Pregnancy
A quickie
Dec 2nd
Thanksgiving was awesome. We came home with a truck full of baby stuff, thanks in part to my sisters passing things down and in part to the 2 (TWO!) surprise showers over the weekend (some of the family couldn’t make it all the way to my hometown for the one, so they threw their own). We also ate lots of yummy food, as is required. The potato dumplings were fabulous, and we have leftovers in the fridge, ready to fry up when we get a chance. And of course there was pumpkin pie, which is my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner.
Ryan and I are attending the Labor & Delivery class from the hospital. It runs 6-9:30pm Tuesday through Thursday this week. Since Ryan doesn’t get off work until 5 it means a few meals eaten out and on the go this week, and straight to bed when we get home. But, so far the class has been helpful and pretty cool. We got to tour the birthing center last night, and it set my mind at ease about a lot of things (wireless monitoring of baby’s heartbeat and my contractions, so I’m free to move around and even shower if I want to; all the rooms are singles, so no chance of a roommate you don’t know or don’t like; wireless internet available (I have my priorities in order, obviously)).
Hopefully I’ll get to a more extensive post soon. Maybe even with pictures that I will steal from facebook since we forgot our camera.
3-Day Week
Nov 23rd
I am so happy there are only 3 days of work this week I can hardly stand it. I am anxious to go home, and excited to see my family (although I’ll miss having one of my sisters and her husband and kids there). There will be lots of laughing and eating and baby talk, I’m sure. Now, if I could just get someone to come do all this work on my desk before Wednesday…
Speaking of baby talk…well, there’s not much to say. We still don’t have a name picked out, or even any serious contenders really. I’ll be 28 weeks tomorrow or Wednesday (depending who you ask), and we have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. We have one more month-long break between appointments and then we start going every two weeks, which seems crazy. Crazy in how quickly time flies, not crazy that we would see the doctor that often. It’s getting to the time where I should be coming up with questions about labor & delivery and stuff, but I don’t have many questions so far about that. Or at least none that I can think of off the top of my head. I plan to do a natural birth with no drugs. I know other people who have done it, and I’m a big believer in the “you can do anything for a (relatively) short period of time,” philosophy. I need to sit down and write out a birth plan, mostly because it will make me feel more organized, but also because it will be something to refer people to when they are asking me questions and I can’t remember what I wanted because I’m focused elsewhere. I also plan on staying away from the hospital as long as possible. I don’t want to go in too early, and I’m sure time will pass more quickly if I’m doing something other than hanging out in the birthing center. Considering we live only 5 minutes from the hospital I’m not worried about waiting too long.
All of this is a little overwhelming to me, but exciting at the same time. I remember when we first found out I was pregnant, and thinking how far away all of this seemed. Like it would take forever to get to this point. And yet it feels like time has flown by. I’m almost 7 months pregnant. There are only 3 months left. And I am so excited to meet our little guy.
Now if he would just tell us what his name is…
Things that make my day:
Nov 18th
Aside from this cold hanging on by it’s scratchy gross fingernails, I am having a great day. There are a few things contributing to this:
- My friend, Gwen, sent me pictures of her son, who is just over 2 weeks old. We saw them the day he was born (it was the day we flew out East), and he’s just SO CUTE. I can’t wait until I can hold my little one.
- It is Wednesday, which means that there are only 2 1/2 days of work left this week, and next week is Thanksgiving. Only a week left until we get a nice long weekend to go visit family.
- My mom just informed me that she plans on making potato dumplings on Friday while we are home. I LOVE potato dumplings. And in case you have never had the pleasure of trying them, they are basically ground up potatoes mixed with flour and boiled. You serve them with butter and salt and bacon (or side pork if you can get it), including “drippings” (aka grease). They are extremely heavy, but they taste sooo good. And in the morning, if there are leftovers, you slice them up and fry them and they are even better. You can’t get them in restaurants (at least not outside of my hometown, that I’m aware of), and so the only time I have them is when we go home and mom makes them. One of these years I want to get the grinder attachment for our kitchenaid so that we can try making them. But until then it will be a once or twice a year treat. Considering how we eat them it’s probably better that way anyway.
- Ryan and I have our first baby-related class tonight. I’m a little nervous about it, but it makes me excited that we are at that point. In a related item, we will be picking up some baby stuff from my sisters over Thanksgiving, and so we’ll be one step closer to getting the baby’s room ready. I remember when Thanksgiving seemed so far away. Not anymore!
So, I’m in a good mood. Now I should take advantage of it and get back to work.
Baby purchases
Nov 16th
Ryan and I have our first baby class on Wednesday. It’s the breastfeeding one, and they want you to bring either a doll or a teddy bear that’s “baby size” to practice holds. We don’t have any dolls or stuffed animals around here, so we decided it would be a good opportunity to buy something for the baby. We haven’t actually bought ANYTHING yet, so it was kind of exciting. And we are now the proud parents of a cute, soft teddy bear. He’s a little bigger than a newborn, but what are you doing to do? I don’t mind the idea of our son playing with dolls really, but dolls aren’t soft and cuddly, and since this was our first purchase for him I wanted something that made me thing “baby.”
Anyway, it’s exciting to me. And it will be a great story for when he’s a teenager. When all his friends are over. “Yes, that teddy bear you’ve had since you were a baby was actually bought so that I could practice breastfeeding.” I am already excited to embarrass my children, and the first one isn’t even born yet.
Ryan has informed me that it is my bedtime (I told him to put me on an internet curfew). I’m kind of relieved. I like going to bed.
The cold that just won’t die
Nov 16th
I am still sick. I feel about 4 times better than I did when we got back from vacation, but I’m still not feeling great, and I still spent about 1/2 an hour last night coughing when I went to bed. I finally got a cough drop and that helped, but I don’t like doing that at night because it means either getting up after it’s gone and brushing my teeth again, or leaving them but knowing that the cough drops have coated my teeth in sugar to sit all night. I don’t like either option.
I bought some organic unpasteurized apple cider vinegar this weekend. I is supposed to help with all kinds of ailments, but sinuses and sore throats are supposed to be 2 of them. You mix a tablespoon or so with 8 oz of water (and honey if the taste is too strong) and drink it. I haven’t done it yet because I’m kind of a chicken, but I really should try it because if it helps it will totally be worth dealing with the icky taste. Has anyone else tried this before? Recommendations?
Being sick has also pulled a number on my productivity. I’m tired a lot of the time and just not feeling as “with it” as usual, and so I’m not getting as much done as I’d like. After being gone for a week that’s not great. Hopefully I can get back into the groove soon.
ps. Can we all agree that it seems insane that Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK already? I’m super-excited, as we will be going to my parents’ place and I haven’t been there since August, but still…crazy.
2 things
Nov 11th
1.) I got my glucose screening test results back while I was on vacation, and all your positive thoughts worked, because my sugar was at 101, which they said was good. Or good enough. Whatever. I don’t have to do the extra test. Yippee!
2.) I have come up with the best idea EVER. Workplaces should be more like airplanes. And I don’t mean being strapped into a seat right next to/on top of the person next to you while breathing germy recycled air. I think that every once in a while someone should come around with a cart and offer you something to drink. Seriously – I am a genius, I know.
On that note, back to the grindstone. I need a job where they pay me to read novels. Or even non-fiction books. But some sort of real books. Not insurance policies. And I would like to do it at home while lazing around in my pajamas drinking Dr Pepper and eating ice cream with the yummy (accidental) chocolate fudgey syrup that I made (yay for happy cooking accidents!). Is that too much to ask, world? I would probably eat some “healthy” food too, if that would help my cause. No? Fine. Water while sitting in my cubicle it is.
We are home!
Nov 9th
And I have the plague! I’m pretty sure I caught it from a hobo in New York City, although I don’t remember seeing any hobos, which means that either they don’t live in the touristy parts of town or I am EXTREMELY unobservant. Um, let’s think this through for a moment…which is more likely? Unobservant for the win!
Fortunately it is not the flu (no fever), but it is kicking my butt. It would help if I could take something so that I would feel human during the day, but they don’t make any of the good drugs for pregnant women. I went in to work for an hour this morning, just to make sure there wasn’t anything that had to get taken care of right away, and I think that I’ll probably go in late tomorrow since I’m still feeling pretty crappy. But I obviously can’t be missing a bunch of work right after I just got back from a week’s vacation.
You can tell I’m not feeling well because I’ve been very quiet compared to my normal self. Also, I haven’t gotten around to posting any pictures, and my answers when people ask about our vacation are short. We had such a good time all week, even after I got sick, but I just don’t have the energy to describe it all right now. Plus, whenever I try to talk for more than a couple words I start hacking up a lung.
Today is Ryan’s birthday, and he’s 30! We went up to Best Buy and got his birthday present (a new receiver for the living room). And for dinner we just had fried chicken from the grocery store deli. It has been a very laid back evening. I think we’ll be going out for dinner later this week with friends, which works out well – hopefully I’ll be feeling better by then so he won’t have to deal with sicko-wife and her smokers’ cough.
Anyway, time for bed. It’s amazing how energy sapping laying on the couch is.
Things to keep in mind for next time:
Oct 28th
- No matter how well-intentioned we are about being “quick” about eating out, if we aren’t eating fast food it will take until at least 7pm.
- When you are tired from doing the dishes for 45 minutes (because you and your husband are lazy and only do them once or twice a week instead of nightly like you should), and you are in the process of throwing together the ingredients for making candy, remember to check the containers before dumping things in. Evaporated milk is NOT the same as sweetened condensed milk (although if you add some sugar it does still taste good when mixed with chocolate – it just doesn’t set up the right way for what you are making).
- After you are done in the kitchen, if it is at all close to the time you would like to go to bed you should just go, instead of sitting down to check Facebook/read blogs/check Twitter. You will soon have wasted an hour and it will be past the time you wanted to go to bed.
Thank you
Oct 28th
Thank you to those who commented on my post yesterday. After talking to my mom and emailing back and forth with my grandma I feel a lot better. As my mom pointed out, people read things differently, and I don’t think it would ever occur to my awesome grandma that someone would read what that email said and take it as a reason to be mean or hateful toward other people. Or that it could go from her well-intentioned forward to someone she knows to other people who aren’t so well-balanced. Ahh, the beauty of the internet. Blah.
Anyway, moving on. Work is INSANE. Trying to get myself caught up enough to be gone for a week is bad enough, but then with my boss being gone for 3 weeks starting next week too…it’s made things very interesting around here. Things that people are giving us a couple weeks notice on are actually just a couple days notice because we need to get it taken care of before we both leave. Fun fun. It makes the days go by quickly though.
I had my glucose screening test this morning. The drink, while super-sweet, wasn’t as bad as I expected. It was basically 2 shot-sized glasses of the stuff, which I drank while they talked to me. I also got a regular flu shot and talked to the doctor about H1N1. She warned me that if I feel ANY flu-like symptoms that I’m to call her immediately. They don’t want to mess around with that stuff. I told her I would be extra careful while traveling, and I have a copy of my records in case something happens while we are on vacation (God forbid!).
I don’t get the results of the glucose screen until later, so I don’t know how it went. On the one hand, I feel pretty good about it because my weight gain hasn’t been crazy (from what I gather from the Dr), and I don’t ever feel like I have high or low blood sugar – I don’t even get a “sugar rush” of energy after eating candy or drinking pop, and I don’t really have a mid afternoon crash or anything. But on the other hand, from what I understand you don’t always have noticeable symptoms with Gestational Diabetes, so who knows. I guess we’ll just wait and see.
Ugh. Back to work. Only 2 days left!
It’s just a matter of time.
Oct 23rd
I am almost afraid to admit this, but I can tell that I am on the verge of waddling, like a true pregnant lady. I think that so far I’ve done pretty well walking normally, but my hips and knees are a little loose, and I know it’s only a matter of time until I’m swaying back and forth as I walk. Of course, the email I got this week (23 weeks already!) said that the baby can feel when I’m dancing, so maybe it’ll feel like dancing to him. I told Ryan that the baby could tell when I’m dancing yesterday, while I did a little crazy dance in the kitchen, and he looked at me like I was insane. I have a feeling I’ll be getting that look more and more.
The little guy (no, we haven’t picked a name yet) has gotten more and more…aggressive? I guess, would be the term?…with his kicking. I haven’t really felt anything from the outside, but I’m thinking any day that should happen.
My next appointment is this coming week, and it involves the 1 hour glucose test for gestational diabetes. I hope I pass. I don’t think I’m having any problems with my blood sugar, but who knows. And I need to remember to get a copy of my medical records while we are there so I can take them with on our trip, just in case (that was the one recommendation from the Dr).
Speaking of our trip, it’s almost completely planned! We are going up to the Albany area on Saturday night and staying over until Monday morning. On Monday we will be going to Connecticut, parking the car, and taking the train into New York City to meet our friends for the afternoon/evening! I did not think that we would get to see the city at all on this trip, but these friends both work down in the city and live in CT, so they suggested we just meet them after work on Monday and check out a couple sights. One of them is going to meet us at the train station, so hopefully we don’t get lost or anything. ;-)
After that, on Tuesday, we will head down and spend a few hours in Delaware visiting friends, and then continue down to Maryland, where we will hang out with my aunt and uncle until either Thursday afternoonish or Friday morning. At some point on Friday we are going back up to Connecticut to hang out with other friends that live there, and then we fly out on Saturday.
It’s all very exciting to me, and I’m so happy this is all coming together. Luckily Ryan and I are very “go with the flow” type people, so the few things that aren’t decided yet aren’t a big deal to us (specific times/places to meet people, etc).
Well, back to work. Thank goodness it is Friday afternoon, because I am wiped out. The agenda for tonight is to do the dishes/clean up the kitchen (we had to move all our food into coolers and then into a new fridge today), and put laundry away. That’s about as productive as I can get.
