We’re in the single digits now!!! G’s D-day (D for delivery) is 8 days away.
I’ve had a pretty productive week. I’ve gotten all the things I wanted to get accomplished complete. S still has a longish “todo” list, but knowing S that’s not unusual — he always has something planned.
One of his current tasks is to make a cheat-sheet for labor. It’s great he’s doing it. I know that my wits won’t be about me during this time, and it’s great that S will know what to do and will be running the show so I can focus on trying to stay relaxed. At the same time I don’t want him to worry and stress out too much. Keeping track of the occurrence/duration of my contractions? Good! Keeping track of how often I go to the potty (once labor begins) and what I do in there? Not so much! At this rate, I’m wondering if we’ll need drugs from the hospital after all… to keep him calm and sedated 🙂
With that, I leave you with my latest belly pic:
Has the phrase “I’ll give you a buck if [insert event here]” ever come out of your mouth?
I’m not much of a betting person, but once in awhile I’ll take a fun challenge.
What I’m finding interesting is the creativity that new (or about to be new) parents take with bets. Take for example the latest one S and I have going:
S’ project has been getting delayed for quite some time now. It’s beta date keeps slipping, so I’ve bet him that they’re not releasing this product to beta customers in 2008. Right now it’s scheduled for October. S being the faithful man that he is (in his team), is holding out confidence that it will go out on time (or at least in this calendar year).
What’s on the line? A fun night of sole diaper changing responsibility. Night to be determined by the winner.
So with poo on the line, you know we mean business. Care to bet on which one of us will win this one? ;p
My weekly appointment was today.
I’ve gained only 1lb over the previous week (yey), my blood pressure continues to be excellent (def. yey), I am measuring at 36w (boo), and I’m only 1/2 cm dilated (yey). Dr. M said that she thinks it will be at least another week before G decides to make a run for it.
She’s estimating a 6 lb-something baby (although I think he’ll be 7-something), and she has no guesses on hair (other than that it will start off dark and then lighten up). So, for all of you who’ve played our baby pool, that’s all the updates this week 🙂
A few weeks ago our friends D&T decided to move back to New York. As they cleaned out their fridge, they left some of their left-over condiments with us. Although I could never put Tobasco sauce to use in my house (I can’t digest spicy foods), they had lots of other goodies I was happy to take, and curious to try.
I will start off by saying that I can’t stand peanut-butter! I like it in they tiny Reese’s peanut-butter cups you score while Trick-or-Treating, but that’s about it. For me, the best way to spoil a jelly sandwich was to put peanut butter on it. I think PB is something you have to grow up with, and the majority of Europeans that I’ve talked to that haven’t (grown up around it), can’t stand it either.
Well… NO MORE!!! Today amongst D&T’s food gifts I discovered sunflower seed butter. Yeah, I know it’s not the same as PB, but it’s so damn good. It actually tastes a bit like Halvah (for those that have tried it), which is an additional bonus for me because it makes me remember the goodies I ate growing up.
2 tablespoons have 7g of protein (which is good for pregnancy)… and I’m ignoring how many calories are in that same serving.
I’m a happy girl today! By extension, G will be a happy boy too, since nutty-type butter spread will no longer be exiled from our home.
Yeah, it was inevitable, and I’m not upset about it, but it amuses me how long it took me to recognize the markings on my skin as stretch-marks. I thought they were indentations from pants, or maybe a bruise, until yesterday it hit me – stretch-marks. It’s almost like earning my first set of “mommy stripes”. In this case… almost literally ;p
I won’t subject you to a picture of that, but heres some belly shots from today:
I only have a few weeks left of these so I’m trying to be good about taking one each week. I put the one in on the right, because my pink PJs don’t really reflect that I really am mostly belly.
My first maternity leave day was today. I woke up around 8 after successfully ignoring Neko’s 6am meows and S’s many alarms (the man requires at least 3 to rise). Upon waking up I had the best feeling: my colleagues were on their way to work, and I had a day of gluttonously blissful relaxation ahead. It was almost like playing hooky, and that feeling was way better than any day of vacation I’ve ever had! I got together with my friend A: we walked on the beach at Pacifica, watched the surfers wait around for waves and had lunch. I had a blast. You know that saying “Time flies when you’re having fun?” Yeah – I lived that today. All of a sudden 4 hours had passed by and it was time to go.
I spent my afternoon attending another hospital tour with S. The first trips we made were to interview hospitals. Since then we’ve had questions, and realized we probably need a refresher visit. We turned into one of THOSE couples: you know… the ones that kept asking obscure questions making the tour take 3 times longer than it normally would? S walked away saying that one of the other expectant dads kept giving him the evil eye whenever we’d ask anything. Quite frankly, I didn’t care. He may not realize that asking how many pillows the hospital provides just helped his wife plan how much to pack for.
Days like today really are helping me get ready for G. Even after only 10 hours, I feel calmer and more prepared (as if one ever could be). No clue what the rest of the week will bring, but so far life is good!
My last day of work (pre- my maternity leave) was yesterday. It was kind of exciting and sad to walk away from my desk.
I was telling S this morning that now every day until G arrives will feel like Sunday. He looked at me and asked “Don’t you mean Saturday?” I responded “No, Sunday is like knowing you have one more day before you have to go back to work. We wait for labor, knowing that each day could be the last day.” It’s a bitter-sweet feeling.
So how did I celebrate my first day off?
- Brunch and baby talk with A & B
- Yet another trip to Babies R Us (I think they just need to assign me my own parking spot there)
- Running a few chores at a few more stores
- Nap! Yep, I came home, put my feet up and proceeded to nap for a good hour.
Now, let’s see how long I’ll manage being at home before I get bored enough to want to self-induce labor 🙂
Our birth-prep course instructor and OB have encouraged us to create a list of “birth preferences”. For those unfamiliar to the term, this document is a wish list of the types of things you would like to have happen during/after labor. It’s “preferences” over “plan” because although most births are pretty uneventful, you can’t predict exactly how they’ll go, so sticking to a plan might not be reasonable if you could be endangering either the baby or the mom.
I wanted ours to be very short and note the things that were important to me. Although there are lots of other things I’d like, they’re on my “nice to have” list or I don’t have that much of a preference one way or another. I’m hoping that with it being short, it would be easier for the nurses caring for us to actually read it all the way through.
What was interesting (and a little unexpected on my part) was the discussion that this piece of paper sparked between S and I. Although we’re on the same page, the language in my initial draft brought out his “contract reading eyes” where he was reviewing how each phrase could be interpreted. I hadn’t seen him get this emotional in awhile, so this was a serious talk we needed to have. I did my best to let him talk, and try to reiterate his point of view to make sure I understood him correctly, before I proceeded to tell him my thinking. Go “Marriage Prep 101”! Those two days in seminar do pay off! At the end of it all, this list is what we both want in addition to understanding the “unstated” limits of each item.
So here goes. S & A’s birth preferences… (although it is written in the first person)
Thank you very much for attending to our family over the next few days! I look forward to sharing this experience with you!
Although I realize that my birthing journey can have many unexpected turns, I would like to share my birthing preferences with you. Ultimately my goal is to deliver our child safely, but it is my hope that you will assist me in having an unmedicated, natural childbirth experience as close to my requests below as possible.
Medication:
- I would prefer that epidural (or other pain relief) medication is NOT offered to me, although I would like that it be available should I request it.
- Unless my child displays fetal distress, please do not administer induction medication (such as Pitocin) or strip my amniotic membranes. I would prefer that non-chemical methods be tried first.
Labor:
- I would like to be given the opportunity to walk and move around throughout labor. If an IV is necessary, please allow me the opportunity to move it with me.
- If a squat bar is available, please allow me to use it.
Monitoring:
- Unless required by the condition of our child, I do not wish to have continuous fetal monitoring.
After Birth:
- I would like my child to be placed on my body and allowed to nurse before his cord is cut.
- Please ask my husband if he would like to cut the cord himself.
- If a program is available, I would prefer to donate the umbilical cord blood.
- Our son will not be circumcised.
- Our child may NOT be given the Hep B vaccine.
- You may administer other procedures such as the Vitamin-K shot, eye prophylaxis and APGAR tests. If allowed, I would like my husband to be present during these procedures.
- I would like to meet with a lactation consultant as soon as they are available.
Thank you for your time and care!
Our OB has since reviewed the plan and found everything to be “very reasonable” — her words. She put it in my chart and will have it sent over to the hospital. Of course we’ll be making half a dozen of our own copies to hand out too.
As I was carrying a laundry basket to G’s room this morning I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror… and it hit me: My new job in a matter of weeks will be that of a laundress. With babies and our cloth diaper strategy apparently we’ll be doing laundry about every 2-3 days. Joy!!!
Yep, that was sarcasm.
I don’t mind sorting clothes (that part’s kinda fun). I don’t mind putting them in the machine or even moving them into the drier. But I HATE folding. Hate it, hate it, hate it! Even with my own clothes the basket they come out of is where they stay until I pull them out to re-wear them. This has been a constant strife w/ S, and we’ve reached a mutual compromise — I don’t have to fold my clothes, but my laundry basket of “clean” clothes will stay out of his sight. When I do take time to put clothes away I hang everything that can be remotely hung. If there were hangers for undies those would be hanging too.
But now w/ G arriving, and me being the stay-at-home care provider for the next few months I have no excuses to not fold his stuff. So here comes my new job!
I started the first set of laundry yesterday, and man is there a lot of it. Washing everything he’ll be in contact with produced 4 loads of stuff. Some of it (the clothes bit) looks like I’m getting ready to dress my dollies, but it does add up.
I’m halfway done. Off I go to do the rest… and fold. Hmn… Maybe this will be my incentive to train Neko how to fold. He’s very keen in getting into the laundry basket. Now if I can only convince him to do something useful while he’s there…
Q: How do you get a 8.5 mo pregnant woman to go into hyperventilation when she’s not ready to go into labor?
A: You say “Hon, turn so I can see your profile! It looks like you’ve dropped!”
Yeah, not a fun moment.
Luckily my OB appointment was today, and although G’s is in place and my cervix is very soft (yeah, you really wanted that detail didn’t you), it’s also closed up and the OB said that the chances of me going into labor over the next week are low. Of course she prefaced it with a “that can change”, but I’ll take it.
I have some things that have to get done next week, two of which include having the cleaning crew over (I’m off-loading the “nesting” to someone else) and a veterinarian appointment for Neko. Yeah, stop laughing at me — I realize I shouldn’t be making big plans here, but I can’t plan to just stay at home and just wait around for contractions to start either.
In other news: my feet have grown!!! Apparently the belly is not the only thing gaining in size here. I finally grew from a 6 to a size 7 two years ago, which was super exciting for me — I graduated from having to shop at the little girls isle. You know how hard it is to find cute high heeled shoes that don’t come in pink patten leather? Now I’ve gained another 1/2 a size. I know this by spending the whole day in shoes yesterday that clearly didn’t fit me. I mentioned this to my sister today and now she’s convinced that she doesn’t want to be pregnant — for fear that pregnancy will also have her (already sizeable) feet also grow.
Oh… and speaking of belly, here’s glorious me last Saturday at 37w.
Ok, you’ve seen some pieces here and there of our nursery. Well – here are the final pics.
[far & back walls. The only thing missing are our pregnancy shoot photos.]
[door wall]
[closet & back walls]
[wet bottoms go here & yes, I enjoy our label-maker a bit too much]
My sis’ work came out amazing! Looking at it makes me smile.
In general, my “nesting” has been focused 100% on this room. I don’t seem to care about having the rest of the house spotless, but for some reason having this room be ready for G has been where my energy wants to go.
Even Neko (our four-legged, meowing kid) approves of the room. The other day he even walked me there just to hang out in it together. He’s figured out that our glider is really comfy after watching me sit (and nap) in it as often as I do. He finally got up in it and proceeded to take a nap while my mom and I were folding and putting away baby clothes. Whenever I got close, he’d open a sleepy eye and give me this look like “You didn’t want me to move, did ya’? ‘Cuz I won’t!”
So hopefully G will take lots of good, comfy naps in here… preferably ones that last all through the night 🙂
P.S. Enjoy the crib bumper while it lasts. G won’t be! He’ll be getting a breathable (and not quite as fashionable) crib bumper instead.
