maybe a little earlier. When I turned 23 I finally did something about it, and started getting treated. I am on a low dose of sertraline, and generally it does a good job of keeping my depressive cycles on the upward swing, my panic attacks at bay, and my OCD under control (not that it ever got too bad, I wasn't washing my hands repeatedly or anything). One of my clues that I was/am beginning a downward part of the cycle is that I feel the need to compulsively clean. I have been doing this for the last two weeks, hoping and praying that it wasn't going to go any further. Well, it seems that tonight I've made some further downhill progress. I feel...empty inside, lacking motivation to do anything. My temper has had a shorter fuse than it normally does. My heart starts pounding out of nowhere, I can feel the anxiety building and I live in dread of when it will actually burst into a panic attack. The visions that come with the OCD have begun to frequent my days once again. I fortunately never feel like hurting anyone, but I hate this. We've already increased my dosage once since J was born. I desperately want to be normal again, like I was when I first started my meds and everything was under control.

I am going to go clean the kitchen now.

My Pregnancy With J!

We had been TTC from January to March of 2007, and decided to take a break once I got a new job so I would be eligible for FMLA. Well, as they say, even the best-laid plans of mice and men sometimes go astray. I was charting using fertilityfriend.com and got a really nasty chest cold with a fever in the first part of my cycle, so I couldn't really tell when I ovulated. However, since I was past CD20 we figured we were "safe" and had sex, and the next day my temp dropped back into pre-O, pre-fever range. I got pregnant on CD28, and we were thrilled to be expecting. It was a little scary at first, but soon my excitement overcame my apprehension. DH was actually less nervous than I was! Our little boy is due January 17, 2008.



Symptoms: Starting around 9dpo I had a runny nose (definitely not allergies). I constantly felt "wet" and had creamy CM, and when checking my CP I noticed that my cervix was really tender. I also had achy AF-like cramps from 9dpo-ish onward. My sense of smell went nuts (I swear I could smell DH's breath from across the room, and it wasn't even bad breath!). I noticed that I was really thirsty, and also chocolate chip cookies I made at about 12dpo just tasted weird to me but DH said they tasted just like every other batch I'd ever made.



Morning sickness: Started at 5 weeks on the nose...in the middle of the night. I have been consistently fine in the morning and sick at night. So much for "morning" sickness! Still sick at 11 weeks, and my gag reflex has been getting ridiculous. I gag sometimes for no reason, and sometimes when I am talking. By 13 weeks, it has mostly tapered off, but I still feel barfy sometimes in the evening. I was throwing up one to two times a week til 15 weeks, but after that it was gone! Well, just about. I did throw up once at 18 weeks, too.


Landmarks: Felt baby at 14w1d. Woke up at 15w3d with a belly, and really popped during week 15/16 transition (at least I think so, see pics below). Big u/s at 19w, it's a healthy boy! Penta screen came back normal. Baby James really hates the doppler. At 13 weeks he wouldn't even sit still for it, so I got a bonus u/s to see the heartbeat. At 17 and 21 weeks he spent most of his time kicking or punching the probe before we could hear the heartbeat. DH first felt him move at 23weeks, 2days, but I'd been able to feel him on the outside for a while, he just always quit kicking when his daddy tried to feel. At 28 weeks, I was measuring 5 weeks ahead (vs 25 weeks, measuring 26) and I failed my 1 hour glucose test. At 30 weeks I was measuring 34 weeks. A quickie u/s confirmed my suspicion that DS is head down. I took my 3 hour GTT at 31 weeks on the nose and the next day was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I will be working with an endocrinologist, as well as sticking to the South Beach Diet to control the GD. Hopefully I won't have to take insulin. 


33w1d, Nov 30: Our "practice" trip to L&D! I started having contractions at 4:30 pm that were 6-10 minutes apart, lasting at least 30 seconds. When I got home from work I tried drinking a liter of water, peeing, laying down, eating, taking a shower and taking a bath, and they would not stop. Instead they were getting closer together and a little stronger. I called the midwife on call at 8:30 the first time, and the answering service paged her for 2 hours. Turns out they were paging the wrong MW. When I did finally get in touch with the correct MW at 10:30, my contractions were 4 minutes apart lasting an average of 45 seconds and they were starting to hurt a little. We were instructed to go to the hospital, where we were sent up to L&D. They took a urine sample to rule out a UTI (which I didn't have), and hooked me up to the monitors to just watch things for a little while. Baby J really hates the doppler/fetal monitor, which is no surprise since at 13 weeks he wouldn't even sit still for it, so I got a bonus u/s to see the heartbeat. At 17 and 21 weeks he spent most of his time kicking or punching the probe before we could hear his heartbeat. So our time in L&D was punctuated by lots of him kicking the hell out of my ribs during and between contractions, and punching the fetal monitor. At about midnight I got my first shot of terbutaline and they did a Fetal Fibronectin Test (FFT). The terbutaline gave me the shakes and sent my heartrate from 75ish to 95ish. It was awful stuff, and it really didn't do anything for the contractions other than maybe slow them down a teeny bit. About 45 minutes or an hour later I was given another shot of terbutaline, which shot my heartrate up to 120. My heart monitor did not like that and beeped a lot. All the while the baby was still kicking the crap out of me. The second shot of terbutaline did about as much as the first, and made me even shakier. We finally got the results of the FFT, which were negative (meaning a very low chance of preterm delivery). The next day was my  baby shower, so we went home at 4am and slept until 11am, when I got up to go to my shower.

33w3d: We started the nursery!

34w4d: I am finally measuring right on! The baby has now dropped. I didn't really notice other than an odd buzzing/vibrating sensation in my pelvis at 34w, and suddenly my mid-belly panel pants stay up (before the panel would roll down). Since finding out that I've officially dropped, I notice that I waddle and I have to pee more frequently (though DH won't admit that I waddle, he even said that if he thought I was, he wouldn't tell me).

35w5d: Measuring 4 weeks ahead again. Boo. And now my contractions are painful, wahoo! At least it's a good excuse to practice my breathing. We may have a baby before New Year's, since my MW said that they likely wouldn't stop labor at this point since I'm so close to 36 weeks.
 
36w2d: Labor has begun! I had a really scary thing happen today where I was timing my painful contractions and felt something leaking, ran (ok, waddled really fast) to the bathroom and found that my panties were soaked with bright red blood. We went to the hospital and everything is fine, the bleeding stopped within about an hour. Plus, I'm a fingertip dilated. My contractions have remained fairly consistent (max. 15 minutes apart). The MW says that the cause of my bleeding is most likely a pocket that was formed when my placenta moved up, and when I started dilating it all came gushing out. My MW said I am in early labor, so most likely the baby will be here within the week.
 
37w2d: Still no baby, still in "early" labor. Dilated to a "loose" 2cm. Started losing my mp (still losing it at 37w6d...apparently you make more as you lose it. Fun, eh?) Also got stretch marks and what seems to be the appearance of PUPPP this week. Measuring 41 weeks at 37w6d.
 
38w4d: HAD THE BABY!!! See this post for my birth story.


1st Trimester: (Weight gained/lost is total gain/loss relative to original pre-pregnancy weight)
Weeks 1-4- Month 1 - COMPLETE! (135 pounds, +/- 0 pounds)
Weeks 5-8- Month 2 - COMPLETE! (-2 pounds)
Weeks 9-13- Month 3 - COMPLETE! (-3 pounds)

2nd Trimester.
Weeks 14-17- Month 4 - COMPLETE! (+3 pounds)
Weeks 18-21- Month 5 - COMPLETE (+8 pounds)
Weeks 22-26- Month 6 - COMPLETE (+15 pounds)

3rd Trimester:
Weeks 27-30- Month 7 - COMPLETE (+16 pounds)
Weeks 31-35- Month 8 - COMPLETE (+17 pounds)
Weeks 36-40- Month 9 - COMPLETE (+18 pounds at 38 weeks/delivery)

 


 

16w1d. I think I popped! Several people have commented on my new belly! (Pardon the messy messy bathroom....)

  

18 weeks...DH is much taller than me so the angle makes my legs look really funny... (and Athena the attention whore!)

29 weeks 5 days. Holy belly!

The night before delivery (38w3d)