Okay, so it was just a pit stop.

It turns out that even though it hasn't been that long since I 'quit' blogging, I'm missing it already. I've found myself going through my archives on more than one occasion, and I really like reading again about what I was thinking or feeling at any particular moment. So I'm going to pick it up again. I've got lots of things floating around in my head that I'm going to spew for the next few days.

#1: A new neighbor just moved in next door. She's probably in her early forties. And introduced herself to me as "Scooter". I feel really wierd calling a grown woman I barely know Scooter. Is it just me?

#2: I love watching Ant learn new things. He's working on crawling at the moment. He was pushing himself backwards last week, this week he's getting up onto his hands and knees much better (depending on the amount of purchase on the surface he's on). Every day it seems like he's a little closer. I always wondered how they figured these things out.

#3: I always thought (without really thinking about it, if you know what I mean) that milestones were black and white. Can your baby sit by himself or can't he? Can he walk or not? Now I see how grey those milestones really are. Ant could sit unsupported at 6 months. But he would still topple quite frequently. Now he's much more stable, but does still fall over occasionally, although it's much slower and more controlled. Generally. And he certainly can't walk by himself, but at the same time, with one of us holding his hands to balance him, he can motor around at a surprising speed, clearly putting one foot in front of the other of his own accord.

#4: I am falling apart! My left knee has been bugging me for a while, clicking when I get up from kneeling, or when I tried to ride my bike a few weeks ago. I've been seeing a PT, but it's not helping, in fact I think it's gotten worse. I definitely feel more pain when I kneel or squat. Ugh. I need my knees! I've also had repetitive stress injury in my wrists in the past from pipetting and typing. And in the last few days it's gotten really bad, I think from picking up, holding, and balancing Ant. I have some braces to wear, but it's hard to do much of anything with them on. Double ugh. And then there's my diastasis which still isn't 100% healed. Ah, to be a teenager again!

#5: I never knew how much time I would spend on the floor with a kid. The latest is holding him while he walks around - there's the bent over at the waist position, which hurts my back pretty quickly. There's the moving around on my knees, but that hurts even more (see #4). And then there's my patented ass-walk. I sit behind him, with one leg out to each side, and then wiggle my bum from side to side to scooch forward as he takes his steps. Boy, is our floor clean these days. Good thing too, as picking up a mop is something that just does not seem to fit into the schedule.

End of the Road

I have written this post in my head so many times since Ant was born, but kept putting it off because I really do enjoy blogging. But the time has come. I am finding that I just can't keep up with blogging anymore - I even wrote a post last week and never got around to actually putting it up. And I'm so far behind on reading y'all's posts, let alone commenting... I'm working effectively 4 days a week now (two in the office, two more 4 hour days at home), and then play dates on my day off means that I can barely find time to check my email anymore. So I think it's time to call it a day, take a hiatus, until (if) things get a bit more manageable.

I really truly want to thank you for all your support through the thicks and the thins, from the bottom of my heart. Each comment of commiseration and support has meant so much to me. And I hope my comments and thoughts have meant something to you. I will keep reading and commenting as much as I can, but hopefully you can cut me a little slack for the moment!

One thing I'm truly curious about is whether I have actually conquered my hypothalamic amenorrhea or not. Still no sign of the Crimson Bitch - not entirely unexpected, as I'm still nursing, but I do keep hoping that she'll show her ugly face. I will definitely update to let you know if / when (please, when!) she returns.

In other news, Ant just got his top two teeth. He's sitting pretty well - although not 100% stable, as both M and I discovered to our chagrin yesterday. Had his 6 month appointment today; 28 inches long (90%), and 17lb 7oz (44%). Still long and skinny! He's a joyous, happy, smiley baby. Being a parent is so much better than I ever imagined. I can't wait for each of you to experience it, whatever path may take you there.

Baby trip

We spent the weekend visiting a good friend of mine from college, who has a son 5 weeks younger than Ant. It was really great to see her again, and to meet B. What a difference in personality between the two kids though! B is much more mellow and chilled out; Ant is constantly moving and shaking. It is really easy to make Ant smile and laugh; you really had to work at it with B. All my friend had to do was to look at Ant and say "hi", and he would laugh! That hasn't happened with anyone else, I don't know why he thought she was so amusing. They also had a jumper which Ant loved :-)

I've been annoyed with some of the books I've ready about child-raising. Healthy Sleep Habits for example, says "your child will naturally develop an earlier bedtime". But never really said what to do if they didn't! I feel like a lot of these books have good theories, but are very short on how to actually put the theory into practice. But I did really get to see this weekend what a difference some of the things I picked up from HSHHC make. That book says that babies shouldn't be awake for more than two hours at a time, that's all they can manage before needing a nap. And we have definitely found with Ant (until recently, as he approaches the 6 month mark) that he would start getting fussy at right around 2 hours of awake time. So we basically would put him down for a nap as soon as he'd start fussing, and he'd sleep for anywhere from 40 minutes to a couple of hours. And then he's a really pleasant baby when he's awake.

Poor B, though, would be up for 3-4 hours at a time - and he'd start whining and fussing and being miserable at right around 2 hours, and they wouldn't put him down! What a nightmare. Hours on end of the poor kid going "Wah".."Wah"..."Wah". M and I tried to suggest naps without seeming overly pushy. I mentioned HSHHC and the two hour thing; I said once "That's how Ant is when he's tired", once or twice I said "awww, look at his droopy eyes!". But it's so hard to tell another parent what to do. I just felt bad for the poor little guy, it was clear to me that he was totally overtired! I guess HSHHC has at least some worth.

(And Ant is finally getting to this "naturally" earlier bedtime. He's going from 4 naps down to 3, awake for longer than two hours in the evening, which means that he's tired for the night closer to nine rather than ten. I guess I would have liked HSHHC to tell me that some kids would do this earlier bedtime thing sooner than others, and that I shouldn't worry, it would happen eventually.)

let them eat cake

I haven't gotten to do much cake baking of late... but I put my skills to the test on Saturday, for my in-laws retirement party. I wanted to share the results - I got the idea for the decorations from a Betty Crocker cake decorating book, and am really pleased with how it came out. The things on top are supposed to be those party blowers - they don't quite look right because I couldn't find the candy sticks I was looking for, so made do with twizzlers instead. But it was fun to make (and tasty too - lemon cake, with raspberry sauce and lemon frosting). The streamers were made from fruit rollups! (Boy, have those changed since I was a kid. I still liked them though, sadly enough.)

Games babies play

A friend was asking me today what games Ant and I play together, as she was looking for ideas. Here are some of the things we do... What can we add to our repertoire?

Sometimes we go up in the office where he really likes looking at the Tivo box we just got (the box the Tivo came in, that is), and moving its lid up and down. There's also a full length mirror in there, and we look at and wave to each other in that. In front of that are some piles of books and wrapping paper that he likes to play with. He actually really likes wrapping paper, I think the colors are really appealing. I've started giving him squares of it to keep him occupied in the car (he hasn't started eating it yet!).

We play on the bed in his room, I'll roll him over while singing "there were ten in the bed and the little one said...". There are also a couple of toys up there that he'll grab at while I hold them in front of him. We do lots of sitting and standing whereever we go, and I also try and throw in some tummy time as often as I think of it and he'll stand for it. He also likes it when I hold brightly patterend clothes above his head, and swing them from side to side. Sometimes he'll reach for them, sometimes he won't. But he always seems excited, which is what I think he's feeling when he starts kicking his feet and moving his arms more.

Downstairs we read books while sitting on the couch, or just practice sitting and standing. Sitting on the coffee table too, where there are lots of things to look at. Sometimes I'll put him on my lap and play bouncy games "Trit-trot to Boston, trit-trot to Lynn - you'd better watch out that you don't fall IN" I drop him between my knees on the last syllable. Or "This is the way the lady rides....". A new one I just learned from another friend "Jumpy jumpy sugary lumps... the more AJ eats, the more AJ JUMPS", lifting him up on the last.

We play "head, shoulders knees and toes", or other body part songs where I sing body parts to random tunes, like "nose and mouth and cheeks and chin, cheeks and chin, cheeks and chin...nose and mouth and cheecks and chin, all parts of Antony" to the tune of mary had a little lamb.

He's quite fond of the leapfrog music table we borrowed from my sis. From about three months on we would lie it on its side, and make it play for him, he really liked the lights and music. Now we do about 50/50 with it on its side and him on the floor, and it upright, holding him up while he's standing. We've gotten a LOT of use out of that one. Not quite as much as the gymini, but close.

He has various other toys that will amuse him for a few minutes at a time, I basically just show them to him, talk about them or sing a song, and see if he wants to grab onto them or not. His favorites are Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal, and a little bee that makes noises and lights up when you move its wings. I've also taken to just showing him random objects that are lying around - he's enjoyed my keys, the plastic tab that you have to pull off to open a bottle of milk, my poland springs water bottles, granola bar wrappers - I try and give him things of lots of different shapes and sizes so he can learn about how they feel and sound. Oooh, he also really likes the tissue paper that presents come wrapped in.

Sometimes he just doesn't seem interested in his toys so we'll wander around the house and I'll tell him about different things. He particularly likes the basement, I think becuase he's not down there that often so there's lots of new stuff to look at. When he's in one of those moods is when I'll pop him in the baby bjorn. We'll also look outside for a while, when it's too cold to actually go out.

His absolute favorite thing is when we make faces / noises. He's gone through phases of what he's liked - at the moment, slurpy noises and exaggerated laughing really set him off. We can keep him laughing for a good five minutes with those. And we generally stop because we're tired, not because he is! For a while he really liked exaggerated kissy noises, which I would do while kissing his face or his hands. I also make muching noises while munching oh his hands and feet. He likes consonant / vowel combinations... "dah dah dah dah dah" over and over - one night he found it so amusing I went through the whole alphabet a few times! We also play "where's Antony", where I put a bib or facecloth over his face for a few seconds, saying "Where's Antony? Where's Antony?"... then I move it off from one side or the other and say "There he is!!! I see you!!!". I would have thought he wouldn't like his face being covered, but he does his excited kicking/arm flailing and never seems upset, so I think he does like it. Maybe just the anticipation of what's coming...

I'd love to hear ideas of other things we can do together, to keep us both interested!

On a totally different topic, I've always put pictures in as separate links, not right in the post, as I don't want to cause angst to those who may not want to have baby pictures shoved in their face. Should I continue to do that, or do you think baby pics in the post are okay?

Believe only half of what you read...

My eyes have finally started getting better. YAY! Thanks for all the tips ladies. Although, Elle, what on earth did you mean with the breast milk comment. Is one supposed to put that in one's eyes???

On the whole carseat issue, I did a little bit more reading and came to the conclusion that we would stick with the Britax for a bit longer.

#1 - According to the American Association of pediatrics, in 2000, there were 539 deaths of children under 5 in motor vehicle accidents. Half of those were not restrained at all. I think that's a pretty low number (approximately the same as the chance of being struck by lightning). In fact, according to the NHTSA stats, only 81 infants under 1 were killed in auto accidents while restrained.
#2 - If all those car seats truly are that bad in high speed crashes, why have I *never* heard about it?
#3 - the sites that folks mentioned that bring up some very valid points about the CR testing: they will not release their methodology so no-one else can duplicate their results. They don't make any comparison to the real world, so it's hard to say what their results truly mean. And, apparently they don't test the car seats in cars (I guess that would get expensive), but using a sled contraption. How does that mimic the crumple zones etc. that cars have?

And then, LOL, CR retracted the whole damn thing! Bastards!!!

Woe is me...

I have acquired myself a lovely case of viral conjunctivis. I think it's a second whammy from a nasty cold I had at the end of December (with a fever, which is really unusual for me). I've been sniffling ever since, blowing my nose a lot, and I think that somehow the loveliness got transferred. Yuck.

I've been washing my hands every time I even *think* about touching my eyes, and no-one else in the family has come down with the pink-eye yet. (Although I must say it is much more like RED-eye!). I'm really really hoping that Ant doesn't get it. I'm miserable, I can only imagine how awful this must be for a baby who has no comprehension of why he can't open his eyes when he wakes up.

My PCP prescribed antibiotics for me, which did not work. So I went to an eye doc, who gave me eye drops with steroids in them. Thank god for those. I'm still uncomfortable, but at least I don't want to scratch my eyes out anymore.

The best part? There's nothing that can make this go away, except time. 7-10 flipping days!!! 5 down so far, with no real signs of improvement. I'm thinking about trying Zicam - if it works for colds, it might work for this, right????

The reason this sucks is multi-fold. First, my eyes are constantly leaking tears, so I have to dab at them with a tissue every 15-20 minutes. And then I have to wash my hands. All this wiping, plus cleaning that I have to do when I wake up in the morning in order to get my eyes unstuck, means that the skin under my eyes is incredibly dry. It looks as if I'm about 80 years old. I put moisturizer on this morning, and it stung like heck. And of course, all the handwashing means my hands are incredibly dry and sore too. Ugh.

Safety first

I had to make an unexpected purchase today. I got an email alert from babycenter yesterday, with links to the latest Consumer Reports study on infant carseats. Much to my dismay, I read that the Britax Companion carseat, which we had specifically bought based on it having the best ratings from the previous CR tests, failed their new tests. Both with the LATCH system and when secured by seatbelts. And the failures seem spectacularly bad.

So, off to purchase a new car seat. I could never forgive myself if I didn't, and Antony were hurt in an accident.

He had his 4 month appointment on Thursday, and came in at 26.5 inches, 92nd percentile for height! Given that the Graco carseat that is now the top CR infant seat recommendation only accomodates infants up to 29 inches, it seemed silly to us to bother, as he'd likely outgrow it in short order. So I went out and bought the Evenflo Triumph convertible seat, which garnered the highest CR safety recommendation in these latest tests. I'm bummed that I won't be able to put Ant to sleep in his carseat, then carry him out to the car, anymore. But it is what it is.

(Ant was in the 50th percentile for weight at 15lb 1 oz - weight for height he was in the 5th percentile. I guess he's a string-bean!).

Resolved

I don't usually do New Year's resolutions, because I don't see the reason to wait to make changes. But I've been thinking about these things, so what the heck, now is as good a time to start as any.

I also think that Suz's idea of having metricable resolutions is an excellent one. So, keeping that in mind, my resolutions are:

1. Lift weights at least three times a week.

Up until Ant's birth, I had been lifting weights at least 2x/week for almost four years. Except for the 9 weeks during my pregnancy when I wasn't allowed to exercise. Since his birth, number of times I've done it? One - today! I feel so weak and out of shape, even though the baby weight is gone. So I will start doing some light lifting in the basement (getting to the gym is really out of the question) during his morning nap.

2. Change out of my pajamas every day.

Don't laugh, there have been a number of days recently where I have not bothered to get dressed. Which is all well and good, I'm not seeing anyone or anything like that. But it makes me feel slovenly and yucky (forgetting to brush my teeth and put on deodorant probably has something to do with that!). And it's not even as if I don't have time to change, I've just been lazy. So that ends today as well.

3. Do my diastasis (abdominal separation) reduction exercises at least 2x/day until I feel like it's totally fixed.

That's all I've got for now.

My first foray to the basement for weight lifting this morning was amusing. I pulled out a couple of old "Shape" magazines I used to use for a quick exercise routine, figuring those would be a good place to start. First, a quick aerobic warmup - the magazine had a five minute routine, which I remember used to get my heartrate up pretty quickly. Starts with some marching, then jogging in place, jumping jacks, squats, punches, kicks... Got to the jogging, and very quickly realized that it wasn't going to work! When I was doing this before I had little "A" sized bubbies. Bouncing up and down, no problem. Now? Not so much. I didn't feel like stopping to go upstairs to get some more support (I was just wearing my cotton nursing bra), so instead I used my hands. Effective, although unwieldy. But next time I will plan ahead a bit more. I always wanted bigger boobs, but now I'm actually kinda looking forward to going back to the little ones that didn't get in the way!

Year in Review

I've seen this meme on a few other blogs, and really liked it. I cheated a little bit though, some of my first sentences were lame, so I went with the second instead.

January: Last night we were quite boring, and went over to some friends' house to play pinochle (It's a rough game!). So instead I'll tell you about my favorite New Year's Eve celebrations.

February: Not much news on the Phred front - although I did have my first OB appointment last week.

March: Had my 14 week appointment today (14w4d).

April: We had our "big" ultrasound today, and found out we're having a ..... baby!

May: One of the things that I did know might happen was the separation of my abdominal muscles.

June: I'm still contracting like it's going out of style (this is one uterus that damn well better be able to handle labor, with all the practice it's getting!)

July: My contractions have calmed down quite a bit - every now and again I'll get a bout of them, but they're never closer together than 10 minutes anymore, and for the most part they're an hour + apart.

August: As I mentioned, since reading "Natural birth the bradley way", I've also read a couple of other books on the topic of delivery, and more specifically, the things that your doctors don't necessarily tell you ("The thinking woman's guide to a better birth", and "The silent knife" about C-sections and VBAC.

September: I can't tell you all how much your support has meant to me - your good wishes and thoughts leading up to my c-section, and congratulations on Ant's birth have been so appreciated, even though I haven't been able to tell you so individually.

October: Here's [redacted] another pic of my babe, wearing a Polo outfit someone gave us.

November: I played in my first ice hockey game today.

December: I am in a pissy mood.

I hope that 2007 brings only good things to each and every one of you!

Virtual Cookie Exchange!

Thanks to Jenn for organizing this virtual cookie exchange. Fabulous idea!

Here is my absolute favorite cookie recipe. Apricot Spirals. What I love about them are the contrast in textures - the cookie itself is really soft and crumbles in your mouth; that is set off really well by the chewiness of the apricots. YUM! (Note, the original recipe was in cups, I translated into ounces and grams as that's how I prefer measuring ingredients)

Apricot Spirals

2/3c finely chopped dried apricots
1/2c water (4 oz, 125mL)
1/3c brown sugar (3 oz, 80g)

3/4c butter, softened (6 oz, 170g)
1c sugar (7 oz, 200g)
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
2 1/4c flour (9.5 oz, 275g)

Simmer apricots in water for 15 min then add brown sugar and lightly mash.  Put in the freezer to cool while you prepare the dough.

Beat butter for 30 seconds (use either hand mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment).  Add sugar and baking powder, beat until combined. Beat in egg.  Beat in flour.

Roll dough between two sheets of plastic wrap (it is very sticky, this is the only way to roll it) to a 16x12 rectangle.  Remove top layer of plastic wrap and spread cooled apricot filling almost all the way to the edges.  Roll from the long side, using the bottom piece of plastic wrap to form a tight roll.  Wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours until dough is hard.  Cut into 1/4in slices.  Bake for 9-11 min at 375.

All I want for Christmas...

It looks like Ant will have his two front teeth for Christmas! Poor little guy is not doing well with the whole teething thing. He barely slept at all yesterday, I was wondering what the heck was going on until I met up with my sis, and she pointed out "tooth bumps"! Tylenol last night got him to sleep (he was so exhausted he went down for the night at 5:30, 4-6 hours earlier than normal), but I don't want to give him too much of it. Although it's definitely worth doing at bedtime!

Any idea how long it will take to get from the "tooth bump" stage to them actually breaking through?

Pissy

I am in a pissy mood today. It started at around 1am when M came upstairs to get ready for bed, and turned on the monitor in our bedroom where I was sleeping. Rather than taking it with him (which is what I always do) he left it there, and I got woken up from a deep, sound sleep by Ant being fussy. Strike one.

Strike two - Work was annoying because I tried to change my network password in the middle of the day when I was prompted to upon logging in, and I've been having problems accessing the damn thing ever since. I was trying to do some work after I got home while the kid is sleeping, and I can't access anything. Grrrr.

Strike three: I called my FIL who was taking care of Ant today to let him know that I'd be home at around 3:30. Wouldn't you know, I arrive, and he had *just* started a bottle. I would SO much rather have fed him myself - instead I had to pump again. I said I would have liked him to hold off for a few minutes, FIL said he tried his best, and I could have been late. Yeah, well fucking call me and find out where I am!!!!!

Strike four (aren't we out by now??) - I left specific instructions with M this morning on the order in which the milk in the fridge was to be used, and they were totally ignored. So now we have to bottle feed Ant at least one more time today, or throw away 6 ounces of milk. Is it REALLY that difficult to use the bottles on the top first, then the milk in the bag, THEN the bottles on the bottom??? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Honestly I'm annoyed with myself too because I thought this morning that I should perhaps put numbers on the milk in the fridge to indicate the order in which it should be used, but decided not to because I was running a little late.

Hopefully the rest of the day will not add to my pissiness!!!

Rough morning (LOL)

So I put Ant in his vibrating chair while I took a shower and got dressed. When I picked him up out of it when I was done, I felt wet on my arm. I was wondering how he could already have peed through the diaper, but when I looked at his bum, it was poop! No idea what happened, but he managed to poop out of one side. So we got totally messy trying to get out of the clothes (with pants and a long-sleeved onesie, it was basically impossible not to get poop everywhere). So I decided to give him a bath. He was *not* pleased with me, so I didn't do a very good job. After we were done, I had him on his towel on the floor. Just as I was getting ready to put vaseline on his bum so I could put his diaper on, he peed on his leg, his towel, and my pants. And then to top it all off, he had a nice chunky spitup on his face, shoulder and neck. Probably the most unsuccessful bath ever!

Breakthrough!

Okay, maybe I shouldn't call it that just yet, but today Ant has taken two naps IN HIS CRIB, with nary a peep!

I decided yesterday that what I was doing wrong was letting him fall asleep on me, then trying to put him down after that. So today when he was in his tired phase after being up for 1.5 hours, I took him into his bedroom, shushed him for about three minutes until his eyes were closing, then put him down in his crib and shushed him for a few more minutes. Worked like a charm! He seemed to sleep much better, and I got to make my mom's bday cake for tomorrow. And it worked twice!

Who knew?

Sunday randomness

I played in my first ice hockey game today. SOOOooooo much fun! We won, 7 to 1. I felt like I played reasonably well, and our team played really well together. We managed to put into practice all the things we've worked on over the last few years. Yay hockey!!!

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My sis and I went to the mall last Sunday with our respective babies. As we were leaving, I went through the door first, then held it open for her. This other female person waltzed through after her, and didn't even bother to say thank you. My mouth opened before my brain could do anything, and I said in a really sarcastic tone of voice "No problem, let *me* just hold the door for you." She gave me a nasty look, but you know what? I felt pretty dame smug about it. I am always so nice and polite, and let people get away with being rude, but this time my mouth won out.

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M and I went to a friend's wedding last night, and I had my first alcoholic drink in almost 11 months. Two toasted almonds. Yummy! We had such a great time at the wedding (my mom was babysitting), and although we had to leave early because A only ate 2.5 oz at his 8pm feeding so I wasn't sure if he'd be down for the night, or wake up at around 11 for more, we did get to stay for some dancing, and the cake! I tried on all my formal dresses the night before, fortunately one of them fit me. It had criss-crossing ties in the back - which used to meet up in a bow in the middle of my back, but with my little baby belly there was no meeting at all. But no-one else knew that ;-)

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The past week has been really cool with Antony. So many things have changed! He's leaving his hands open now, they're not in fists nearly as much anymore. He's blowing spit bubbles, and sticking his tongue in and out. Definitely looking AT the toys on his gymini now, and he was apparently following Winnie the Pooh with his eyes when my mom was babysitting the other day, although I haven't seen that myself yet. Also lots more talking and smiling. We stayed at my mom's house last night after the wedding, and had a really fun exchange with Ant when we got up this morning.

Me: Antony, I hear you were reading some poetry with your granny last night?

Ant: Smile

Granny: I started reciting the poetry and he went to sleep almost right away.

Ant: Smile

Grampa: We should tell him some limericks!

Ant: Smile

Grampa: There once was a man from Nantucket...

Ant: Huge smile and almost a chuckle.

We all roared with laughter. The timing of his smiles was just *so* perfect, and the grin we got after "Nantucket" was priceless!

6 week checkup

Cleared for full activity. Woo-hoo! I have been pretty good about following the rules, although yesterday I carried Ant in his car seat, and obviously the biking that I started last week.

Had a pap test and vag. exam. Oh.My.God. I have never had such a painful cooter check in my life. Doc said because I had a c-section I would be tighter down there than a vag birth, and also breastfeeding means my estrogen is lower, so less lubrication. I have never bled after an exam before (including during the pregnancy, when they would say every time that I might have some spotting afterwards), but I did today. And of course I hadn't brought any protection with me, as I had stopped bleeding last week... and there were also no supplies in the exam room I was in. So I stuffed some toilet paper up there. Lovely.

Doc asked how breastfeeding was going, and how my supply was. I pointed down to the big patch that was already on my hospital gown, and said "no problems there!". I still can't get over the leaking.

The other thing that cracked me up was that as I was getting dressed again, I was checking myself out in the mirror. We don't have a mirror in our bedroom, and the one in the bathroom has decorations on it, so I don't actually look at myself nekkid that much. I had to laugh at my boobs - A) they're *huge* (well, for me anyway, starting at a paltry A cup, to a decent sized C now), and B) the veins on them stand out SO much. I look like a roadmap!

peanuts and other things

Thanks for all your input on my peanut question. I have decided that since there are no peanut allergies in either of our families, and there isn't any strong evidence that eating peanuts while breastfeeding causes allergies, I'm not going to worry about it. On the other hand, nor will I continue with eating peanutbutter on my toast on a daily basis. I've just been having Marmite or honey instead. No biggie.

Suzanne asked "why the big deal over peanuts? Why not over antibiotics, or any of the umpteen other things people can be allergic to?". I think the reason for the higher concern over peanuts is that they are so much more prevalent - so if you're allergic to peanuts you have to be vigilant every day. Whereas other allergens are generally easy to avoid. (BTW, Suzanne just found out her beta (donor eggs) doubled in 39 hours!!)

Lisa asked about the correlation between soy and peanut allergies. If exposure to soy can cause peanut allergies because the proteins are so similar, shouldn't that cause soy allergy as well? The article says in the discussion "Soy-protein fractions have been shown to be homologous to major peanut proteins, and exposure to a common soy T-cell epitope could cause cross-sensitization to peanuts, without necessarily resulting in clinical soy allergy. " They don't give any more explanation than that though.

I've been doing quite a bit of walking, as it's the only exercise that the docs said was okay after the c-section. I feel perfectly fine though, so I was wondering about starting up with biking again. Hockey season begins in about two weeks, and I'm sure my stamina is shite these days. So I thought that starting to do a little biking might be a good way to get a little more in shape. Called the ob's office to ask about it, and of course they said that I really should wait until my 6 weeks are up. Hmph. But I feel FINE! So I called a friend of mine who is a surgeon, and asked her opinion.

She said that the reason they say six weeks is that is the length of time it takes for the incisions in the muscles, that I can't see or feel, to heal. But, she said that biking should be just fine - it's important to avoid doing things (like heavy lifting, situps, etc.) that are stressing / using the abdominal muscles, in order to avoid tearing and a possible hernia and future corrective surgery. If I feel any pain or pulling, or like I'm using my abs while biking, obviously it's not good, but barring that, no problem.

I do so much better with following instructions (or not, as the case may be) if I actually understand the reason behind them, as opposed to just being told "don't do x, y or z". Her explanation makes a lot of sense to me, and also explains why when I lay on my stomach this morning on our hardwoord floor (videotaping A), I was somewhat uncomfortable - being up on my elbows WAS pulling on the underlying incision to some extent!

Of course, then there is the question of how exactly I plan on finding time to go biking, or to hockey for that matter. It will probably end up being a moot point!

We gave A his first bottle yesterday. Warmed up pumped milk to 98 degrees, and he took it like a champ. Going to try him with room temp milk today, so hopefully we can avoid having to heat it up when we want to give it to him. If he takes the room temp milk today, we'll try cold tomorrow...

A day in the life of a new mom...

I spent three hours today soothing, feeding, changing A, soothing, more soothing, trying to put down, more soothing... in the nude! I had put A down, and was just getting ready to shower, when he decided that today he didn't want to sleep anywhere but on me. Didn't care that I was somewhat on the stinky side, not only having not managed to shower, but also having forgotten to put on deodorant today.

It's a good thing they're so dame cute!

Precocious one...

I opened up my email the other day to find the following message, from Antonys.email@comcast.net (not the real address):

Hi Mommy,

I want to apologize for being fussy yesterday. I realize now that it was your first day home alone with me since Daddy had to go back to work.

Thanks for taking care of me! Hopefully I feel better today and I make your day easier than yesterday.

I love you!

Antony.


Obviously M had set up Ant's email account, and sent the message, but it still makes me smile :-)

To pea or nut to pea?

I had a lactation consultant come to visit last week - things had been going well, but I was quite sore, so I thought it couldn't hurt. I was in the middle of breakfast when she arrived, which was whole wheat potato bread toast with peanut butter.

She immediately told me to lay off the peanuts because of the possibility of peanut allergies. I haven't been able to find much in the medical literature about it, just one article in NEJM that says that peanut consumption by the mother is not related to allergies, but I wonder if I should stay away from them anyway. Then there's always the flip side, I keep hearing now about how people are getting more allergies because they're NOT exposed to allergens when they're young because we keep everything so clean now. What would you do?

BTW, that same article says that peanut allergies are related to exposure to soy milk, eczema (on the baby), and with the use of lotions or creams containing peanut oil on the baby's skin (although not on the mother's breast). The association with soy milk is likely because peanuts and soy are in fact in the same family, and some of the pieces of protein that are the peanut allergens are also found in soy proteins.

Life is boring... but I think that's good!

When I was trying to get pregnant, and when I was pregnant, I was always somewhat disappointed by the number of people who seemed to disappear from their blogs for extended periods of time once they had given birth.

But now I get it. It's really pretty boring!

He eats. He sleeps. He poops. I sleep. I eat. Occasionally I shower. Less occasionally we give him a bath. (Does that make me a bad mother? How about ignoring it when I hear him poop in his sleep because I don't want to wake him up?)Not much that's worth blogging about. I'll do my best to scrape out an entry though.

Physically I'm back to feeling about 99%. I removed the steri-strips that were holding my incision together yesterday and today (they were put on after the staples were removed), and it does feel better! I spent about two hours this afternoon weeding the garden (chopping down the goldenrod that had overtaken a couple of beds during my forced non-activity period because of the early contractions), and then took A out for a nice 45 minute walk to the store.

Breastfeeding is going pretty well. For some reason it's more painful on the right side than the left, which really doesn't make sense to me. But it's not even close to toe-curling anymore (which it was for a few days), so that's good. I tried lying on my side while feeding for the first time today - I loved it! I had attempted while in the hospital, but lying on my side really hurt at that point. Now, it felt a lot more intimate with A than either the cradle or football holds that I had been alternating between. And more comfortable too, not having to hold up his head.

I should buy stock in the companies that make nursing pads - I am leaking SO much it is really quite astonishing. I tried these new-fangled things called "Li1y Padz" that are supposed to stop leaking and are reusable for a number of months. Not a fan just yet - first of all, I was leaking so much that one of them gave way while I was nursing (in front of my in-laws), leaving a patch of milk on my shirt about the size of a small dinner plate. hahahaha. I tried them again yesterday, and they worked better (although not 100%) to stop the leaking, but it's warm, so I was sweating underneath them. Just doesn't seem like a good thing to me. Maybe I'll be able to use them once it's cooler. I've been using the disposable pads, because I need to change them every time I nurse. I do have some washable ones, but I'm not about to do laundry every day to clean them. Plus they take a long time to dry!

Aftermath - one week later

I had my first slices of raw genoa salami yesterday afternoon. YUM! Cold cut sandwiches are back on the menu, I had a tuna sandwich this afternoon. Really enjoying these things again. I can't wait for my first sushi!!!

I have ankles again! They were even more swollen right after I gave birth than they had been before (which I had no idea would happen, but is very common because your body is letting go of some of the fluid it's held on to, and the easiest place for it to go is your ankles and feet). I had really forgotten what my legs used to look like.

Having a baby is a great way to crash diet. 25lbs in a week. Amazing. I probably still looked about 5 months pg right after giving birth, now I'd say I'm at 3-4 months. I'm sure the next 10 lbs will take a little longer to come off, but after the initial delivery I was losing approx 2lb a day. I'm sure most of it is water (hence being able to see my ankles again!), but I was astonished at the rate it was dropping off. It seems to have slowed a bit over the last two days. Which is probably good, I need to have lots of energy to sustain the fiendish pace of eating going on around here!

I'm feeling much more like myself physically, just a little bit of tenderness left around the incision site. I can get up and down easily now, climb stairs (although M still won't let me do it more than twice a day!), and I'm walking pretty easily. I've wanted to go outside to walk for the last three days, but somehow it always gets to be dark out and we haven't managed yet!

Antony's birth

We arrived at the hospital at just after 6am, for our c-section scheduled for 8:30. M and I both remarked to each other as we were driving over how it still didn’t feel real – not being in labor, and having those hours to really feel the anticipation of Phred’s delivery meant that the idea that we would be holding a baby – OUR baby - in our arms in just a few hours still seemed very surreal. And it continued to do so when we were at the hospital.

They brought us right into a room in the labor and delivery suite, and had me change out of my clothes into a hospital gown. I was expecting not to change for a while yet, as I thought that we’d talk to the anesthesiologist and go over everything while I was still dressed, but apparently not! We took a quick video of the last minutes of Phred inside me, and then I got into the Johnny.

The baby and uterine contraction monitors were strapped around my belly, and we settled down so that they could get a good trace on the little one and make sure that everything was okay. The nurse also checked my vital signs. Then came the IV, into my left arm. I have really big veins, so usually there’s no problem whatsoever with putting in an IV or drawing my blood. This one felt a bit more painful than they had before though, and the nurse said that my skin was tough. Shortly after she put it in I started feeling light-headed and warm, as if I might faint. I mentioned it to her, and she had me roll onto my left side to relieve the pressure on the vein running down the back of my abdominal cavity. I felt immediately better. She said to the nurse relieving her that I was “vagal” (I think).

The anesthesiologist (Dr. G) then came in to talk to us as well. He had an accent I couldn’t place (eastern European?) which made it a little hard to understand him. He asked a bunch of questions about previous surgeries, reactions to anesthesia, that kind of thing, then determined that since this was a pretty straightforward case and there were no contraindications, he would do a spinal. He told us about how that would work, the possible side effects / complications, had me sign the typical consent form, and then went away for a bit.

The nurse then shaved the area where they would make the incision. She said that they usually use an electric razor, but those all seem to have walked off, so she was using this really awful disposable. It was so scratchy! It looked like the kind my dad used to use years and years ago, with a blade on either side of a convex middle. She also gave M the scrubs to wear into the OR.

He and I had both brought books with us, anticipating that we’d be doing a lot of waiting around in the 2.5 hours between when we arrived and when we were scheduled for surgery, but we found that we actually didn’t have any time to read! There was always someone in there, doing something or other. They also had breakfast brought for M, and said that even though it was mean to have food in front of me (I wasn’t allowed anything to eat or drink since midnight the night before), he was required to eat something. So that he wouldn’t faint in the OR. I guess they must have had problems with that in the past, and have found that having food in the partner's stomach helps prevent it. They had a muffin, banana, and something el se – as I walked by I only saw a bite taken out of the muffin so I thought he didn’t eat much, but apparently he ate the whole banana and the something else which neither of us can remember anymore.

After all this was done, it was time to head to the OR. To our surprise, they had me walk in there. It was also only about two doors down from the room I was in. I was also surprised when I got in there at how much stuff there was – cabinets lining the walls filled with supplies, equipment everywhere. I always thought of ORs as much more sparse than it actually was. I think I arrived in the room at 7:49 – at least that was the time according to the notes one of the doctors or nurses was making.

They had me go in and sit down on the edge of the operating table – fortunately they had a stool for me to use to climb up onto it with, because it was higher even than a normal table (I think), and I was definitely wondering how I was going to do it! The head anesthesiologist (Dr. L) talked me through exactly what I would do for the spinal – curve my back like a C, rock my hips backward – as Dr G, who was apparently a resident, started prepping me. He started by “washing” my back three times using (I assume) swabs with soap of some description on them. Then he spread a plastic sheet with a hole cut in it at the place where the needle would go, and adhered that to my back. That actually felt quite nice. I was in the C position already at this point, with my nurse standing directly in front of me, so that I wouldn’t be worried about falling over.

Next came the needle. The nurse was really sweet, and held my hand as the needle went in. I think they numbed the area first with some lidocaine, then came the spinal. It was painful, quite a sharp pain, but not unmanageable. I did appreciate having her hand to squeeze, and just tried to breathe through it. After that was done, they helped me swing my legs onto the table and lie down.

Catheter insertion was the next item on the agenda. They were already putting up the sheet, just above my breasts, so I couldn’t see what was going on, but it felt as if two people lifted up and held my two legs. I could feel a tingling going down my body, and my legs felt quite warm – the spinal taking effect. The last thing I felt was tingling in my feet, with my legs still up in the air.

Then, they supposedly put my legs flat down on the table so I was lying flat on my back (with a wedge under my right side). The reason I say supposedly is that I absolutely 100% would have sworn that my legs were still being held up in the air. Apparently your brain remembers the position the legs were in when the anesthesia takes effect. I also felt as if I could still feel tingling in my toes for a good long while. To check that the anesthesia was working, Dr. G used something sharp, and was poking me (gently). I had to tell him when I could feel the prick, as opposed to just pressure, which was at about the level of my breasts, or right where they had the sheet. I was “numb to the T4”, which I believe is the name for a particular vertebra in my spine.

Very shortly after this, I seemed to have some kind of negative reaction to the anesthesia – again, the docs were calling it “going vagal” or something like that. I heard the anesthesiologist say that I was “in the 40’s”, so I asked if that was my pulse, and she said it was. They gave me ephedrine and atropine, which I’ve certainly heard about on the hospital shows! They also put an oxygen mask on my face, which really helped. They stabilized me quite quickly, so I wasn’t worried about it. They were all amazed that I was still smiling and seeming happy!

One other potential issue that Dr. G had warned me about was that some people can feel as if they have trouble breathing with a spinal. The diaphragm is controlled by your brain, so is unaffected by the anesthesia, whereas the muscles around your ribcage are controlled though the spinal cord, so are affected. He said that your brain doesn’t get the same feedback that it’s used to, and that might manifest itself as feeling like having difficulty breathing. I actually felt a completely opposite sensation. I felt as if my breathing was so light and unimpeded. It was such a pleasure to breathe. Another really interesting sensation to add to my list.

My doc, Dr. F, was in the OR by this point, and made the incisions. Then M was allowed to join me. He was sitting up next to my head, behind the sheet. I noticed as he joined me that I could actually see what was going on on the other side of the sheet by looking at the glass front of the cabinets that were lining the wall. I had asked at my last appointment whether I could have a mirror so that I could watch, but Dr. F had said that they wouldn’t do that in case it affected me negatively. But I could actually see quite clearly despite not having a real mirror. I was really glad that I could in fact see. Not everything, because every now and again a body would get in the way. But, I could see a lot! And I pointed it out to M (very quietly so they wouldn’t know), so he could watch too if he wanted to.

I saw them using the retractor to lift up my abdomen and get inside the opening. Then there was a bunch of stuff I couldn’t really see as they had their hands in there and were in the way. Then there was all of a sudden a lot of sucking. Dr. G had been talking to me about what was going on, so I asked him what that was. Suctioning out the amniotic fluid! M said that he could hear the whoosh of fluid as they broke the bag, but I hadn't noticed that. I Dr. G then told me that I would start feeling a lot of pushing and pulling, like someone tugging pretty hard on my shoulder, but I really didn’t. I was very comfortable throughout. Perhaps it was that the pushing and pulling was so minor in comparison to the attempted version! I kept watching, and the next thing I saw was them pulling Phred’s little bum out. One of my friends also had had a C-section, and her DH had said that their son was basically a bloody alien mass when the doctors showed the baby to him, but I really didn’t see much blood, just the little bluish-white bum. Then they pulled the rest of Phred out, and said in a few seconds, “It’s a boy!!!”

Just before we started, Dr. L had been asking me if I had a feeling one way or the other, and I said I thought it was a boy. Throughout the pregnancy I hadn’t really had a sense, but somehow over the last few weeks I really started to think it was a boy. I didn’t cry when they made the announcement, but it definitely brought tears to my eyes. Getting more and more real by the second!

They took him over to the pediatrician, and then Mark heard someone remark “Oh, that explains why he was breech!” He mentioned that to me, and then asked over the sheet if that was what he had heard. They said yes, that the cord was wrapped around his neck 3-4 times! With the bulk of my placenta at the top front of my uterus, it seems like a very good explanation for his position, and why the version attempt didn’t work.

After a couple of minutes, they let M go over to see him, and he took a couple of pics of Antony being weighed. He then brought over the camera to show me the pictures. The first time I got to see our little guy! Gotta love digital cameras! The rest of the surgery gets a lot hazier for me. After they had checked Ant over, they brought him over to me so I could see him, and give him a kiss. My arms weren’t tied down, but they were spread out on either side of me, and had the IV, blood pressure and oxygenation monitor attached, so I couldn’t reach up to touch him. M went over to see Antony again, while the docs sewed me up. I watched some of that, and saw my uterus out on my stomach while they stitched it up, then stuffed it back inside me again. Then M came back over again, and was sitting with me. He was there until they started really cleaning up, taking down the sheet and everything. He said that he saw me all laid out, with blood and amniotic fluid all over. When they realized that he was watching, they had him leave the room again, I guess because it was pretty gory. I do remember being rolled over from side to side as they cleaned me off, and joking to the docs “you’re making sure I don’t roll off the table, right?” because I felt as if I was really close to the edge! Then they used one of those white carry things to move me off the operating table and onto a bed to move me back to the recovery room. I did get a look at the suction receptacle they were using, there were 1.1 liters of fluid in there! M and I were trying to figure out together what happened next, we think that they gave Ant to me right there, before they wheeled me back to the room we were in before.

When we got back, I couldn’t feel my legs at all, and there was no movement when I tried with all my might to send signals to them to move. Gradually I started being able to feel things again, a bit of pins and needles in the toes, got the ability to move my right thigh / knee, then the right toes. I still felt odd – the signals I was sending to my foot were to wiggle my toes, but in fact the whole foot was moving. My left side came back more slowly than my right, but eventually I was able to feel and move everything again.

I think we tried breastfeeding for the first time while still in the recovery room, and it went relatively well. I had been leaking since 19 weeks, so I was primed, and Antony seemed to get the hang of his end without too much trouble as well. After Dr. G had come in to make sure I wasn’t feeling any negative effects from the spinal, I was able to move, and Ant was stable, we got moved to the postpartum floor. My delivery was over, and resulted in a sore mom, but healthy baby boy, which is key!

All in all, despite my disappointment that I wasn’t able to have a natural birth, the experience was really quite special. All kinds of new feelings and sensations to remember. And we have a beautiful son!

B + 4 days

I can't tell you all how much your support has meant to me - your good wishes and thoughts leading up to my c-section, and congratulations on Ant's birth have been so appreciated, even though I haven't been able to tell you so individually. You guys rock!

We decided to come home from the hospital yesterday, one day early, rather than staying until today. I'm feeling pretty good - still in some pain (laughing is a REALLY bad idea!) and *very* slow-moving, but we didn't feel like we were getting anything from being in there, for either me or Antony, that we couldn't do just as well for ourselves. And being home meant no having to call and wait half an hour for pain meds, no having a nurse burst into the room, be told we were napping, and still throwing on every light in the place and talking at the top of her lungs. No vital sign checks every x hours,sleeping or not. We had kept Ant in the room with us the whole time, he'd only been separated from us for a grand total of ~1.5 hours for his bath, hearing test, PKU screen and weight checks, so we're comfortable that we can manage.

I walked out of the hospital room (if you can call my snail's pace walking!), with M carrying Ant in his car seat. He left us sitting in the lobby while he went to get the car, and that's when it really hit me. This is our baby boy we're bringing home!!!

All in all, we're doing fabulously. He has taken to the boob like a champ, and sleeps really soundly in between feedings, so we're even managing to get enough sleep ourselves to feel halfway human. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but hoping that it doesn't.

He is such an amazing little creature, I could watch him for hours on end. I know it's just involuntary muscle movement, but I even got a little smile this morning, which just melted me into a puddle on the floor.

I'm still working on his birth story (3 pages long and going strong!) and will post that and a pic or two soon. :-)

It's a BOY!!!!!!

Antony Joseph was born at 8:22 this morning. 7lbs 2oz, 20 inches. He is so sweet and adorable. (I adore him, anyway!) We've had a full day with relatives visiting, so this will be short, but I have lots to say about the c-section (I wouldn't choose it over a vaginal delivery if the choice were to be made, I just got up out of bed for the first time, and OH MY GOD it was painful. But the operation itself was totally cool!) so I will be writing that over the next few days.

He's basically been sleeping since 1pm this afternoon, so I'm going to go now and get some z's while I can. Take advantage of the honeymoon period!

Wow

We get to meet Phred in approximately 18 hours. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! I still can't wrap my mind around that idea. Feels very surreal. I assume it will feel more real when we're actually in the hospital!

Random thoughts

M was doing some internet research on what to expect with a c-section, and came across this gem, from WebMD, no less:

"What else do you need to think about before surgery?
Questions to consider include:
Do you need to finish any heavy work, such as laundry, shopping, or cutting wood, before your delivery? You will not be able to do any heavy lifting for 6 to 8 weeks."

Cutting wood? Is that really a common household chore, like laundry and shopping??? It's almost as if this came from a different century!

****************************

I'm finding myself less and less sanguine about the idea of having a c-section with every passing day. I wish I didn't have two weeks notice, I feel like it's just given me too much time to think about all the bad things that could happen, how much worse recovery is going to be, all that kind of stuff. I really am excited to meet Phred, but at the moment the excitement is being overwhelmed with dread. Which I don't think is really a good way to be heading into this. It's gotten to the point where thinking about having my baby is bringing me to tears, which in turn makes me feel even worse. Yet another time where I wish life had a fast forward button!

I was just emailing with my sis about this, and I think she had some really good advice. Now I just have to follow it! "Forget about the natural birth. Forget that you are not getting to do this the way you want to, and have expected to. Put aside your previous expectations and come up with a whole new scenario. Plan Phred’s birth, and your birth experience around the knowledge that you are having a C, not that you are not delivering naturally. Get excited about the anticipation of knowing exactly when Phred is coming, and just focus on that moment and on the pure joy you will feel at that second. Your birth experience may not be the one you were looking forward to all these months, but it is going to be your birth experience forever. Make it special and look forward to it. Put everything else behind you and make what is going to happen what you want. You do not want to look back at this day for the rest of your life and wish for something different. Make it a day you can look back at with no regrets."

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I spoke with my MIL last night - she mentioned at one point that she purchased two really cute outfits for Phred to wear home from the hospital, one if it's a boy, one if a girl. It actually seemed like a really good opportunity to me to at least begin addressing some of my concerns. So I tried to be very gentle, and said that we really appreciated her doing things like this, and that I totally understand how excited she is about her first grandchild, but that we're excited about our first *child*, and WE want to be able to buy the cute outfits. She actually took it really well, and said that with anything she gets that we don't want for any reason, she's more than happy to return them. She said she would absolutely return these outfits, she just wants me to see them first, because they're so cute. So we'll see if she actually means it. But on the surface at least, I think I got that part of my point across.

Of course, I am a totally unsentimental person, and as I mentioned quite frugal - some might even say "cheap". I don't see the point for us to spend money on a cutesy outfit to come home from the hospital in, when all it's going to be is hospital, car, house (I totally understand that some people DO want a cute outfit, and I think that's totally cool. It's just not for me). A onesie or sleeper seems perfectly adequate to me. Of course, I won't tell HER that!

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GandKsmom asked for some belly pics. Here's one of me with the obviously unfinished baby's room. And here are a couple of the belly.

In-law dilemma

My in-laws are really nice people. I truly believe that they have the best of intentions, they love their three sons dearly, and are really happy with their daughters-in-law. They are absolutely thrilled about Phred, who will be their first grandchild.

Two issues. First, they do tend to be somewhat overbearing. I'm not sure whether overbearing is exactly the right description. In some ways I think it's because they're lonely - they will often call us (or M's middle brother a lot more), with nothing really to say. Recently they've been calling on an almost daily basis asking "So how's my grandchild?" Ummmmm..... fine as far as I know. I've heard them say, as well, that once Phred is born, they plan on spending two days a week with us. Ack. Again, they're really very nice people, but they're not family to me in the same way that my mom and sister are - I feel like I need to entertain them and keep them busy where with my mom and sis I know that I don't. So that's issue number one.

Issue number two is going to be even harder to deal with. It has to do with gift giving, for birthdays, but way more so, for Christmas. My MIL is a shopaholic. Which is a really bad thing when you are planning on retiring in about six months, have your house fully mortgaged, and over $30K in credit card debt. Christmas at their house is a truly disgusting event, in my mind. Each person gets a stack of presents about three feet high. The first few years we estimated that the total value of gifts amongst the three sons and their spouses was in excess of $2K. It's gotten better since then, but still completely and thoroughly over the top. So much waste, excess, spending for the sake of spending.

A prime example was my baby showers. I had two - one organized by my MIL for her friends and relatives, and another organized by my sis, for our family friends. Similar to my bridal shower, I felt completely embarassed by opening the huge stack of gifts all from my MIL. To me, a single gift would have been more than sufficient, given that she spent all the time and energy to throw the shower. But no. She got us (brace yourself!) 1. the bedding set we had registered for, 2. along with the matching diaper stacker and 3. sheet. 4. A box full of about fifteen different bibs for all sorts of occasions, all individually wrapped in the appropriate paper (e.g. heart paper for "baby's first valentine"). 5. Another pair of sheets. 6. Waterproof bed cover. 7. Two sleep sacks. 8. Hangars. I don't know about you all, but spending fifteen minutes opening presents from one person was a bit much for me - again, I know it's well intentioned... The real kicker for me was at the baby shower thrown by my sis. I was completely and totally taken aback when I was handed a SECOND stack of presents from her! More bibs (we have 29 in total, thank you very much), more hangers, more sleep sacks, another sheet, another set of waterproof sheet covers, three or four sleepers of different sizes, and the Graco stroller we had registered for. All told, around $600 worth of stuff.

After this, M tried very gently to tell her that although it was much appreciated, it was way more than they should have done... and that Christmas is going to have to be *very* toned down, i.e. only one or two gifts. And nothing for Phred (in my mind, it is worthless to give gifts to a child before they're old enough to grasp what's going on, and at 4 months, I can pretty much guarantee that even if Phred is a super genius, that's unlikely). She told him that she has already purchased a bunch of outfits for next summer! Argh!

So that's issue number two.

I feel like I need to address these things with them now. Set expectations up front so that we don't have to battle every Christmas and birthday, and so that they don't expect to be living part-time with us! The rules that I would like to set are one toy and one outfit for Christmas and birthdays. If nothing else, I feel like it's unfair to us for them to do more than that - this may be their first grandchild, but it's our first child, and *I* want to have the enjoyment of picking out toys and clothes! If they're buying dozens of outfits, on top of all the hand-me downs I'm probably getting from various friends and relatives, I feel like I won't be able to have that fun (I am extremely frugal and thrifty, and aside from my car, really don't buy things that I don't *need*. Which makes their excess even worse in my eyes!). And we'll need to figure out how much we actually want them to visit, but I think weekly visits should be more than enough. I don't want to have to plan our lives around them, and also want to have time to spend with OTHER people.

My dilemma is how best to address these so that I can get my point across without getting their backs up and making them all defensive. I thought of a few options - 1) writing a letter, 2) inviting both of them over to dinner this weekend, along with my mom and her husband, and laying this out for all of them, so that my in-laws don't feel as targeted, or 3) taking my MIL out to lunch, just the two of us, and trying to get the point across to her on our own.

Which option do you think is most likely to work (feel free to make other suggestions too!)? Am I completely deluding myself in thinking that there is anything I can do about this?

If you can't laugh at yourself...

Thursday morning I was heading to the gym, to do my usual routine of light weight lifting, a few minutes on the elliptical, and some swimming (well, my usual routine since I was allowed to start exercising again at 34 weeks). I grabbed a yellow floral tank top, some pants, and the bella band I had picked up over the weekend, just in case.

Thank goodness I grabbed that band! When I put the shirt on, it was WAY too short in the front. I would have been embarrased to show my face if I hadn't had the band to cover the large expanse of belly that was hanging out. As it was, I think the fashion police would definitely have had shots of me in the "what not to wear" category. Can you buy one of those black bands to wear over your eyes when something like that happens?

The next day I was going swimming again, and this time picked out a button down tank top and a skirt. I thought back to my experience of the day before, and also snagged one of the t-shirts I had just bought at Tarjhay. What a sight when I tried to put on the button down - there was NO WAY the button and button-hole were meeting. There was a good one-ince gap there. Score one more for my forethought in bringing the t-shirt!

Later that afternoon I was having lunch with a friend whom I haven't seen since late last year. Burger and fries. Have I mentioned that I have been eating like crap for the past month? Anyway, I decided I wanted some ketchup on my fries, picked up the bottle, and began shaking. Didn't realize that she hadn't screwed the top back on after using it... shake, shake, then in slow motion the cap dislodged itself, and there was a spray of ketchup twisting through the air... At which point I thankfully managed to arrest my motion. But I got ketchup on my wrist, my knee, and two big globs on my stomach. Looked like an idiot, but I couldn't stop laughing at myself. Typical!

Houston, we have a schedule...

After reading a bunch more, thinking a lot, taking all your comments into consideration (I cannot tell you how much hearing all your thoughts really helped! I'm a little too emotionally invested.), we decided that going ahead with the scheduled c-section really is the best course of action.

So, unless I happen to go into labor beforehand, or Phred magically gets the right idea and turns head down, he/she will be joining us on 8/30, at around 8:30. How cool is that? We have to arrive at 6am, so I'm going to ask them if it's at all possible to go up to the OR slightly early so that Phred really can be born at 8:30. If you're going to schedule, you might as well go all out, right? ;-)

It's really bizarre, for me, to know that 8/30 is Phred's likely birthday. Not something I ever thought I would know in advance. I'm going to take a couple of days off work before the birth-day, so my last day will be next Friday. It's funny, I really feel like this has just snuck up on me. I only have six working days left! I okayed all of that with my boss, so we're good to go.

You know what really irks me though? A couple of women at work decided to organize a baby shower (on 8/27) for three of us who are due between now and mid-October. They sent out an evite to everyone. My boss replied that she wouldn't be able to make it, and perhaps since I'm scheduled for a c-section on 8/30, they should make the date earlier. You could have bowled me over with a feather. Am I wrong in finding it completely and totally inappropriate for her to put that on a website for... oh... 20 of my 'closest' coworkers to find out?

This is one stubborn kid!

No luck with the flipping today.

We started with another u/s to do a biophysical profile, as well as confirm Phred's position. I was thinking after the last u/s that calling Phred "complete breech" wasn't quite right, because all the pics you can find by googling show that as the head towards the top of the uterus, the spine basically lined up with your spine, then the baby in a cross-legged position. Phred is in a much more transverse like position, with the head over on my right, spine along the top of my uterus, then feet down near my cervix. Although all the websites seem to say that a transverse baby has their back / shoulder against the cervix. So Phred is upside down transverse. M was joking that it's because I was born in the Southern hemisphere, so all we would need to do is go back there to get our phlip.

I was really hopeful - the u/s tech said that there's plenty of fluid, and Phred is nowhere near engaged, so I figured it would be a snap to get a nice big phlip. Well, not so much. There were two docs there, one pushing up and out of the cervix on Phred's bum, and the other pushing down on the head/back. After the first attempt, although they were pushing down, somehow Phred ended up more like a complete breech. Then back to transverse, complete breech, and back to transverse again. Which was when they decided enough was enough, and it wasn't going to work.

They told me I was a real trooper, and took it much better than most. I figured if I couldn't stand this for 10 minutes, there was no way I could manage labor! As others have said, it wasn't exactly painful, but it was also next to impossible to relax. I did find that concentrating on my breathing helped a lot. But yes, it was mighty uncomfortable. I am definitely glad that we at least gave it a shot!

So anyway, now they want to schedule a c-section for 39.5 weeks (8/30 or 31). In a way, at least, I'm glad that Phred is transverse, because even the anti c-section books say that one cannot deliver a transverse baby vaginally, so I don't have to wonder if I should go out and try and find a practitioner who would let me deliver a breech baby.

I'm really torn as to what to do. Go ahead and schedule? Or tell them that I'm not going to, and wait until I go into labor on my own? I know that I had said in my earlier post that I would wait... but honestly I really thought that something would work, at least the version, and I wouldn't be faced with that choice. (Kinda like how I said before IF that if it didn't happen naturally that was the way it was supposed to be. HAHAHA)

Here are the pros and cons of a scheduled c-section as I see them:
Pro #1: Doctor feels it's safer than going into labor, as (especially given I've been contracting for so long) I may not recognize the labor until I'm well into it. Pro #2: Phred is born in August, which means we get a choice of which year to send him/her to school. Pro #3: Easier c-section when I'm not in labor? (must research this one a bit). Pro #4: Labor with a transverse baby can cause cord prolapse if the waters break, and uterine rupture if the labor lasts for a while. Con #1: I don't get to experience any true labor, which you may call me crazy for, but I was actually looking forward to. But then again they probably wouldn't want me to get far enough into it that I'd feel much anyway. Con #2: Phred may want to cook for longer - who am I to say that he/she is ready now? Especially as I was two weeks late myself, and refused to be induced 10 days before that. However, with basically zero pressure on my cervix, chances are that I'd go late just because of that and nothing really to do with how ready Phred is. Con #3: Less time for Phred to flip naturally, as slim as that chance may be, it's zero once I've had the section. Just found an abstract from 1990 that stated that 24/29 patients with a transverse lie at 37 weeks spontaneously converted by the time they went into labor, with 15 of those vertex. That's actually better odds than I was expecting. But the same paper says to perform version at 39 weeks and if not successful, c-section based on "major morbidity associated with expectant management of these patients".

Is there anything I'm not thinking of, either pro or con? What would you do? Yes, I am soliciting advice, opinions, and anything in between. I really can't make up my mind one way or the other at the moment. It probably doesn't help that I feel somewhat gypped by all this. As I said, I really was looking forward to labor and delivery, and I'm sad that I'm most likely not going to experience much if any of it. I know that once Phred is born I probably won't care one bit, but right now I'm a bit down in the dumps.

Version, fliperoo, whatever - let's just hope it works!

No dice with the acupuncture / moxibustion. (Supposed to heat up the "line" going through my uterus, causing the baby to be agitated and move more... one of the possible results of which is flipping over, and such effects have actually been documented in the medical literature). So I'm headed over to the hospital in about 15 minutes to try the ECV.

I really, really REALLY want it to work! Any turning over, somersaulting, flipping thoughts that you can send our way in the next couple of hours will be much appreciated.

Of course, one of the possibilities is that if something goes wrong (e.g. placental abruption, 0.5% chance) I may have an emergency c-section, and Phred's birthday could be today. That thought is a little overwhelming!

Phlipping? Not so much.

Our first attempt at moxibustion was on Saturday. It was interesting, basically my acu lit a coal of some kind of herb, and burned it next to my pinky toes for 15 min each. It wasn't painful at all, somewhat to my surprise. And it did do something - almost as soon as she brought it close to my toe, my face got really warm. But as far as encouraging Phred to be more active and/or flip, I'm dubious on the first, and the second certainly did not occur.

We're going to try again this evening, this time I'm going to ask her to use needles as well, based on a couple of papers that I found that used both. She wouldn't do it until I was 37 weeks, though, and most of the papers about it seem to suggest that it be done between 33 and 35 weeks, so it may be too late. (Which really irks me because I had an appointment with her where I was expecting her to try it, at 35 weeks, but she said she wanted to wait because "it could induce labor".) There's also another paper that I found that suggested doing it every day for two whole weeks! Why can't people just agree on a procedure, instead of there being umpteen variations so you can never be sure that your practitioner is doing it "right"?

Speaking of doing it right, I'm not seeing the chiro anymore - when I originally mentioned that I was going to try someone versed in the "Webster technique" for turning babies, one of the commenters mentioned that she had it done, and that the chiro didn't need to touch her belly for it. And then I read the same thing somewhere else. Well this chiro, although she was listed as a chiropractor trained in the technique WAS using her hands on my belly, and it just made me uncomfortable. Although not enough that I didn't go a few times, but it just seems like she wasn't following the technique properly either. GAH!

I'm still keeping hope that tonight's acu/moxi will work, but if not, I have a version scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. If THAT doesn't work either, I'll see if I can find another chiro around here who's Webster certified... and actually spend a little more time talking to him/her to ensure that they'll be doing what I expect they should, instead of blindly going along with it.

Update on the u/s journal article

Despite USA today saying that the article regarding the effects of prenatal u/s on brain architecture was published on Tuesday, it wasn't available to us peons until yesterday. Here's the link, if you're interested.

Reading through the original article I had found, they don't misrepresent anything, but I do feel much better after having read the source document.

For one thing, the mice were exposed to the u/s for a much longer percentage of developing brain time than any of our babies are. Plus, no effect was seen until 30+ minutes of exposure to a stationary u/s beam. Our u/s don't take nearly that long, nor is the beam stationary. Even if cumulative exposure is > 30 minutes, I think there's long enough between exposures that different cells would be "affected" with each scan, not enough to cause the kinds of changes seen in this study.

That said, I still think it's worth considering the value of each u/s before having it.

37 weeks tomorrow. Mind boggling, as many of you commented on my previous posts. And acupuncture / moxybustion scheduled for tomorrow as well to try and get Phred to "assume the position". I'm really hoping that it works!!!

Ironic timing...

For this article about the potential effects of ultrasound on the development of the fetal brain (of mice) to come out. The natural birth books I've been reading suggest that one should decline "unnecessary" ultrasounds and fetal heartbeat monitoring with a Doppler. So I was thinking this morning at my u/s when the tech was showing me Phred's brain, whether it was a good idea to be doing so or not. And then I read this article! Argh!

The caveats of the article definitely hold true, I think - the study was conducted in mice, so there are a lot of factors that make the relevance to humans questionable. And, I tried to look up the original article in PNAS, and was unable to find it (please drop me a comment if you do find it and I'm just being an idiot). I generally don't like to take what the media write about science as gospel without going to check on the source myself, as it is often sensationalized.

But, the article does make me wonder a bit about the utility of some of the early scans I had done (6wks and 8 wks) - yes, it was nice to see the embryo, and to see the heartbeat, but really, were they both necessary? I can see that an early u/s is good for diagnosis of a possible ectopic pg, or multiples, but most women who aren't with an RE don't get these early scans.

There was another article that I found while looking for this one mentioning that in a study of men born from 1973-78 when ultrasounds first started to be used, there was a statistically significant increase in the number who were left-handed. I kind of laughed at that - who really cares? But at the same time, one has to question what other effects there might be.

I guess that the point is that like just about everything else in life, there are pros and cons. It's a question of weighing between the two. Having read this article I might make a different decision on my early scans than I did - but what's done is done. I think the lesson that I will draw from this is that it is worthwhile to consider, even if there don't seem to be any drawbacks to a particular procedure, how necessary it truly is. There is nothing in life that I can think of that is 100% guaranteed safe. But having considered this and then decided to do something rather than just doing it on the assumption that it's safe would make me feel better, I think.

On the other hand, my u/s today was so totally cool! I could see Phred breathing, eyelids opening and closing, the fuzzy hair on the head, heart going pitter-patter, little tongue sticking in and out of the mouth... incredible.

Phred's personality - stubborn already!

Well, I had my 36 week appointment this morning, with an ultrasound to see exactly how Phred is lying in there. The verdict? "Complete breech". If you google it you can find some pictures, although none of them are exactly right. Phred's head is over on my right side, with the back pointing more towards the top of my uterus, and feet right down by my cervix. So maybe a combo of transverse and complete breech? I had been thinking that Phred's head was over at the top left of my uterus, but I was wrong about that - although exactly right about where the feet are!

The u/s tech also did measurements to figure out how big Phred is, and came up with 5lb 14oz, in the 25th percentile. Which is good, as it gives the external version (which will be scheduled for next Weds or Thurs, assuming that acupuncture / chiropracty / lying with my butt in the air haven't worked by then) a better chance of working than if he/she were oversized.

Nothing much else of note to report... I'm finding it harder to move around - sitting down and standing up require a bit more work these days. I also managed to acquire some hemmorhoids over the last few days, and the doc said that I can't expect that to clear up before delivery. Lovely. Ankle swelling isn't quite as bad now that it's cooler outside, but my ankle bones are still a bit hard to find. But all in all, that's not too much to whinge about.

Birth plan

As I mentioned, since reading "Natural birth the bradley way", I've also read a couple of other books on the topic of delivery, and more specifically, the things that your doctors don't necessarily tell you ("The thinking woman's guide to a better birth", and "The silent knife" about C-sections and VBAC. I wouldn't say that reading these has scared me, but they have definitely raised some questions in my mind about standard obstetrical practice that have made me realize that M and I are going to need to be more proactive in our management of Phred's delivery that I would have anticipated had I not read these books, and learned about the possible negative effects of standard care. So, here's what I'm thinking (assuming, of course, that I don't have to have a c-section because Phred is still breech).

Please note that these are my opinions, based on what I've read. I'm not criticizing anyone else's choices!

1. Eating and drinking during active labor. Strongly discouraged by the hospital, in case you need general anesthesia for an emergency c-section. Problem is that it can cause dehydration (leading to the need for IV fluids, see #2), and lack of energy for the second stage of labor. Which can lead to an extended pushing phase, and c-section for "failure to progress". They claim that if you are put under with food in your stomach, you might throw up and aspirate the contents of your stomach = bad. But, if you haven't been eating or drinking, you throw up gastric juices, which to me seems a lot worse. At my hospital, the rate of c-sections is 30%, the rate of general anesthesia is 5%, which means that absolute max, 1.5% of people are having GA with a c-section. And as the 30% rate includes planned c-sections as well, it's actually a lot less than that. AND, if someone's been in a car accident or the like, they almost certainly don't have an empty stomach. So I think that the prohibition on eating / drinking is bogus, and don't plan to follow it. (Which I will let them know if I do end up needing GA).

2. No IV fluids for hydration. The rate of IV's is quite astonishing - 94%! Are that many of us really dehydrated? When I was in for my contractions they stuck an IV in me 2/3 times - the first I managed to convince them that I really was not having the contractions because of dehydration (I had had over 100oz of fluid during the day). The second time they wanted to try it anyway, despite my saying the same thing. And it made no difference to the contractions whatsoever. And then the third was when I was having the magnesium, which needed to go in through an IV. But, our hormones are fairly delicately balanced, and getting more fluid than needed can screw with that balance. Perhaps leading to a slowdown in labor, so pitocin to help... blah blah blah. Slippery slope.

3. No induction. If Phred isn't ready to come out yet, I don't see any reason to force it. Plus, it seems like very few people who are induced end up with a normal, natural labor. I'd rather be pregnant for a few more days.

4. No breaking of waters to speed up labor. The amniotic sac can A) help with opennig the cervix more gently, B) cushion the baby's head, and C) equalize the pressure the baby feels with contractions - less fetal distress.

5. Minimal external fetal monitoring. The standard is to throw those suckers on you as soon as you arrive in the hospital, and keep them on the entire time. However, they definitely seem to lead to a higher c-section rate, because as soon as any kind of issue is seen, the doctors feel like they have to fix it right away. There has been a fair amount of research into this topic, and almost every article says that "intermittent auscultation" is just as effective at catching real problems as the continuous monitoring is, while lessening the c-section rate.

6. No time limits on labor (within reason). First, there seems to be a "you have to deliver within 24 hours of your water breaking" paradigm in place these days. Because of threat of infection. But studies have shown that there is no increased risk of infection just because of broken waters, especially if no internal exams are performed. So I'm thinking that if this happens and I don't start having contractions right away, I'm not even going to bother calling the hospital at that point. I also do not want a c-section just because I've been in phase 1 for X number of hours, or phase 2 for 2 hours. The time limits used seem to be actually quite fast, so I'm not going to let them pressure me into having a c-section just because of those.

7. No scheduled c-section, even if Phred does seem to want to stay breech. I figure the longer he/she is in there, the more chance there is of turning over, however remote it may be.

I think that about covers it!

My brain is mush. Can't think of title.

Wow, I really can’t believe it’s been almost two weeks since I last posted. Where does the time go?? Everything here is chugging along, status quo. Phred seems to be getting bigger by the day, along with my belly! Still breech though. I’ve been doing some of the position exercises, just started seeing a chiro certified in the Webster technique, and have an acupuncture appointment next week. I’ll also have another u/s at my 36 week appointment to check exactly how Phred is positioned, for a possible ECV the following week, if nothing else has worked in the meantime.

The other things I’ve been occupying my time with include making myself a couple of skirts, since I really can’t stand any of my pants any more, my baby shower (last weekend), and doing lots of research about delivery, delivery interventions, c-sections and the like.

I wrote previously about how I read about the Bradley method for natural delivery, and how it seemed like a really good approach to me. I’m too late for the full series of 12 classes, but did find an instructor (thanks for the suggestion, Erin!) who is willing to meet with us privately to hopefully give us some tips and help with practice that we won’t necessarily get from reading the book and going through the exercises on our own. We have been doing some practicing, I’m learning how to RELAX! Also doing stretching and squatting and Kegels…

The above paragraphs were the first part of a post I started at the chiro on Thursday, that has now turned into two full, single spaced pages in Word, so I decided that rather than making you sit through all my ruminations at once (and wonder how I'm doing), I'd break it up into pieces so that I don't end up with a three or four page monstrosity!

I happened to be near an Old Navy this weekend, so I thought I’d go in and see what they had in the way of maternity clothes – any skirts, or long-ish shorts that I could actually wear to work? Of course it turned out that the particular store I went into didn’t have a maternity section at all, but I did happen to walk by one rack of “low-rise” skirts that I thought might fit. In yet another example of the cussedness of the universe, all they had in most of the colors that I would consider wearing were XXS and S. I could just tell by looking at those there was no way I was getting them over my much more ample ass. I did finally find a L, so went into the changing room to try it on. Quite a shock when I looked at my belly – all of a sudden, I’d acquired the beginnings of stretch marks! I was really hoping that I would avoid those. My genetics suggest that I might – neither my mom nor my sister got any. But there they were, in plain light pink. Oh well, nothing I could do about it. Que sera, sera.

I had to laugh at myself when I had M look at my belly later and he didn’t see anything. They weren’t stretch marks, idiot, it was just from the dress I was wearing being scrunched against my belly by the seat belt. He.

Anyway, some other things on my mind… I read on bbycenter that the Bradley method of natural childbirth allows women to deliver drug free 90% of the time! That is really a pretty amazing statistic, so I decided to get a couple of books out of the library and see what I think. Unfortunately, the method is taught over the course of 12 weekly sessions, so I’m a bit late for that. But I did read through the entire book on Friday night, and it sounds well worth trying. Now I just have to get M to buy into it (it requires full participation from your coach, which includes nightly practice sessions). I was hoping he’d read the book over the weekend after I’d said that I wanted him to, but that didn’t happen. I hate to nag, but I might have to! Does anyone out there have experience with this method? I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

Phred is still clearly breech, and although it does seem that breech vag. deliveries are possible, the medical establishment tends to want to do C-sections if the baby stays that way. So I’ve also been looking into methods for turning Phred over. There are a couple of positions that are suggested for encouraging this at home – one where you basically lie on your back at a –45 degree angle, your feet up on a couch, bum supported by pillows, and upper torso on the floor. The second is kneeling on the ground as if you’re going to crawl, but then putting your chest onto the ground, again getting your bum higher than your chest. Some other things include acupuncture, moxybustion (performed by an acupuncturist, burning certain herbs very close to particular spots near your baby toe – the heat is supposed to do something to encourage the baby to turn), or “external cephalic version (ECV)”, where your doctor uses her hands to turn the baby. Anyone tried any of these methods? At the moment I’m trying the two positions, although you’re supposed to do it more often during the day than I can manage, what with working. I thought I would ask my doctor about doing ECV at my next appointment, and perhaps make another appointment with my acu as well.

Things you learn and don't learn in hospital classes

We had the two childbirth related classes we're taking last Saturday, breastfeeding and Infant safety and CPR. I actually got more out of each of them than I was expecting, which was really nice.

One thing that we were told in the bf class, which I'd also read in the LLL book, was that you're not supposed to put soap on your nipples. So I decided that I would try and implement that over the last few days.

Day 1: Washed myself with my usual routine - using my puffy with D0ve bath wash, started with my left arm, then shoulder. Then skipped my chest which usually comes next, and moved over to my right arm. Of course, crossing my soapy left arm over my chest promptly got soap everywhere. After my right arm, then my left upper back, which got soap everywhere on my front that wasn't already soapy. So, scratch that attempt.

Day 2: More involved process - wash left arm / shoulder, and rinse. Rinsing of course sent soap down my front... wash right arm and rinse. More soap. Upper chest - more coursing of soap. Then, M and I usually shower together to save on time and water - while we were switching positions, I happened to rub against his arm - yet MORE soap.

Is anyone actually able to accomplish this???

Then, I had lunch with a friend the other day, and we were discussing her labor experience. She asked if I'd heard / read that one could poop during labor. I said that I had. She then said that there's another part that NO-ONE mentions - not the books, not the childbirth classes, nothing. And proceeded to tell me her story:

When she got to the pushing phase of labor, her sister and husband were in the delivery room with her. Each of them was supporting one of her legs. The first time the nurse told her to push, she pushed very gently, and let go a really loud fart. Since she wasn't expecting that (although it makes perfect sense that it would happen), she had to close her eyes and try really really hard not to laugh. After she was almost in control, she opened one eye to look at her sister, who by her facial expression was in exactly the same boat. After a few seconds, the nurse said "don't worry about it, it's going to happen, but go ahead and get your laughing out of the way", at which point all three of them totally lost it.

I'm really glad that she mentioned it to me, because I am such a giggler - I think it won't affect me as much now that I know it might happen, rather than taking me by surprise.

In Phred news, still having contractions, but still not nearly as much as before the magnesium. I asked at my appointment yesterday about exercising... still no, but I should get the all clear to do a bit after 34 weeks. I'm now measuring a little big for 32weeks, but doc wasn't worried. Although she did mention my weight for the first time at this appointment, after I gained 7 lbs since the last one! I think it's a lot of water though, as my ankles are starting to swell, and my fingers too. Total gain of 23lbs so far (including that 7!), so I really don't think that's so bad.

Bits and pieces

Interesting article from yesterday's Boston Globe - early results are very promising for using Omega-3 oils in IV feeding of infants instead of Omega-6, for avoiding liver problems.

Pregnancy notes:

My contractions have calmed down quite a bit - every now and again I'll get a bout of them, but they're never closer together than 10 minutes anymore, and for the most part they're an hour + apart. 42 weeks, here I come!

I think that all the drugs are finally out of my system completely - I haven't had to get up in the middle of the night to use the loo in a few days now. An uninterrupted night's sleep is highly welcome. Although I know I shouldn't get used to it.

I noticed sitting down today that my belly button is starting to stick out just a tiny bit. Up to this point it's gotten flatter and flatter. Now there's a tiny piece in the middle that's puffing out. It feels funny when I push on it!

I'm also getting a bit of the linea nigra. It's faint, but noticeable. I assume it'll keep getting darker over the coming weeks / months?

My hair is finally feeling a bit thicker - at least less of it is coming out in the shower. For a girl used to very fine, straight hair, it's nice to have a little more of it. Although I know that goes away after the baby is born.

And I'm willing to bet my clearer complexion will disappear in short order too!