My Inner Nine Year Old Boy is Working Overtime

REFUX

Go ahead, say it out loud. Didn’t you giggle? Just a little? It’s how my 3YO pronounces reflux. Yesterday, I decided that maybe the projectile spitting up vomiting, (I’ve been informed that when the spit projects it’s consider vomit. Oookay.) and the congestion that BS seems to get while nursing might be indicative of something. (I considered that the projectile poop might also indicate something, but have since been informed that “projectile poop is normal.” Of course it is.) I was thinking maybe a food allergy? So I decided that maybe I should cut the obvious culprits from my diet for a week or so and see if it makes a difference. Obvious culprits would be dairy, chocolate & caffeine. Dairy & chocolate would be my worst offenses; I’ve already been avoiding beans, broccoli, cauliflower & cabbage and I don’t do much caffeine on it’s own. Since not having my Vente Decaf Mocha every morning AND evening will just about kill me I decided to call the advise nurse and see if it made more sense to do one item at a time (and can I substitute soy, which is highly allergic on it’s own, for milk? I can use soymilk and prolong the loss of my mochas for a week or two until I have to lose chocolate.) Or would it be better to do it all at once & add them back one at a time. She called me back, asked a bunch of questions and then informed me I should be bringing BS in to see the doctor, how was 12:15 for me? It was currently 11:45, I love how they make you feel like mother of the year over this stuff.

So after much poking, prodding and questioning the doctor gave us a sample swap to swipe BS’s poop onto 3x in the next week to see if there is an indication of any allergies. She didn’t think so, but “to cover our bases.” She also gave me a list of things I need to do with BS to try and limit the spitting up; adding rice cereal to a once-a-day breast milk bottle, avoiding formula (we hadn’t used it in over a week, so not an issue,) and then mostly ways to keep her upright. Depending on her (lack of) improvement we’ll know better if they want to try medication with her or not next week. In addition to all of this poor BS has a herniated umbilical cord. I noticed it the other night & mentioned it to the doctor. She checked it out and said it would heal itself & didn’t hurt her. I’m not convinced about the hurting part. The thing sticks strait out when she’s crying, it looks like it hurts. Have you ever seen a belly button stand up? That's what it does. Ouch!

In spite of all of this BS is up to 8# 4oz (Wahoo!) Considering that she’s sleeping 6-8 hours a night consistently and spitting up half of what she’s taking in, I think I can let the kid tell me how often she wants to eat now. Like it’s ok if she wants to go longer then 3 hours during the day.

Back to my inner nine year old boy; I find it humorous that yesterday, my poop posting day, was one of the highest trafficked days of my blog. Guess I know what I need to talk about if I want more visitor, huh?

It’s Bodily Function Day!

Yes, that’s right it’s bodily function day at the house O’Speak. If you’re squeamish you should turn back now. I think it really says a lot about me that I’ve gone 6 weeks without a post about baby poop. Isn’t that usually the primary fodder for bloggers with new baby’s?

ToddlerSpeak

TS has been more or less potty trained for several months now. She does still wear pull ups when she sleeps. I decided not to mess with the current arrangement until well after BS was born. I figured the move, BS’s birth, etc… was a lot to ask, so why push it. Well, TS has given me the reason; she’s been waiting till she has the pull up on and then pooping in it. This really hit a new low now that she’s decided to take it off (full of poop) and “clean herself”.

Very special.

The other highlight that’s been happening with TS is that she has decided to start peeing herself during the day. For attention. No pull up involved, just regular clothes. She’ll have just gone in the potty 10 mins before and then suddenly announce she’s going. When she did this for the 3^rd time the other day I asked her, “Why did you do that?” And she said, “Because you have to clean it up.” I may have to kill her. Guess who's cleaning up now? Instead of death I settled on losing the pull ups altogether. So yesterday and today she wakes up dry—Wahoo! And promptly pees & poops (Saturday) in her PJs while standing on the bed. Lovely.

Babyspeak

BS has become what you (or at least my parents) would call a “spity baby”. Every time she eats she spits up. Not just a small teaspoon amount either. This kid can heave. It has now progressed to where she projectiles at least once a day. Usually the “jet vomit’ occurs within the first hour after she eats first thing in the AM. She’ll have eaten, burped (she makes her mama proud on this front too) and spits up like normal so you’ll think you’re clear. Then you put her down in her crib and about half an hour to an hour later she’s crying. You go in there & there’s a trail across the crib. I have a mat underneath her, so hopefully if her diaper overflows or she spits up I’ll only have to change the mat not the whole crib. Yeah, right. This kid often manages to miss the mat altogether. She’s kind of amazing when you think about it (and so is the amount of laundry I’m doing these days). Or she’ll have done the trail and when you pick her up, it’s underneath her, down her back, etc…Very impressive. Honestly, it's hard to believe a child her size can put out that much. She also manages to pack some force with her poop. Luckily the worst we’ve gotten on that front is up the back, which is gross, but no where near as gross as it would’ve been if I hadn’t been holding up a wipe when changing her diaper the other day and the “projectile poop” started shooting out.

There’s your visual for Monday.

EIGHT HOURS!!!

Yes, I said EIGHT HOURS, the child slept for eight strait hours last night. I, on the other hand, did not sleep for 8 strait hours. I had to stay up till midnight to pump (she fell asleep at 10 after nursing). Then at 4 AM the cat, realizing we might actually be getting a full night of sleep, decides to have a hairball on the end of our bed!!! GA-ROSS! I woke up before she really got going & kicked her ass across the room off the bed. But now I was awake and had to clean it up. Never-the-less I did get in a “decent” night’s sleep last night.

Today is 6 weeks! Can you believe it’s been six weeks already???? I think her weight is about 7# 9 oz by now. Cool. At six weeks I feel like I should so have may shit more together then this. But I don’t.

I was able to get out of the house today in 2 hours (including 2 time outs for TS) and everyone had clothes on and hair brushed. Yes, I even had on my makeup. So maybe I am getting my shit more together then I think. Or maybe getting some actual sleep makes a difference.

On a non-related side note; a friend of the family (someone DS grew up with) have been dealing with an unbelievable tragedy. Their 6 YO daughter fell 2 stories in an elevator shaft last week. She survived, and in fact is making incredible progress. You can read about it here if you’re interested. If you’re the praying type, would you mind including them in your prayers this week? As a mom the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach, and since we live far away, asking you to help pray for them is about the most productive thing we can offer them right now.

Ok, more later. I’m off to nurse some more. MOO!!!

Who’s the Queen Now?

I’ve always said I’m the “Queen of Everything”, which makes TS “The Princess of Quite A lot”. But after these I’m not sure who’s the Queen around here. Hee, hee.

This Week(end) has been hard

TS is acting out and having melt downs in ways I can’t begin to describe. It doesn’t seem related to BS, but who knows. I guess we just have to get way more “hard ass” with her over everything, stop giving her so many choices, and consistently make the choices things like, “You can do this or I can do it for you. Now.” It’s hard, I'm still sleep deprived and trying to keep my head above water when things are “normal” and then she pulls the crap she’s been pulling and it’s like I don’t even know how to describe how I'm feeling. My frustration level is through the roof.

I told DS that I think she needs to start going to school 3 days a week. I told him this on Wed & things have been worse since then.

He laughed at me.

I wasn't joking.

I do know that I need to get back on my little flylady system. I started the process of it again this weekend. I’m so frustrated that getting out the door in the morning is taking 3.5-4 hours!!! (This includes feeding BS, usually 2x because by the time I get out stuff together to go she's due to eat again.) I realized that my morning routine needs to be revamped; it just isn’t working for me with two kids. I pulled my timer out and started timing how long it’s taking me to do each task so I can set a realistic routine and allocate some of the tasks to other parts of the day. Hopefully, this will help me get some sanity back (and maybe even more sleep.) So I’d better go now, since my time on the computer is up, more later.

Blogger is Pissing me off

Ok, I wrote how Blogger was pissing me off. I couldn't get a photo to load on that last post to save my life.

However on a whim I thought I'd give it a try on a new post & volia. Go Figure.

So this is NOT the pix I was trying to load. This is a pix of TS giving BS "nosey kisses" something she likes to do often.




This is the photo I was trying to upload. It's kinda dorky, but it's BS's first "smile" (probably gas, but I'll take it where I can get it, right?)

I'm hoping I might even get a birth story up for you this weekend (don't hold your breath). Ok, I'm off to bed, I'm exhaused.

One Month

(I have some pix I'm trying to upload for this, but Blogger is not playing nice tonight.) Keep checking I'll get them added. Honest.)

Well it was one month on Saturday, May 27, but life was happening & I couldn’t seem to get to the computer for any length of time until now. I did manage to get on long enough to find a bargain on a stroller frame ($25!!! Wahoo!!! Craig’s List Rocks!!!) which DS & I picked up tonight.

I’m so cool.

On the non-kid front, outlaws left today (a large part of the reason I couldn’t get on here for any length of time; I was competing w/DS & FIL for computer time in the short bursts of free time I did have, so next to impossible.) Also, my mom is having some major health problems. I think it’s something that can be managed in way that it will hardly make a dent in her life (assuming she gets very proactive about it right away). But I may be naive in my thinking, and that’s assuming she’s on board to kick it in the butt right off. That’s a big assumption; it’s more likely that if she were committed to changing her life that dramatically she probably would’ve done it already. She’s very upset about it right now, so it may be something she’s willing to take on now. I hope so, she needs to be around for a long while. Who else can drive me nuts quite like her?

As usual, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. I have lots more to write about, but I’m going to give BS a paragraph & get to bed. I’m still exhausted most of the time.

So now, back to BS, who this post is actually supposed to be about; as with most second children she’s obviously getting less attention then the first. I’m talking about my blog postings. The kid wants to eat every two hours so she’s getting plenty of actual attention. I do believe that rather then calling me “mom” she will be referring to me as “lunch”. As in, “Hello Lunch. I missed you today.”

Overall things are going very well; she’s up to 7# 4oz (Wahoo!!!) which is exactly how much they want her to have gained. Her weight & height are both in the 5% so she’s a small baby. Note: this does not equal small quantities of diaper changing or contents. We’ve even had a couple nights involving 6 hours of sleep (More “Wahoos!!!”) Dr has given us the ok to let her sleep like that at night (assuming she’s eating at least every 3 hours during the day.) We’ve been setting the alarm to make sure she eats every 3 hours, even if she doesn’t wake us for it. She does seem to get “colic” most nights (usually between 8-midnight). All pray to the Mighty Vibrator Chair Gods is all I can say on that one. And she is starting to be awake for a couple hours here & there during the day, even getting some cooing & smiles.

This is the good part.

Happy Anniversary!

It’s FIVE years today! So much has happened in that time I can’t believe we’ve only been married for five years. I had hoped to write something really eloquent about how great our marriage is, how much I love DS and how lucky I am in general, but it wasn’t meant to be I guess. The outlaws arrived today. We also celebrated TS’s b-day with the whole family tonight, so as predicted when she was born, we no longer have an anniversary, we have a child’s birthday. We decided a while back ago to start celebrating our anniversary on our engagement, although we are going out for a nice dinner tomorrow night. That being said, this is about as eloquent as I could get, (yes, I know it’s cheesy, but it’s all I got right now) and I’m barely even making it on here before midnight. So I should just be pleased I’m getting this up, right? Definitely gives you an idea of the state of our lives right this second.

Happy Anniversary DS, ILOVEYOU!!! Here’s to many, many more years of being at least as happy as we are right now. Thank you so much for all the happiness and love you’ve given me.

(If you want to see our wedding album it's still on the photographer's website. We clean up real good & it’s a very cool album if I do say so myself, but I'm a little biased. Yes, he's wearing a kilt--it's in the family tartan. We're cool like that.)

5 years of being happily married
4 pets
3 homes
2 kids
1 TRUE LOVE

Happy B-day Miss TS.

I think back to this day three years ago and I’m amazed at the person you’ve become. You are such a beautiful person inside and out; you’re smart and funny and have great empathy for everyone around you. I’m excited to watch you continue to grow and amaze me. I’m also sad when I think back to how fast the last 3 years have gone already. You’re no longer a baby or even a toddler, you’re a little girl, you would correct me and say BIG, but work with me here, I’m your mommy and as I tell you daily; “you’ll always be my baby.”

When TS was born I wrote down her birth story & scrapbooked a page in her scrapbook. (I crop in my free time; I just haven’t had any in the last 6 months or so. HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!) So in honor of her on her 3rd birthday I did a version of that here.

A Family is Born

I had a relatively easy pregnancy with TS. No morning sickness (although I some sinus issues that made up for that,) I actually slept better then usual, my skin was radiant, and I generally felt really good. During my pregnancy I attended pre-natal yoga twice a week. I attribute the yoga to all my good and restful feelings and I recommend it highly. I also attribute it to the hernia I acquired in the sixth month. I didn’t really realize what I’d done until the seventh month when TS “dropped” and put her head on the hernia—very uncomfortable to say the least. By the time I was nearing my due date the weight of the baby on that spot was really starting to wear me down. At 37 weeks Dr. B said TS was healthy and ready to go, so there was no reason to be that uncomfortable any longer, I could induce when ever I was ready! We scheduled the induction for May 24 starting at 6:00 AM. We were so excited our little princess was finally going to arrive. Once we had that date we suddenly found tons of things that needed to be done around the house. It was a very busy week. May 23rd we stayed up late getting ready. We figured we wouldn’t get much sleep anyway. As we were getting ready for bed I told DS how glad I was we were inducing because the baby suddenly felt a lot heavier and like I was carrying her differently. I finally fell asleep sometime after midnight. Then at 2:30 AM I woke up with a start, before I knew it my water suddenly broke! (Our little princess was actually a Drama Queen, she wasn’t being told when to make an entrance—she was calling the shots.) We called the doctor who told us to head to the hospital, she’d let them know we’d be early. As we were driving to the hospital (about 10 minutes away) we passed a fast-food drive-thru that was very busy. I commented to DS, “You know people are just heading home right now.” It seemed so surreal, that was us just a year ago. We got to the hospital and settled in. We didn’t call anyone since they were planning on coming to the hospital later anyway. While contractions didn’t really hurt they were getting intense and at 4 minutes apart would definitely be keeping me awake. It was at this point I asked the nurse if they could give me something so I could sleep through the contractions. I wanted to try and get some rest before everyone showed up. They gave me fentiol which just made me sleepy and slowed down the contractions to every 7 minutes. But they were just as intense! I’d start to doze off and then wake up every 7 minutes and glare at DS who had crashed completely in the recliner. (So Rude!) At 8:00 AM they agreed to give me an epidural so I could sleep. I was scheduled to start pitocin at that time and they expected things to get much more intense. I was only 2 cm at that point but I told DS “I’m not dying or anything yet, but if this is only 2 cm, this sucks!”

Oh heaven, no pain at all.
And I could still feel my legs!

I took cat-naps as various people came by to visit. By noon I was at 5 cm and they told us it would probably be another 5-6 hours. Then a couple hours later they came to check me and I was 10 cm already! The nurse called the doctor and told me to push to get things started. I did, and apparently I did so well she called the doctor again and told her to come strait over now! I pushed some more. DS and my mom helped me by holding my legs, and SIL videotaped. I had a mirror so I could see the baby coming out. I was very concerned about the epidural preventing me from pushing well and therefore having to be turned off or down. I figured being able to see what was going on would be me focus and stay motivated. Watching the baby in the mirror was actually very distracting; I’d start watching and forget to push as hard. But it worked out fine. I’ve had harder work outs (of course, I’ve never been hooked up to pain killers during a work out.)

At 4:50 PM ToddlerSpeak was born.

And so was our family.

Kicking my Butt

Quite literally. This back pain thing is really on my backside, in my hip and it’s killing me. I should’ve bought stock in the company that owns Tylenol. Seriously. It’s the main reason I haven’t gotten back into my regular blogging (or cleaning or anything else for that matter.) The worst is the stairs, which I have to go up to get to my computer. Second worst is if I’m walking and carrying something heavy—like say a child. It scares me a little because I’m afraid I’m going to either lock up completely or my leg will collapse out from under me. Yes, that’s how bad it is. I can’t get into my physical therapist again until June 1. BAH!

Outlaws are showing up again. Actually, I’ve had lots to report over this trip, but just no bandwidth to write it. There was much drama over this visit; they were ignoring my request for a month without overnight visitors and had intended to show up on the 18th. DS and I went back & forth on it, but he did push back with them & they did agree to this week. There’s much more to it, but I’ve got 2 minutes (maybe) before TS gets out of bed & comes in here, so that’s all you’re getting on it for now. Plus I know I’ll be back online sometime today (tonight) as I just realized that I need to send out an evite for TS’s b-day party (we’re having on June 3rd) because I don’t have my shite together & it’s now too late to send out the invites we bought. (Don’t tell her, cause I did manage to get to a party store last week with her & let them pick them out—Cinderella, of course.) Her b-day is tomorrow. I’ll see if I can’t pull up her birth story & post that then. No pix right now as she’s opening the door to her room. More soon, I promise.

And the Insanity Continues….

Here’s the thing. I’m starting to feel like I’m getting a groove, but then I realize it’s just because I’m actually getting a little sleep at night now. It still takes me over 3 hours to get TS, BS & myself out the door. And usually that means I didn’t bathe them or I forgot to put my make up on or something. So I feel like I’m doing better, but then I get out the door & look in the rear view realizing I’ve got like the splotchiest face on earth. Reality Check. Sigh

BTW, BS is eating and gaining weight like a champ now. She’s also started being “gassy” in the evenings & all night the other night. I can deal with that stuff a little better. Not life threatening, just healthy lungs.

In case you were wondering, my mom’s day was not stellar. Just as we were putting everything on the table TS had a mach 10 meltdown. As this progressed BS ended up needing to eat, (I had planned the day so we’d be finishing dinner and I could run upstairs and feed her w/out impacting everyone else. TS’s meltdown threw everything off kilter.So much for planning.) My mom & SIL ended putting everything together on the table. Nice. I guess it’s just part of being a mom.

And just to keep you up to date on what’s happening with me; I’m having some major back (pain) issues. It’s been getting progressively worse since labor and by yesterday I could hardly walk. I got into a physical therapist, who informed me that my tailbone is locked into my pelvic bone and being pulled forward. Yes, it’s uncomfortable (that’s an understatement.) She thinks probably the baby was on my right side which is now all stretched out and my left side was pulling everything forward to compensate for the weight & space of the baby. Now that baby is out, my ligaments & muscles are still pulling (everything is all loose & out of shape as you might guess) and have started pulling everything out of whack. I felt better yesterday after she worked on me, but it’s getting back out of whack again. I’m ok as long as I’m not moving. Minor detail.

Ok, there’s your update. Hopefully, I will start to actually get a groove and be able to start checking my email & posting on here more regularly. Plus you’ve got your promised pix. More to come, of course.

Under Construction

Ok, I know I TOTALLY owe you photos & stories & such. And here I am changing my template without an update. I was just checking a couple things on other people’s sites (Bean’s Dad is now a dad for the 2nd time BTW) and I saw that Zoot had posted a bunch of free Blogger templates. She’s had these up for a while, but until now nothing had jumped out at me. This one is sooooo totally me! OHMYGAWD! I love her so much and I haven’t even met her. So you need to go and read her site and tell her how pretty she is and send her Krispy Kremes (if you’re feeling really generous).

So yeah, any time I should’ve spent writing to you has now been spent playing with this new temeplate (although remarkably easy so pretty much no time at all). The fact that it took no time all should also explain why my lazy ass is not getting rid of extraneous navigation right this second. (Tomorrow, my mantra these days.) Yes, what I do (for work) is web related. Why haven’t I done something like this for myself? Lazy, mostly. And I know I’ll put too much effort into it, so it'll take too much time from my actual blogging. My goal with this blog has been to stick with they content part & then later I may put some effort into the design (fun stuff). So when I find something I love and it’s free I’m totally jumping on it.

Quick update

Since I'm here I should at least give you an update.

Dr. appt went well. She was still her birth weight. I have (rented) a baby scale this weekend to see how much BS is getting each time she eats. The little piggy is taking in NO LESS then 2.5 oz each feeding! Dude! That is a TON for someone who only weighs 6 oz total. So we’ve nixed the supplement bottle at each feeding. DS has been taking the 3 AM feeding (WAHOO!) So I only have to get up to pump for 10 mins at that time. This means I am effectively getting a 5 hour stretch of sleep at night (more or less). Two nights in a row now, I'm a freaking new woman. I’m also only pumping one other time a day right now (trying to slow down my milk production but also avoid engorgement issues.) Apparently, I can feed the multitudes. BS takes 2.5 oz from me and I can still pump out another 4 oz—trust me this is an insane amount of milk. I’m not complaining, since we have it under control I can now say that I’d rather have this problem then too little milk. Ok, I’ll see if I can’t get DS to upload the pix tonight & then be able to write a post with more tomorrow or Monday.

Just call me Bessie. MOO!

Still Alive!

Hi Internet. Yeah, it’s me, remember me? I’m still alive. Sort of. TS has preschool tomorrow and while I have full day already planned out (got to get those errands done when I only have one child in tow) I PROMISE to fill you in on things again sometime tomorrow. So this is just a quick “Hi” to let you know we’re still here at the house of Speak. BS is back up to her birth weight as of yesterday! (That’s me dancing a little jig in the corner here. Now, that’s me passing out from exhaustion in the same corner.) We have a dr appt tomorrow; it’s 2 weeks already! I know, it’s flown by for you. I, however, have been awake, literally, for the majority of it. Doesn’t go by quite as fast when you’re awake for all of it. Anway, I’m sort of waiting to update you after to dr. appt. Ok, Miss you! I need to go feed the baby. I’ll TTYT! More pix tomorrow too, I promise!

Good News & more Good News

Dr. appt went well today. BS was up to 5# 9 oz, I do NOT think she gained 9 oz over night. I think I got a bad scale the other day. However, I do think she may have been somewhat dehydrated and you could account for a more significant gain that way. Anyway, the dr was glad to hear what I’d been doing, and since she was gaining at this point we’ll go in for a reweigh tomorrow and next week. Whew!

I’m still exhausted, 3 hours between feedings is still no picnic, especially when you consider 20 mins on the boob, 10 mins pumping and usually 20 mins on the bottle, but its better then where we were. (Gawd, I did this for SIX WEEKS with TS! I was insane. How was I not having post partum depression that time?) Hopefully we’ll get her up to her birth weight by next week & I can stretch out her nights a little more then. I think it’s kicking my butt more this time because I can’t “sleep when the baby sleeps”, that whole having another kid thing. She’s just not up for hourly naps.

I have lots more to write, but going to keep is short (HA, HA) and head to bed. So the other good news today (and you’re going to think I’m totally vain, but who cares, you can think that,) I tried on a pair or pre-pregnancy jeans today AND THEY FIT! Got on the scale at the doctors today and I’ve lost the 10# already!!!! I know you’re like, jeez it’s only 10#, get over yourself beyoch. But when I had TS I never got back into my pre-pregnancy clothes and I had to wear maternity clothes for months after. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have a tire like jelly round my middle. And I DREAD bathing suits this summer (Ok, I dread them pretty much every summer) but I can’t tell you what a difference something like zipping up your old jeans can do to your self esteem. Now to work on the 10 I never lost from TS.

Now. I Sleep.

Weight here version 2.0

Actually 3.0 because we went through something similar with TS. You'd think we're thin or something?

I haven't been neglecting you Internet. I'm just really busy. You see BS's weight is not good. I took her to the hospital (BFing clinic) & weighed her and she's down to 5# today. That's more then a 10% loss (they start putting them back into the hospital at 10% so I'm totally stressing.) She does eat like a piggy--every 2 hours. So the lactation consultant suggested adding an ounce to every other feeding tonight & reweighing in the AM. It's going to be a long night.

Lots of other things to bitch about (outlaws have started in again) but I'm too tired & need to pee before I go feed her again. She eats every two hours, but it takes 30-40 mins to get her filled up. I know not much. But I don't get much time to do things like pee and eat and sleep, so don't feel too put out. I did choose you overing going to the bathroom. (And I included another pix to hold you over.) More later I promise.

She’s Here!!!

Ok, she's been here, but I haven't had a chance to get on my computer.

Babyspeak arrived on Thursday, April 27 at 12:22 PM.

She weighed 6 lbs even, 19” long. And I think she’s beautiful.

Yes, she’s little (her premie diapers fall off of her). Apparently she had a short umbilical cord, which goes along w/low amniotic fluid, so it was a good decision to be induced.

TS has been handling it well.
I’ll have to write more later, I’m exhausted right now. (My milk’s in.)

And We’re Off…

Well, in like 3 hours we are off to the hospital. So I had a post from today all set to write, but really I need to get some sleep as I’m HAVING A BABY in a couple hours!

TS got her nails done & was adorable about it BTW. I have pix, but we’ll see if they end up here considering there are about to be adorable “new baby sister” pix forthcoming.

Not sure I’ll get much access till Monday, so don’t think I’m neglecting you Internet. It's not personal, I just have to borrow laptops & hope for good WiFi in the hospital, but there's a good chance the planets and stars will not be in line for ALL of that.

Next time we talk I’ll be the mommy to TWO adorable little girls.

(How weird is that to think about?)

DS may just get permission to go buy that shotgun yet.

Nothing New to Report

Baby is still cooking. Lots of contractions. Lots of "stop in my tracks until they’re done contractions," but no rhythm to them like last night. I figure short of my water breaking or feeling like I actually do need an epidural we won’t be heading to the hospital until Thursday at 4:30 AM as planned.

Besides, I have fun day planned for tomorrow. TS fell asleep at 5:30 tonight & would not get up. I’m thinking she’ll be up early (hopefully not 4 AM), so we’re headed to Target to exchange some shoes (for her) and maybe let her pick out a gift for her “new baby sister”, then off to get OUR nails done. I’ve wanted to take her to go get hers painted, so I figured I wouldn’t mind a pedicure and she could get her fingers painted in the meantime. She’ll be so excited. Then off to speech therapy and if all goes well I’m thinking maybe we could got to “tea” (for lunch) at one of these cool little tea shops we have here locally. The tea part is a big maybe, but I’m thinking maybe G’ma & SIL & cousin S could join us too. G’ma, SIL, S & I did this the week before TS was born and it was fun. So we’ll see.

Name Progress:

This is part of the post that was usurped my little run to the hospital. It's all still current.

No, we have not settled on a name yet.

DS has started the negotiation process. I knew it was going too smoothly. He’s agreed to one of my names, but in the same breath started maneuvering for his mother’s maiden name as the middle name. I refuse to go along under those circumstances, so while he’s agreed I’m not sure it’s really for sure yet.

We had this discussion when pregnant with TS and all my reasons for not wanting to do this still exist. The main reason (beside the whole “avoid family names”) is why hers? Why not mine? The baby’s getting your family’s surname, so if you want to argue that whole deal I would think my maiden name should get precedent. (If you know me, it’s not that far of a stretch to think I might have insisted that our kids get my maiden name as a middle name. However, if you knew the name in which we speak you’d understand why I didn’t insist on it. It’s long & kind of odd.) Of course, his answer is that his mother’s maiden name “dies” with her. (So dramatic.) Well so did my mom’s and my grandma’s, so I don’t buy into that argument. Beside the fact that it’s not my responsibility to carry on her maiden name, and then there’s the fact that honestly the woman hasn’t always been that nice to me. (Yes, I know better then to say that one to him, but it helps keep me steadfast in my conviction.) I also think it would possibly create hurt feelings on my side of the family. Ultimately, it’s not a name I feel strongly enough about to have to explain to my family & deal with their hurt feelings. And it’s our child’s name for life. Those hurt feelings will continue for a long, long time.

So I think we have a first name. Maybe. But we don’t want to rush into anything.

False Alarm

Well, I had a whole other post ready to go, but usurped it with this evening’s activity. Spent a couple hours in the hospital this evening, just to get sent home, I guess it was false labor, but honestly I’m not completely convinced yet. Which means, yes I am still having contractions.

About 4:00 today (right as I was picking up TS from daycare) I started having regular contractions. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I seem to be constantly having contractions, so I didn’t give these much thought. But they were strong enough to make me wait through one to start the car. Let’s just say they made me "take notice." Got home & started unloading the dishwasher & defrosting some fish for dinner as they continued, after about half an hour I pulled out my watch & wrote down how often they were hitting—every two minutes. And they’re still making me “take notice”. I keep unloading the dishwasher & decide that if they’re still happening after that I should head upstairs & finish packing up our hospital stuff. Thank God for Wiggles DVDs! So I start going through my list of last minute adds to the hospital bag, packing overnight (and really a couple days worth) clothes for TS at the G’parents, etc…I’m watching the clock. DS usually is home by now. The contractions are getting faster. By the time DS gets home & I call the doctor they are now 30 seconds apart and have been going on for at least an hour an a half. Jeez. The doctor on-call (not my own) didn’t sound convinced, but told me if I thought I should go to the hospital then I should, so we did.

Of course they slowed way down by the time we got to the hospital. The monitor was showing they were often off the chart and about 3-5 minutes apart. They checked me, still 3 cm. They kept asking me how I would rank the pain on a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a 5. Then they’d ask if I wanted something for the pain, like an epidural. I’d say no. Papa took TS home and G’ma hung out with us to see what was going to happen. Apparently, nothing.

They released me after a couple hours because my cervix hadn’t changed, but I could tell the nurse was impressed with what the contraction monitor was showing.

DS & I went and got some dinner after (hey free night without toddler in tow) & I told him I have a feeling there are a lot of women who would’ve gotten an epidural by that point, but I have a chronic pain syndrome, so I think my perception of pain is maybe a bit different then most people. I have a really defined idea of what a 5 vs. a 7 is because I’ve dealt with it a lot. Someone who hasn’t may tell you it's a 7 when really their pain level is closer to 5. (Yes, I’m trying to rationalize this whole thing.) He thinks I should’ve told them I wanted something for pain cause then they would’ve kept me & might have even induced at that point since I was already hooked up to stuff. Didn’t consider that, and honestly while I’m not opposed to pain medication, I dig modern medicine, I don’t take the idea of it lightly.

So here’s a question for you internet; “If 30 seconds apart isn’t the bar to send you to the hospital, what is?”

Anyone know how to check your own cervix?
(Please, don’t answer that second question.)

Wiggle Wiggle

As I mentioned we attended The Wiggle’s concert in San Jose last Tuesday. TS was thrilled. Even though we talked about A LOT prior, I don’t think she really understood that they were really going to be there. When they came out on stage the look of awe/excitement/joy was completely overwhelming for me. I got teary (to say the least). I know that’s so corny! But it’s true. I suppose it has to do with being able to give my child that moment. That moment of emotion that is complete and total happiness.

Now, I know, over The Wiggle’s???? (No I have not completely lost it, but you can atribute some of it to pregnancy hormones. I'm sure I will later.) For her it’s like she got to meet a ‘best friend’ she’s been hanging out with over the internet (or DVD/TV in our case.) She talks about them like she knows them, so actually seeing them in person?!? (You know, DS and I met over the internet.)

I am so glad we go to do this. I can hardly wait for Disneyland in September!

Babywatch 2006--And Easter Pix

No, I’m not in labor…Yet.

Well, actually I probably am in labor, just the first stage. I have a lot of (new) indications of first stage labor going on, but the first stage can last up to weeks, so my status is pretty much the same as yesterday.

The contractions I’m getting these days are significant. I guess I would be willing to bet they’re what you’d call “productive” cause they hurt like hell.

My mom says it’s payback from last time cause I got my epidural so early. But she’s a ray of sunshine like that. I was only 2 cm when I got my epidural for TS, so I never had any real labor “pains”. I got the epidural because I wanted to sleep. I had discomfort, but actual “pain”, not so much. I’ll write you TS’s birth story on her b-day in May so you can hear the details then.

So these contractions; I get one or two of them every hour to half hour and they’re strong enough that I have to stop what I’m doing; “pro-duc-tive”. Happened all night long, so not the best night of sleep I've ever had, but hey, not the worst either. Occasionally, I get a batch of these that I can time, but so far they haven’t lasted more then half an hour. I’ve pretty much decided that if these type of contractions last an hour, that’s when we head to the hospital.

So on to other subjects:

Of Note: Today is my parent’s 39th anniversary. Jeez, Thirty-nine Years!!! That’s a long damn time. My mom said to me the other day, “Who would’ve thought we’d last 39 years?” To which I replied, “Well, hopefully you guys when you were getting married.” And she said, “No, we were too young to be thinking that far in advance.”

Ignorance is bliss right?

I’d wish them a happy anniversary on here, but they don’t have my URL, so I can have the freedom to bitch about them at will. I called them instead. Actually, they called me to see if I was in labor, cause we might forget to call and tell them, even though they have to come get TS if this happens! I have a feeling we won't be answering the phone a whole lot over the next few days.


The Easter Pix. (I’ll save Wiggles for tomorrow, give you something to look forward to.)

Here’s egg decorating at my folk’s house.




The night before Easter I had her put all the eggs in a basket so the bunny could find them to hide them and we put out a plate of carrots.




Easter morning & egg hunt at our house. We had a 2nd one at my SIL's place, but none of the pix (of TS) came out that cute.

EXCITEMENT

Excitement: An emotional state characterized by its potential for impulsive or poorly controlled activity.

Hmmmm…..I would say that would accurately describe my last 24 hours. Obviously the drama at work yesterday started it. This morning, while getting ready to go to TS’s first dentist appointment my mom called to tell me to call her after my ultrasound (cause I might forget or something). I left TS brushing her teeth in the bathroom during this conversation. I was gone for no more then 5 minutes top. When I came back she’d smeared toothpaste (pink, of course) all over the sink and had a glob in her hand which she promptly put in her mouth & swallowed. I yelled at her, but didn’t think much of it. (She’s done this once before.) Not 5 minutes later she’s sitting on her bed crying about her mouth hurting. I thought it was chapped lips (she has a real problem with this), and went to get the Vaseline, which didn’t help. She was pointing to the inside of her mouth & then all the sudden she’s barfing up pink. OH GOD! (How much of that crap did she swallow??? Obviously more then the amount I’d seen.) TS doesn’t throw up. She’s spit up food before, but I don’t think the kid has even had the barfing flu in her short 3 years. I’m a lot like that too. If she’s throwing up, something is wrong. Since we were supposed to be going to the dentist anyway I called them. They said it was probably fine since it was coming up (if it isn’t coming up that’s when there’s a problem,) but suggested I call poison control to be sure. Poison control basically said the same thing, but also added that if she wanted something I should give her some milk or something with calcium to absorb it. (That’s your little PSA out of this.) Needless, we didn’t have our first dentist appointment today. And I got to do a shitload of laundry instead.

So then I go to my ultrasound and doctor’s appointment.

I can read a little of the report (acromyms) on the ultrasound and gather that the baby is only 5.75 lbs and based on measurements her due date is 5/28. That is 18 days past my current due date. That does not make me happy. It also makes me a bit worried.

I haven't gained any more weight, (I lost the 5 I had gained, so I'm only up 10 total), my amniotic fluid is on the border of being considered low, which the doctor says at this point usually does not improve. About the weight, the doctor said I probably just have small babies. She said for later pregnancy ultrasounds they’re looking for baby size, but due date is best predicted at 20 weeks, pretty much everyone’s baby is the same size at that time. Whew! She’s not pushing me out.

The amniotic fluid level, my weight gain & baby size are all indications that my placenta may not be functioning as well as they'd like, soooo, they think it'd be better for her to come out sooner rather then later. She pulled me off work as of today.

I am being induced on Thursday (April 27) if I don't go before that.

During my exam she tried to strip my membranes to see if she could get things moving (I know TMI, bye all male readers). I have been spotting since (I don't typically do this from an exam, so it's notable.) I'm not sure if I'm "leaking" because it always seems like I am after an exam. (I'm trying not to gross you out, I could’ve been more detailed then that.) I'm also having contractions since the exam, but that may or may not mean anything considering I've been having contractions for the last damn six weeks or so.

I am 3 cm & 80% effaced. (Still doesn’t really mean anything. What I think it means is when I do go there’s a good chance it’ll be fast. With TS I was 0 when I got the hospital & my damn water had broken.)

There’s a decent chance I'm having a baby in the next 24 hours, but probably not till Thursday.
I’ll let you know if anything happens.

Guess you’ll have to wait one more day for Easter & Wiggle’s pix.

I can’t deal with much more excitement.

Take this job.....

I have so much going on right now I can’t tell you. No, really I can’t tell you.

I never really got back to you about my whole job status thing. I can say I am not getting laid off. No one is getting laid off in this little reorganization that’s happening. But it is looking very much like I will be in a new department with a new boss and maybe a new job description when I come back from maternity leave. This is what I’ve been told, but since things seem to be changing constantly around there I haven’t wanted to report back on it unless I knew a little more. The only thing I can say with (some) certainty is that I am not getting laid off (right now).

In light of the way today has gone down, I’m not feeling all that certain about anything related to that place right now.

Some stuff went down at work today and it’s looking a lot like my maternity leave is all screwed up. It has to do with my PT status and much misinformation I was given back in October. It’s all up in the air right now, but let’s just say that I’m beyond being pissed. I met with HR in October to clarify how things worked and avoid the scenario I’m being presented with currently. Where I work is Union and I’ve gotten them involved so we’ll see if anything can be rectified. But I have a feeling not much is going to come from it.

The way my maternity leave was going to work was that I would be off for 3 months unpaid, but would still have medical benefits. The fourth month I would come back PT, 10 hours a week, and take 10 hours a week of vacation to make sure I kept my benefits coverage. I was also intending to start all of this the month of May, meaning next week is supposed to be my last week of work. (Note, I said supposed.)

That’s all out the door.

Based on what I learned today,

I only learned this because my current boss followed up on a form and asked a couple questions, otherwise I would’ve gone on leave without pay and then found out that I had no medical coverage, like as I was having the baby! Meaning none of the hospital stay would've been covered, but we probably wouldn't have known till we got all the bills kicked back at us.

Gawd, I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it.

it looks like I will be working until this child falls out of me, at which time I will be using up my vacation and sick time for two months, to make sure we have medical coverage. After 8 (count them) short weeks! I will have to return to work. I will have no vacation or sick leave in case either of my kids gets sick and most likely kid #2 will not be “sleeping through the night” at that point.

Here’s the part that pisses me off; I could have avoided this if I had been given the correct information in the meeting I had in October. I could be in a position where I’d be getting my time off as planned. It wasn’t much time, but I wouldn’t be burning all my vacation & such and screwing myself over in the process too.

Yes, DS has medical coverage. We are going to get onto his, but I believe what we are going to do is have me take vacation time for this month so the medical is covered as planned, (just in case) then switch it over as of June. I guess, if we do it this way I still might be able to take longer time off (without pay of course) I need to think about it more.

The irony of this; I am basically working because the benefits where I’m at are so amazing. But, you know, they aren’t so amazing when you aren’t covered! Right now, I’m ready to quit. I know it’s a knee jerk reaction, but I feel a lot like, what’s the point of all of this?

Ok, next post I promise Easter and Wiggle’s concert pix and updates.
Oh, and I tomorrow TS has her first denist appointment AND I have another ultrasound & doctor's appointment.

Think all of that might put me into labor? It ought to.

The Mother of it All

My mom is driving me bat shit crazy.

Grrrr…….

My mom has this way of totally being into your business that is soooooo freaking annoying. I think it’s a cultural thing, although she’d deny being into my biz in the first place, much less the idea that her Hispanic heritage is what makes her think she can be. Part of the reason she’d deny it is because she’s less in my biz then her mother was in hers. I’ve watched this go on in other parts of the family, which is part of what makes me think it’s the Mexican in her coming out. But I’ve had years of therapy to point this all out to me and she refuses to go. (And she NEEDS it. But that’s another post.)

ARRRRG!

What it comes down to is that she’s nervous about my impending labor, so instead of being supportive or even saying she’s nervous (because she’d never admit that,) she starts to nag & be generally annoying. She gets nervous about lots of things, but now that Easter is over she has just ME to focus on. I. AM. SO. LUCKY.

I may have a nervous breakdown.

A couple days ago she informs me that I better get my act together & get my house cleaned because once we have this baby people are going to come by the house & want to see the baby and the new house. The implication being that my house is mess.

You know what mom; if you don’t think my house is clean enough for our relatives then you can shag your arce over & clean it yourself.

Except that she would, which sounds great in theory, but reality is that she’ll bitch & moan about my housekeeping skills the whole time. She also feels that if I open it up for her to do this then I’ve given her license to talk about what slobs we are for the next 6 months or so. (Not an exaggeration.) So if she does come over to help me do something like this I have to keep some limits on it. And honestly, my house is clean, so I’m not opening myself up to it.

In relation to Merit’s issue, she thinks we need to get a second opinion. (No I didn’t ask her what she thought we should do, she just volunteers.) I indicated to her that we’re discussing it. And she’s all, “You guys ought to talk once in a while.” (She’s really snotty when she says this.) I’m like "You know we have talked about it, we just haven’t decided if we want to spend an additional $500-$1000 on a second opinion, considering we’re going to be about $3K in the hole already. It might make more sense to just move forward with the surgery.” Note: if we get the second opinion she will go on and on about how much we spend on our animals for the next year or so. Even if it is Merit.

And her other big issue (there are many, many small ones she’s bugging me about, these are just the three she continues to hyper focus on) is the baby’s name. For starters she hates the name I want. (Apparently, this name came up when naming TS and she remembered and has been harping on it.) I finally told her she doesn’t get a vote and she told me, “I get a vote it just doesn’t count.” I said, “Yeah, kind of like living in Florida or something.” But I was thinking, “No you don’t get a vote, so quit bugging me about it cause you got to name you’re kids, now it’s my turn.” She also thinks it’s ridiculous that DS is involved in naming anyway. “He should just let you decide.” I’m not kidding, she has said this and is totally serious.

Yes, she’s a piece of work sometimes.

Since she (and others) can be so verbal about how she feels about the baby’s name, even when we pick one we aren’t sharing it. Once the baby is born & named people may not like it, but they usually keep their comments to themselves. For some reason if you tell them before hand they seem to think they can have input, including being totally rude & telling you how awful they think a name is. For a long time I don’t think she believed me that we hadn’t picked a name yet, but in the last week it’s become apparent that she’s concerned that we will be bring home a baby named Jane Doe. Every conversation (which are daily since she watches TS several days a week) I have with her includes naming the baby. Gawd, enough already.

I decided yesterday we’re going to tell her we’re naming the baby Soledad. I personally have no issues with that name (so don’t get all pissy with me if it’s your name) it happens to be my Great Grandmother’s name. (Told you I was Hispanic.) When researching names for TS we saw it on a list of “up and coming names” and commented on it being cute and said something along the lines of she could go by “Soli”. My mom just about blew a gasket. She’s terrified we’d actually pick it, so I told DS last night we’re just going to start referring to BS as Soli just to get my mother off my back.

Here’s irony of all of this; I’m having a second daughter. Someday both my girls will be blogging or text messaging things like this about me.

Oh Joy.

Miss Merit

Don’t know if you caught my little comment from last week in which I mentioned I needed to take Merit to the vet. Well it wasn’t for a check up. I had noticed she doesn’t seem to have control of her back legs going down the stairs last Saturday. DS usually takes the dogs up & down with him based on our schedules (and the potential that if they decide not to heel they could send my large pregnant ass flying down the stairs). I mentioned to DS that she’s had this trouble & he was like “yeah, she’s been having a problem going up & down.”

Grrr….that’s why we have pet insurance.

So the visit from last Tuesday was along the lines of; “she’s going to be six this year & she’s overweight, so let’s assume she’s having some joint issues like an older dog.” I have to admit it didn’t sit all that well with me. But I figured ok, we’ll give it a couple weeks and see what happens. They gave the dog version of gluclosamine (sp?) to see if things improved w/in that time.

Friday night she stopped using her right back leg.
I called the vet Saturday morning & they tried to schedule me for a “re-check” with the same doctor on Tuesday.

“Hellllllo, my dog isn’t walking on one her legs, I think she needs to be seen.”

“Well, we can mark you down as a “walk-in” and you can come in and we’ll fit you in when we can, but that will be at least an hour wait, probably closer to two or three.”

So I drove TS across town to hang w/the G’parents, luckily they were available. DS had plans that AM so it was up to me to deal with it. It was about a three hour visit in total; two hours of waiting. But hey, I got my thank you cards from my shower written, so not a total loss. They kept Merit for the rest of the day to sedate, x-ray & better exam her.

They feel she’s effectively torn the ligament in her leg. Great. (Equivalent to a human ACL.) The only fix is surgery. Surgery is going to be $2,500-3K. (Guess I should’ve told you to sit down first, but if you have a pet that number probably didn’t surprise you.) It’s that cheap because we have insurance.

It cost us $350 to find out we need to spend $3K. (They show you on the bill what it would’ve cost w/out the insurance and it would’ve been $500, aren’t we lucky?) We’re debating a second opinion because it’ll put us down another $500, to probably find out the same thing. But they can’t positively say this is exactly the problem because they don’t do MRI’s on dogs. I'm sure we can find someone who does, but like I said we're debating because of the cost to probably find out the same thing.

Merit’s my baby, so there’s no question we’ll resolve this in the best manner for her. (Truth be told if you know Merit, she's probably you're baby too. She's one of those dogs that people radomly offer to take off your hands any time you want. She's that special, not just to me.)
But I have to say, the timing really sucks. I’m about to have a baby any. second. now. We just had to pay out a HUGE amount to taxes. And when I start maternity leave (end of month) I will be w/out pay for those three months. Jeez. I guess I will be able to convince DS to let me sell my car now to pay for this. (More on the car later.)

Weight here (yes, again)

It’s been a rough day. Hopefully, that post from yesterday had enough positive energy for you for a while, cause not so much this go around.

I was actually going to write about two things today; my doctor’s visit and TS’s lovely behavior. My doctor’s appointment is way more then you probably want to read and TS’s behavior (which has been unbelieveably awful today) makes me tired just thinking about it. So you’re just getting the doctor’s visit. I’m going to act like TS’s deal is done & start over with her (after her non-nap.)

Went to the doctor’s today; Thank God. The last two nights were repeats of Tuesday, except both in the evening. Wednesday night’s episode kept me up past 2 AM! Last night’s started while we were dying eggs at my parents house, sometime around 7:30-8. I was in bed by 9 & basically passed out from exhaustion, but at least I got some sleep, right? I was glad to have an appointment so she could at least tell me if all this crap was making anything happen.

I am now on the road of weekly appointments; this is the homestretch folks!

I am 1.5 cm dilated & 70% effaced.

I know that means nothing.

I personally know people who walked around for a month at 3 cm. (Apparently my mom was one of them when she had me. Of course, when I called & informed her of this fact she yelled, “Oh My God! You’re in Labor!” and she was in the waiting room of a doctor’s office w/my 90 YO Aunt. Niiice.)

Anyway, at least there’s something to show for all this crap, right? Cause I've been feeling like rite shite lately, so I would've been a bit dissapointed if she's said, "closed up like a drum."

Note: I do NOT want to have the baby this weekend. In fact I don't want to have this baby until after Tuesday. Don’t have a baby on a holiday weekend if you can avoid it. TS was born on Memorial Day weekend, it’s a skeleton staff at the hospital. It sucks. Overall it was fine, I just know it would better if we were on a full staff, who aren't pissed they have to work because it's say Easter. I this baby to want till after Tuesday because we’re going to The Wiggles concert Tuesday night & while I’m not that jazzed to see them I will be disappointed if I miss watching TS see them. Even when she’s a B-R-A-T I love her that much.

But (there’s always seems to be a but)

I lost another pound in the last week.

My doctor was NOT happy. She thinks I’m not eating, but I am. I’m supposed to be adding snacks to my day; high fat stuff; whole milk, ice cream, jamba juices w/the protein boosts, nuts, eggs, etc…. Bummer is that right now I’ve hit that point where eating a normal amount makes me feel awful because I have no room for the food. I’ve already had to start stretching my meals into all day affairs just to get them in, so I don’t feel so sick from eating. Last night (at my mom’s) we had baked pasta w/garlic bread & brownies for desert, I guess I would’ve lost more if I hadn’t eaten over there, huh?

Not only did I lose weight, but my uterus hasn’t grown at all. (I just lost all male readers didn’t I?) They measure you (with a tape measure) from the top of your pelvic bone to the top of your uterus. I think they start doing this around 20 weeks. Anyway, the number of weeks should actually correspond with the number of cm you measure (I think it’s cm), cool little detail, huh? I’m only 33 cm, I should be reading about 36-37 by now. My doctor actual said, “This baby isn’t growing.” Well now, that’s comforting. I have another ultrasound before my appointment next week.

Why next week? You think if there’s something to possibly be concerned about they would do it like say now maybe? Call me crazy.

We did have a discussion about TS’s weight at birth & then I told her how she lost a full pound in the hospital; meaning that while the kid might have weighed 6 lb 13 oz at birth, but a full pound of that was really fluid. So if you consider it that way she a pretty small baby. Then I told her how TS took 6 weeks to gain that pound back. And she said, “So basically you’re a family of poor eaters.”

Geez. I'm going to go eat some whole fat ice cream now.

Things I enjoy about being pregnant….

Here's a novel post, something positive for a change.

It's finally sunny here, maybe it's affecting my mood.

I feel kinda bad about all my bitching lately. I’m pretty sure we’re done having kids after this one, so there a huge part me going, “Uh, this is a pretty special time you should quit complaining and enjoy it.” In light of this, I decided to write out the things I’ll miss when I’m not pregnant anymore. Some of these are also things I won’t miss depending on when you ask me, but ultimately they’re unique to (my) pregnancy so I want you to know I do appreciate what a special time this is for me and my family. Here are the top ten things I like about being pregnant.

In no particular order, of course.

1. I have a baby, and I can feel her move.
2. I’m happy fat. (Yes, I feel fat, but it’s “cute”. I know it won’t be so cute once this kid comes out.)
3. If I want to eat something I can (well except for sushi & alcohol, but there are ways around those things; a sippy here or there and I can still have the rolls w/cooked fish.)
4. I’ve lost weight, but am still eating anything I want.
5. I can dress however I want & everyone attributes it to my pregnancy (the whole dress to be comfortable is my usual mantra, but right now no one questions it.)
6. My skin is so freaking awesome!!! (I normally have really bad hyperpigmentaition, but it all fades when I’m pregnant. I’m one of those women who “glow”, think perpetual “tan”. Unfortunealy it doesn’t last past pregnancy.)
7. My nails grow and look great!
8. My hair isn’t falling out (I have tons of hair so the issue is more of a cleaning issue in the shower. I know, it’ll come back tenfold after she’s born.)
9. I can buy trendy, expensive clothes; trendy; I can’t wear them next year anyway and expensive; all maternity clothes are expensive, so get what you want sister you need it after all.
10. My Fibro symptoms go into remission so I don’t have to take any medications. It also means I can generally sleep at night and I can more or less eat what I want; not the case normally.)

Laboring along

Made it to work today, more contractions, but nothing like yesterday, guess this is just the way it’s going to go for the next 6 weeks or so. Yes, I know we’re only 28 days away from my due date and that works out to 4 weeks, but somehow I’m thinking I will not only get the torture of this constant, “am I in labor?” but I will get to drag it out an extra couple weeks, at which point I’ll either have the baby at home because I won’t believe I’m in labor until it’s too late or I’ll have to be induced.

Ack!

You know, everyone is so worried about the torture of prisoners? Just pump them full of hormones so as to give them pregnancy symptoms, then after 3 days of that let a bunch of menopausal women interrogate them. I’m telling you, 5 minutes; anything you want to know. Of course, reading this blog these days, not a far cry. All of this, much cheaper then flying them to all parts of the world to do the dirty work. I'm a genius.

I know I haven’t posted a BOTD in a while. I kinda figured all my posts are all BOTD lately. But because I said I would, the one du jour is that I can’t eat anymore. I wasn’t eating much before, TS easily out eats me. But if I eat more then a couple of bites of anything I end up with major bloating & heartburn. I have GOT to be CLOSE on this labor thing!

Ok. now that I’ve gotten that all out of my system; Since really, I’ve got nothing for you I figured I’d post some more house pix. Pretty soon it’ll be all kid pix all the time, so you should enjoy it while you can. These are from TS’s room. I also have her name on the wall, which I can’t show you cause then you’ll know her name and you know how I feel about that. But the font of the letters is super cool. Check it out here. I want us to pick BS’s name just so I can order her’s. (I’m kinda a font wh0re, got over 300 of them on my computer. I just LOVE them.) Don’t worry, one of these days I may even post pix of the nursery.

The Countdown….

29 days until my due date and counting. Really it’s like 28 since today’s pretty much done.

Yes, I’m in the last month of pregnancy & my body can definitely attest to it. Granted, I have had a relatively easy pregnancy; no bed rest, no high blood pressure, no special diets or gestational diabetes…you get the idea. I understand that compared to what a hard pregnancy can be I haven’t had one. However, that hasn’t kept me from bitching about it constantly. But if you do something well….

I was going to write about my symptoms of late; I’ve been have significant issues related to my low blood pressure again, but today took the cake.

I went to yoga yesterday afternoon, which normally I love. But it was a poor experience at best because I kept having issues with dizzy spells/almost passing out during class. After class I felt really shaky & never really got over that. I slept poorly last night, but I slept, so that’s always a plus in my book. The reason I slept poorly was because I was having cramping all night, mostly in my diaphragm (let me tell you a spasm in your diaphragm, not fun,) but also in other places, like my legs, bum, etc…So I woke up feeling like shite & exhausted. I ended up staying home from work, I was going to be late as it was and had already made arrangements to leave early to take Merit to the vet, so I figured what’s the point? For the first hour this AM I actually started to feel a bit better, but then the contractions started. This batch is more like major pressure, they’re hard to time because they’re deep (think uterine contractions) and it’s hard to tell when they start & stop. But I can tell they’re at regular intervals. As opposed to the last batch, these actually hurt and they make me nauseated. So I took TS to my folks house (what we usually do on Tuesdays anyway) and we both hung out there until I needed to take the dog to the vet. These contractions went on until about 1:00 today, they didn’t stop at that time, but they seemed to slow down. The finally stopped sometime around 6.

I figure I’m going to go into labor & not know it because my body has been freaking out for the last six weeks or so.

Bah!

28 more days…..

The Name Game

In light of Gwyneth’s new baby and her unique choice of names (again) I guess now’s an appropriate time to talk about this one.

Today I am officially 1 month from my due date.

Typing the number 1 for month is so much more fun then 30 for days. 30 still sounds like a long time, don’t you think? Agree with me, I’m 9 months pregnant & hormonal; it’s in your best interest.

Wahoo!

The way my body’s been acting I won’t be surprised if we go early (which is scary, cause I haven’t packed a bag yet, among other things,) but because I keep saying that, I’m sure I’ll be 2 weeks late and induced at that time. But I digress…

The name thing; we don’t have one yet.

Yup, we’re a month away and we haven’t decided on a name yet. Is that weird? Last time. we more or less had names picked out before we knew the sex of the baby. In fact we had arguments over boy’s names, which seem a bit ridiculous when you think about it. Why bother to fight over a name if you know you’re going to find out the sex of the child, but aren’t far enough along to know that yet? Save your energy for the name you know you’ll need.

I have names, but it’s one of those things that I haven’t gotten DS to nail down yet. I know not to push too much on this with him because if I declare I care too much and push, he’ll push back (and not in a good way). It’s his nature. So we’ve talked about it a couple times, but that’s all.

I think DS doesn’t really care for the most part. I think he wants to see how much I care and if he can negotiate anything out of it. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to discuss it, I’m not sure. He has thrown out one name, but it’s more to honor a family member (she’s an “adopted” Aunt). While I adore her I’m not crazy about her name for my child. And I have issues about family names (she's not actual blood, but close). Both of our families have been big on the passing down the name thing, mostly for boys, but variations of those names have been given to women in the families too. There’s currently one name in my family that belongs like 6 people, all currently alive. (I have no idea if you started counting those that passed on already, it would be beyond ridiculous .) It can get a bit confusing to say the least. If that’s your (or your family’s) thing, good for you, but I’m really not into it. I believe that my kids should be able to develop their own issues related to their names and not have to hear that one of their namesakes ended up being a loony alcoholic later in life (implying that they'll go down the same path).

While I’m not giving out any of the names on my short list (there’s only 2) since one of them could be BS’s real name & I don’t post our real names on here, here’s my name criteria:

• I need to LOVE the name I give my child. I mean it. I NEED to LOVE it.
At some point in her life my child will hate her name. That’s human nature I think. I grew up pretty much hating my name, now I’m lukewarm on it. When my daughters ask me why on earth I choose their name, I need to be able to honestly tell them that I choose it because I love it and I need to really mean it. (I get all teary just thinking about it.)
I knew TS would have her name since at least the age of 18 & I had her at age 34. DS was not impressed when he asked me. “Why that name?” and I answered, “I don’t know, but I became aware of it sometime in college and I’ve loved it ever since. I knew from that time if I ever had a daughter she would have to have this name.” He responded, “How can I compete with that?” To which I said, “You can’t, so just go along.” He wasn’t amused and like I said we had a few arguments over names last go around.

• It can’t be a family name. (See Above.)


• I prefer it not be an “M” name
All our pets are M’s (Merit, Mowry, Mama-san & Monkey) and our last name is an M. I’m not completely opposed to all M names, but I think in our case, it’s a bit much.

• I like old names.
For girls I seem to tend toward turn-of-the-century names. I also seem to have a tendency toward Irish, Welsh & Celtic names.


I guess that’s it. I figure if I go into labor and we haven’t picked one I get precedent since I’ll be the one in labor, right?

Picture Perfect (something like that)

So as I write I am in the process of uploading photos to our personal photo place. I have chosen not to link from here (like a Flicker account or something) because I am paranoid & fear hackers could look at pictures of my family that I’m not ok with, and then also be able to figure out things like our real names, where we live, etc…

Why so paranoid? In our old house a neighbor’s 6YO granddaughter was “tagged” by a pedophile (registered sex offender). Her daddy is a cop for a local PD & caught the guy outside her room, messing with the window screen. Once caught the PD ascertained that the guy had been stalking their little girl for a while now and while he was going to jail at that time, he would eventually get out. The only way to avoid him in the future was to effectively “disappear”. “Once your child has been “tagged” they’re pretty much obsessed with that child.” Nice, huh? So he’s a cop and the other cops tell him the only way to truly protect his child is to move, change her school, etc… So now you understand why I don’t give out too much information?

Not sure why I shared all that, just in a sharing mood I guess. Lucky you Internet!
The uploading of pictures and all made me think of it.

Anyway, like I said, I’m uploading photos, so I have some time to kill. And speaking of sharing: here’s your view (FINALLY) of the home. Yes! Pictures of the remodel. I also have pictures of BS’s room which I finished putting together on Friday (Yeah Me! And Yeah My Mom who came & helped me knock it out!) But those are not the pictures I’m uploading. (It’ll be at least 2 months after the baby’s born before I actually post those. At least, from my track record so far.) So here you go! Yes, please tell my house is beautiful…(it needs to be considering our tax bill from the capital gains we are paying this year in order to acquire and fix up this house.) Happy Viewing! (Ok, you just got the kitchen & entryway for now. I hate uploading pix, it's so damn slooooow! I'm tired. More later.)

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

Entryway Before:

Entryway After:

Today's Forecast: More Showers! Oh yeah, the weather too!

I started to write this last night, but after getting the pix to post I was too tired to proof it, (yes, the spelling & grammar is usually crappier then what you actually get,) read it and try and organize the pix so it looked somewhat coherent. So (sadly) this is better then what you would’ve gotten.

These are the pix from my family shower that my SIL threw for me. It was very fun, the food was great, the only thing that might have made it better is if I could’ve had some alcohol (cause doesn’t a cocktail make everything better?). There was champagne for everyone else, so I’m sure they felt it was perfect.

Cool cake, huh?

Once again I am overwhelmed with the gifts that I received.

This is the quilt to the bedding.

Very cute, no?

My SIL made me a baby book (scrapbook). She's extemely talented. She posts on 2peas if you want to see more of her stuff. I've made these for people before, but I've never had one made for me. I got all teary over it.

TS & her cousin S. They adore each other. Yes, we dressed them alike.

This is SIL & I.

Lucky Daddy

Ok, so I’ve neglected you Internet. Sorry. I have excuses. Don’t I always? Sunday was my family baby shower & I’ve actually even put the photos on my CPU at home already, but DS wanted to use the computer before I got to post them last night, so tonight I promise!!! (Assuming what I’m about to tell you doesn’t usurp my time.)

I’m not feeling very good.

Well now, there’s a newsflash.

No, really not feeling good.

Yesterday I left work early because I had a raging headache (among other things). I’ve also been dealing with all the symptoms; arms, legs, hands, and feet; all falling asleep, really bad headaches, dizzy spells, and now swelling, which all go along with low BP. It started pretty much Sunday afternoon and has been getting progressively worse. I know, this isn’t exactly new. But I’ve also been having low back pain in a big way. It may or may not be related. I think its low level contractions, but they aren’t exactly the kind you can time so I’m not sure. It’s a low deep ache, but it comes & goes. I get muscle spasms in that area (Fibro) so I know what those feel like, and it’s not exactly the same. Yes, I realize it could just be that the baby is getting to a certain size and it’s affecting my posture so that the muscles in my back are having spasms. None of that changes the fact that I pretty crappy and didn’t really sleep last night.

And this is different from when? No, I really didn’t sleep last night. It’s bad.

I am also freaking out because my husband’s co-worker’s wife had a baby this weekend: 2 WEEK EARLY and some good friends of ours also had their daughter on Friday: 3 WEEKS EARLY!!! What is up with that? Was there a full moon or something? So during the little bit of dozing I did get in last night I would suddenly wake up thinking, “OMG, if we had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night and our friends or my parents came to stay with TS, there aren’t any sheets on the spare bed! I’ve GOT to make that bed!” Or “I NEED to dustbust the stairs!” I think I’m suddenly nesting. I did not “nest” when pregnant with TS. At least not in the traditional way, like this.

I’m obviously hormonal. DS & I had a fight Sunday night, (we rarely fight) over NOTHING really. (Over picking up after ourselves.) Over me being a bitch to him. And when he was stating his case I realized how hormonal I really am becoming, cause everything he said was true and I am being such a bee-yoch! Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees you know?

So I feel like shit and there’s going to be a flurry of hurry up & get the house in shape. DS should be thrilled.

Thoroughly Engaged

So today is the 6th anniversary of our engagement. (Note: pix from Mardi Gras party summer after engagement. I can't find the e-version of our engagment photo & the scanners not hooked up right now.)

Yes, my husband proposed to me on April Fools Day. I have a scrapbook page with the whole story written out, but it’s not where it’s supposed to be, so I’ll have to do it from memory. (Really I think maybe DS ought to write it, but then he might start reading my blog & we wouldn’t want that now would we?)

Apparently, DS had purchased the ring some time prior to April 1st. Knowing I love old jewelry, but having very small hands, wrists & fingers, most rings along those lines would look ridiculous on me, DS had looked high & low to find something that would be my taste (old, pretty & not too big—“something tasteful”) . After much frustration he had found the perfect ring at an artist shop in Los Altos, but it had to be made. So he’d been planning for some weeks on asking, but had to wait for the actual ring to arrive.

When the ring did arrive he was trying to find the right moment, and quickly, because having it was making him nervous.

Our group of friends used to organize a TNO (Thursday Night Out) every week. We’d start the weekend with happy hour on Thursday. It would usually ended including dinner and possibly even bar hopping after. What can I say? We were single and fun and could stay up late. Someday I’ll tell you stories about how much fun we were and all the parties I have pictures of (what I remember of them). Anyway, he was thinking maybe he’d propose after dinner on TNO, but then decided that maybe the parking lot of an Italian chain restaurant, probably not so romantic and during dinner, with 10+ other people, not so much either. (Have to agree on both of those.) But in anticipation he’d gone and bought me the unbelievably gorgeous red roses.

He refers to them as “gay guy roses”, meaning that if you want the best flowers be sure that there’s a certifiable gay guy working at the shop you purchase them from as they will always be the best. Expensive? yes, but you get what you pay for and a certifiably gay person who actually works in the flower shop is going to make sure you have beautiful flowers.

So he gave me the flowers at the end of the night “just because”. I was bowled over because they were so beautiful, but also kind of pissed about them. I didn’t let on I was annoyed, but we were leaving the next afternoon to go skiing for the weekend with a bunch of my co-workers and that meant the prettiest (and I was sure most expensive) flowers I’d ever received were going to be wasted on my cats for two days. But, not wanting to discourage any future random flower giving I didn’t let on.

So Friday afternoon we headed up to Tahoe for a weekend with a bunch of my co-workers. He was thinking maybe he would ask me when we got up there; sneak away just the two of us, then be able to celebrate the rest of the evening with all my friends. Not such a bad plan. Unfortunately on the way up one of cars we were convoying with was in an accident in Davis.

Bah.

The accident was just bad enough to shake them up pretty well, but not so bad that they couldn’t continue on. The real bummer was that after that happened they were scared to go like over 50MPH, so it to FOR-EVER to get up to Tahoe. Once we got up there it was late and everyone was tired and grumpy. Not such a great vibe for what he had in mind.

So the next day we’re skiing at Heavenly. We finally take a run just to two of us, the last run before lunch. Can you imagine how he must’ve been feeling by then? So he skis off into some trees & tells me to follow him. I decline as I’ve got nothing to prove and usually the snow in the trees is crunchy, I’m not really in the mood. But he keeps telling me to come over,

“You know you can really see the lake from here, come check it out.”
I can see it just fine from here thanks! (He must’ve been ready to bop me at that point.)

Finally he takes off his skis & reaches into his jacket pocket, so I think, “Ok, he wants to take a freaking picture, why didn’t he just say so?” I ski over thinking it’s a Kodak moment, I guess it was, just not the way I thought.

So visualize this; Lake Tahoe in the background, we’re on the side of a ski trail, so lots pretty snow filled trees making us feel all alone, sun is shining and there’s a light breeze blowing. DS had long hair at the time so the breeze is blowing his hair back all Fabio like (which kinda cracks me up now). He pulls his hand out of his pocket & has a small box in it. All the sudden I realize what is happening. He gets down on one knee (oh, yes he did girlfriend!) and says something about how happy I’ve made him and if I would make him this happy for the rest of our lives by being his wife. (This is the part I’m wanting my scrapbook page for, cause I have what he said exactly written in there!) And while he’s getting this out, I’m in such shock that I squeak out, “Really?” And then of course say “Yes!” Much kissing and hugging ensues as you might imagine. I then remembered it was April Fools Day & asked if I had to give it back. He didn’t believe me at first & then was like “NO”.

It was very sweet and very perfect. I’m so glad he asked and I’m glad he did it in such a way that we have a good story to it as well.

ILOVEYOU DS. Thank you for the last 7 years together, my life is so much better for your being in it.