TIme flies

Baby's first concert - Paul Brandt!

Hope to get more to you all tomorrow after the doc's appt!

Can you say mood in a toilet?

Yeah, that's my today.

I think people are supposed to be excited to go to their prenatal appointments, and in some small space of my brain I am. But there's one thing I dread every visit, and that's the stepping on the scale. Coming from a weight obsessed family it is hard not to feel like crap when you realize how much you have gained. I thought I was doing not too bad, but then I got my prenatal sheets (that I'm now supposed to carry pretty much everywhere) and well, now I can see in black and white the weight gain. If it weren't for this baby, I'd be tempted to stop eating altogether... I've never been this heavy in my life, and I know, I know, there's a baby in there, but c'mon, how much does the baby weigh, like 3 pounds right now? And the fluid and stuff adds some too, but everything I read says that I can expect to gain a pound at least a week... and I have 10 weeks to go! That's at least 10 more pounds!

The only reassurance today was hearing the baby's heartbeat, but I think I was already too upset about the weight thing to even really enjoy it. It's just so hard, all I seem to crave is sweets.

M has offered to help us both eat a bit lighter since he wants to also cut back on how much he's eating so I hope that helps. 'cause right now I'm just in that nice dark pit, except it's not a nice dark cool pit cause it's friggin hot out. heh, ok there's still some humor left in me.

I was gonna blog about classes, but maybe I'll see if tomorrow I'm more in the mood.

Please please can I have a non-stress week?

Let's start with a happy belly picture. Here is baby and me at 29weeks. Please ignore the disasterous sewing room behind me. :)

Ok, so where'd we leave off. Right, M flew to Ft. Mac on Friday to fix some computers, apparently he was done by 10:30 in the morning and did some odds and ends until he got to fly out around 3:30ish in the afternoon.

I had the car at work and thought, yay! I can bring home the baby gate and heater that I was given by a gal here. Heh, typical baby brain I guess, I forgot it at work. Now it waits until next monday when I next have the car here. So I bounce out of work, go to get C and then head to the airport to pick up M. We get M and begin to head to P's house 'cause we're all going out for dinner and then M is going to work on P's old comp for S. We're all nice and relaxed sitting at a read light on 118th ave and 124th street when KERSMASH we get rear ended. *sigh* Yup, there starts our weekend.

So M get's the other driver's info and checks the car for damage. Luckily it wasn't too high of an impact, the running lights on the rear bumper are busted, and the bumper itself is cracked. The worst damage is that the trunk is not releasing properly from inside the car, and if you open it manually with the key it doesn't "pop" up like it normally does, it kind of "sticks". You can still get it open but you have to actually lift it now. C and I don't move from where we are frozen in the car. When M gets back into the car I say "ok, we have to cancel dinner, 'cause I'm going to emerg", I know no one is really hurt, but I'm scared for the baby and I want it checked out.

So we take C to P's house, M lets him know what's happening and P offers to watch C for us while we go to the hospital. Off we head to the Sturgeon emerg, we get there and there's no lineup! I love the Sturgeon, for a hospital, they're pretty decent. We get admitted and then sit for a few minutes before heading in to be assessed. They take the doppler to my tummy and I lose it when I hear the baby's heartbeat... I guess I was more worried than I thought. They also checked M's neck and stuff just to be on the safe side. After waiting some more after the initial assessment a doc came in and said that they wanted to do a stress test on the baby, just to be on the safe side. I'm all for anything to make sure that the baby is ok.

So, off we head to the maternity ward for this monitoring. The ER doc said it should only take 30 mins, heh. We get up there and they tell us it will be 4hrs! Whoah. At this point neither of us has eaten since lunch, so after they get me hooked up I send M off to call parents and get food. M organizes with P for C to sleep overnight, and picks up some subs. He comes back to the hospital to find out I'm not allowed to eat, just in case. So there we sit, for 4 hrs. At about 11pm they let me have some juice and yogurt, and around midnight they decide I can go home. As cool as it was to lay there and listen to the baby's heartbeat for 4 hours, it was getting a bit tiresome. So back we went to the ER to get discharged, and got home just before 1am.

So yeah, that was the start to my weekend. Not nearly as relaxing as I'd hoped, and I knew we'd still have to deal with the insurance company on monday (I didn't think it qualified as an "emergency claim" as no one was hurt except for the car, and it was still driveable).

Now it is mostly in the hands of the insurance company, we're getting an estimate on the damage today, and that should give us an idea if they're going to write off the car (it is 10 years old). Guh, not the way I wanted to get a new car. Guess we'll have to just wait and see.

Oh and HR still hasn't posted my job listing... eek

And panic sets in

...with teeth and claws

So, yeah, I've had a few bouts with panic/nerves etc, but nothing compared to last night. I totally lost it, it was all I could do not to go hide in my room and just cry. I just keep thinking how the hell do people do this? And do it more than once? I feel so lost, so unprepared. M tries his best to help, but he can't get in my head and fix the fears. He keeps telling me to relax, and I try, but it never lasts for long. I tried last night to just sit back and watch tv last night, but it still kept hitting in waves of panic/tears. I haven't played WoW since what, Monday... just don't feel up to it, plus we've been really busy this week.

I know this week has been extra stressful, and I try to use that to put things in perspective. It just seems that M has demands all over the place and neither him nor I want to say no to anyone right now. I just feel so overwhelmed. Apparently a lot of it is part of the hormones, the panic to get the house in order etc becomes worse that kind of thing.

M and I talked about the classes last night, he's much more interested as we get into the later topics, he's quite keen on the hospital tour, as am I. He also wants to hear the "drug" talk, cause he thinks that will be fun, lol.. that's my hubby.

For now I'm just trying to relax. M's company flew him to Ft. Mac today to do some computer upgrades, at least he'll be back tonight and not staying over. But then we have dinner with P tonight, and M and C go to P's for D&D tomorrow, and we need to get the yard done 'cause Greendrop is coming soon, and the house is a mess, and the baby's room is just a pile of stuff right now... sigh. This is where my mind sits right now. I can't clean the house from top to bottom, and I can't expect the boys to do it either. I know it's not as big a disaster as I think it is, but it seems that everything is amplified right now. The smallest thing is driving me bonkers... if I were to make a to do list it would be pages long.

Guh... ok I'm rambling now and it's going nowhere.

First prenatal class update

So, for anyone who is curious. We had our first prenatal class last night. M made a lot of fuss whining and not wanting to go, but being the lovely man he is, he sucked it up and went with me.

There's about a dozen couples in the class, the lastest due date being July 24th. The gal teaching the class is a RN and has 5 kids (2 daughters and triplet boys), so I figure she's pretty qualified.

We started with relaxation and breathing exercises. For me, this was the worst part of the whole class. I mean, I love it when M touches me, but to be doing it in a classroom, surrounded by 20+ other people, even if they are doing the same thing, wierds me out. The breathing was even worse, I know it's good to learn and all, but talk about feeling like a complete gomer. M said I turned beet red the whole time we were doing it. I was very relieved when that part of the class was over and we could just sit and listen to the instructor talk.

She covered a variety of topics, true/false labor, what to put in your "goody bag" which is different from the "hospital bag". The goody bag is the stuff for YOU rather than the baby. Things to amuse you during labor, things to do, gum, chapstick, that kind of stuff. Also, to bring food for the "coach" cause the cafeteria has crappy hours at the Sturgeon. She also started talking about the stages of labor, really just the beginning. Lots of pictures to look at, so far nothing that scary except for what 10cm dilated looks like (yowch!).

I suppose the best thing that came out of it is the realization that I want M to make sure before ANY doctor/resident/nurse etc does any procedure on me, if I am not coherent enough, that he gets a definite medical reason for it. She showed us the tool they use to break your water if it doesn't break naturally and that made me really think about it. I mean, if they want to "speed things along" without any good reason, they can FRO. Now, if they have a medical reason, that's fine, but the doc having a golf game, is not a medical reason :)

I also never thought of myself as the "natural" person, but the more I hear about all the technology the less thrilled I am about using it. I know my mind may chance, but right now I'm leaning towards au natural with a healthy dose of nitrous ;) Epidurals scare the crap out of me, never mind the chance of needing a catheter with it (ick) and of course an IV (scream). Funny that, I am more scared of having to have an IV put in (I've had 3 in my lifetime) than labor.

Well that's it for now, unless any of you faceless (and one faced - *wave* Taryn) who read this have any questions :)

Registries and such

So, I'm being pushed to make registries for the baby. I put a couple together and I'll put 'em up here so I don't lose 'em. M doesn't agree with them (he didn't agree with the one for the wedding either) but people seem to expect that you will have them, so I puttered some time away today looking at cute baby stuff online.

Sears: Registry# 200705472644 (or use my name)
http://www.giftregistry.sears.ca/gift/egrSearch001.jsp

ToysRUS/BabiesRUs: Registry# 913120634 (or use my name)
http://www.toysrus.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/GiftRegistryHomeView?storeId=10051&catalogId=10052&langId=-1&link_type=image&refTag=TRU_TN_SN_registry

To be honest, I have no idea what we need at this point, classes start tomorrow, perhaps we'll get a shopping list then. I also have to unpack all the stuff my sister sent from Ontario. Speaking of which, anyone want fun? Try to explain why I need a breast pump to a 10 year old, cause of all the stuff I brought home, he homes in on that box to ask about. Then he wanders off after the explanation going "pump, pump, pump", I'm sure he has some sort of "cow milking" idea in his head now.

Swing baby swing!

I totally forgot this morning, here is the swing that my grandmother bought for the baby. It's "rainforest" themed, I just liked how bright it was, and the fact that instead of depending entirely on "D" batteries $$$ it plugs in. It swings side to side and front to back and plays 6 different songs I think.

Baby update

So, 28 week doc's appt today. Things are going well, at least she has no negative comments. The baby's heart rate was 145bpm, and he/she was just running around in there today. The doc figured the baby had a growth spurt over the past 2 weeks, but I only gained approx 1lb over that time, so that's cool.

My blood pressure continues to be low (very cool!) even with me being stressed with M riding to Calgary today to work down there for a couple of days. He did call from Red Deer to reassure me, but I'm still waiting on the call to say he's in Calgary (sigh).

Also, my hemoglobin was good (13) so no worries of anemia, and my blood glucose was also good, I didn't get a number, but no worries of gestational diabetes (phew).

So knock on wood, this pregnancy is proceeding totally normally. I guess the original miscarriage cleaned the bugs out of the system?

So, yeah, I get to fret for the next few days with M away. Going to go to the parents tonight for supper to try to relax.

PHEW, just got my call from M. He's in Calgary. I feel much better now. Now I can get to work.

Will try to keep you all posted more frequently, but work seems to keep interfearing ;)

My job posting still isn't up... I'm gonna have no replacement, ack!

Well at least the baby will have some clothes, K at work is going to drop by 3 garbage bags of baby clothes this weekend probably.

Yes, random sporadic thoughts... stress does that to me...

13 weeks to go? YIPES!

Here ya go. The 27 week tummy. I think M is proud of it, considering he had to get as much of it in the picture as possible.

The baby tends to move a bit more now, but still has quiet days. M's side I think results in the baby doing jumping jacks at about 10-11pm at night and about 5am in the morning. My side contributes to the baby sleeping all day. :)

Still no one to take over my mat leave at work. I'm getting pretty negative on that topic. It's my work, and I'm pretty attached to it. The thought of someone else doing it for a year is kind of like someone moving into your house. I dunno, I'd just like to have some choice in the matter, not just have to deal with whoever the boss picks. The job posting still hasn't gone up on the HR site at work yet and it's almost MAY. I mean, I'm only at work officially until July 17th, and that's if I don't take any holidays. I could be gone at the end of June if things really get uncomfortable.

So, the wake last weekend went well I think. We had a lot of people come through the house. I never realized how many people were shocked that we volunteered our house for it. It was just natural, it was one of the first things out of my mouth when I heard P's news. I'm glad we could do that for him and B. Although, wow, was I tired after for about 3 days. Got to remember I don't have my normal stamina ;)

Now, life is going back to "normal". Work, homework and WoW seem to be all we do nowadays. I really need to get the energy to get out in the yard now that the weather is getting nicer. The boys were really sweet this weekend though, they cleaned up the kitchen and vacuumed for me, and cooked dinner! All I had to do was laundry. It was a nice relief for me to be able to sit back, even though I have a hard time doing that when I know other people are working.

And yeah, 13 weeks! Holy crap. We are so not ready, or at least I'm not. We still have next to no baby clothes, blankets, etc. I have this nightmare that we'll end up at the hospital with nothing for the baby.

Our prenatal classes start next week, wonder if they'll be blogworthy?

Quickie

So, before I forget.

I'm on 2 week visits to the obgyn now. Checkup on baby. Today was getting a req for bloodwork - haemoglobin and the glucose screen for gestational diabetes. Probably go get those done on the weekend.

Baby was doing well, 151-156bpm heartrate. My blood pressure is sitting nicely in the normal range, woo!

New link

While it is available online, I would like to direct everyone to the link for Brianna on my links bar.

Hug your loved ones today...

Warning - very sad news to follow

Saturday April 7

We had known P's wife was not doing well in the hospital, but I don't think any of us had any idea of the real situation, or perhaps we were all just hoping for the best. She was in ICU on a respirator and dialysis due to complications from infections she was fighting (Influenza A, Pneumonia, and the resident Pseudomonas infection that plagues many CF patients). What we didn't know when P said he was going to meet with her doctors that they were going to be discussing B's treatment wishes. Even though I knew it was coming, I was not prepared to recieve that phone call Saturday evening.

I think it is best to share with all who know P and B, P's words:

Saturday afternoon, april 7th 2007, I and Brianna's family after consulting with her doctors, made my hardest descision ever, and followed my wife's wishes. She was removed from all support and allowed to breathe at a regular rate through her intubation.

At 3:45pm, surrounded by myself and her immediate family my beautiful angel passed away quietly and painlessly.

I appreciate all the love and support I have recieved thus far.

As her wish we will be celebrating her life with a wake. This Saturday april 14th at Mike and
Lisa Davies' house in st. Albert starting at 2pm until whenever we see fit. Anyone who wishes to come to remminece or speak to me or simply be there, for 10 minutes or 5 hours, please come. I will leave my e-mail at the end of this message and will reply with a map to get there to any who want one. In liew of flowers or any other such momento my darling Brianna had requested you donate to C.F. (cystic fibrosis) foundation here in Edmonton in her name. Bring food wine and song, bring laughter tears and stories, but most of all bring Love.............

For any of you we have not got in touch with, please feel welcome to join us all. I am not including P's email to respect his privacy here, but you can email me and I will send the details.

Long awaited update?

So, it's been what, 2 weeks again? Life just doesn't seem to give anyone a break anymore it seems. So what's been going on...

Well I was sick for a week (missed 4 days of work) which really sucked. I never realized how miserable a cold is when you can't take anything for it. And well since I generally update this at work, that's where that week went.

I also found out this week that P's wife went back into hospital with complications with an infection, never good news. So we took P out for dinner Tuesday night even tho I was barely moving just to get him out for a bit.

Things went from bad to worse after that. Get back to work, swamped with trying to catch everything up, go to a dinner talk Tuesday night which wipes me pretty much for the rest of the week.. guh. So totally looking forward to a relaxing long weekend.

Thursday my mood is down, and I decide it's time to do some girly stuff, so I call up C and suggest we head out to the mall to get me a haircut and maybe find some maternity shirts. T-shirts are starting to look a bit funny over the tummy. No luck on the maternity clothes Thursday, but I did get my hair cut. Not sure what I think of it yet, it's a lot shorter, but a lot healthier.

Friday P phoned us to ask if we'd mind taking his son S to hang out with C for the afternoon, so we decided to postpone our shopping on Friday to Saturday and figured we'd just drag the boys with us. P's wife wasn't doing very well in hospital and he had a meeting with the doctors Saturday afternoon so he figured S could use the relaxation time.

So Saturday we grabbed the boys and went shopping. We decided to look at maternity clothes again at a different mall, and to perhaps look at strollers. I did find 3 maternity shirts that I didn't mind too much, so picked those up. Then we headed over to Sears to look at strollers. They had some really nice ones, and there was one in particular we were interested in. We had a lovely saleslady helping us, and we thought we'd go think about it and check what Zellers had. M also needed pants BADLY so we went over to Zellers to see what they had for strollers and pants. Their baby section was rather scary, none of their "demo" strollers even had all their wheels, so we didn't even really give them a glance. We picked out pants for M and went back to Sears. Getting back there, we waited and waited and waited being ignored by the other sales girl in the department until I finally gave up and stood in line. When she finally got to me, I said "I wanted to find out about a stroller", not even looking up from her computer she said "What kind?", and then was annoyed when I said I didn't know which one it was and I needed her to move her ass and come with me. I finally convinced her to let go of her computer and come to where I needed her to look at the stroller. And, after all that, she says, "Oh, I don't think we have any of those left" so of course, I ask her if she could double check. OMG apparently I shouldn't expect her to do her job... so she checks, yes, they don't have any. And then I have to ask if she can check other stores... wow, when I worked at Zellers many many years ago I'd have been shot if I didn't offer to do it for a customer. So she sighs and looks it up and says well maybe Southgate or Bonnie Doon will have it. And then she hands me a slip of paper with the phone numbers for those stores!!! She says "There's a phone over there you can use". OMGWTF!

So, I have to phone other Sears stores... (sigh) Well I phone Southgate and get a very nice lady over there who goes to look and says "Yes, we have one left, shall I put it on hold for you?" I say yes please, and we hustle over to Southgate, boys in tow. We get to the mall, get into Sears, and find the department. We ask about the stroller and this lady comes rushing over going "I'm so sorry! We tried to call you!" Turns out that stroller was already on hold for someone else. By this point M is so mad he looks like he's going to cry, and I'm about ready to give up for the day. But this lady is just so apologetic, and she offers to show us their most popular stroller instead, since they couldn't guarantee that they would get any more of the other stroller in. Surprisingly enough, when she shows us the other stroller, we like it even better than the one we had originally chosen.

Here is a picture of the stroller, but ours is black and white checkers.

After much squishing we got everyone and the stroller box into the car and headed home. We figured we'd relax Sat night and get to work on chores etc on Sunday since we had the father in law's b-day Sunday night and dinner with my family for easter monday. What happened Saturday night deserves it's own article.

Ah the joy of hormones

So yeah... I just woke up from sleeping for almost 14 hours. I don't feel good about it, but somewhere in my mind or body I must have needed it.

The only problem is, that instead of feeling better or refreshed, I just feel down, like sit in the corner crying kind of down. Maybe it is because it is the weekend and I don't have work to focus on that the realization of this baby hits, I'm not sure. All I know right now is I am craving some nice weather so I can get on my bike one last time before I get to big to get the belly over the gas tank. Although I think once it gets big, a prego biker chick pic would be good, yes?

I hope this feeling will lift... once the house wakes up and gets moving. I feel guilty for leaving M all alone last night since I went to bed at about 6:30pm, but really there was nothing he could do to help I don't think.

Well, cross your fingers all, that this mood lifts and we get some sunshine today. It is supposed to hit 13C today.

Ok, ok, ok... an update

Wow, ok there's a tummy! I didn't even really look at this picture until I uploaded it. I think there's a baby in there! :)

So yeah, it's been a bit since I last posted anything. Things have been chaotic a best and downright depressing at their worst.

The baby is definately starting to move around, and either it likes certain things, or it's my mood when I'm doing/watching/listening to stuff, because all of a sudden I'll get wicked boots for a few minutes. The other day I was working at my bench and the kicks were enough to set me into giggles. Granted then another night I was sitting up in bed and I was getting kicks in rather uncomfortable places (my crotch), had to tell the baby to move it! Juggled my position, and finally they stopped.

So anyways, the chaos. For the most of the beginning of March I was involved at work not only with writing a grant, but writing/editing/data crunching for my very first FIRST author paper. Now I have a few pubs out there already as a supporting author, for anyone that knows me, google or search PubMed for my maiden name and you should find a few. So that made for extremly long busy days, were I did nothing on my computer but look at spreadsheets and documents. I'm glad that is all over... for now. Since we found out shortly after submission that the paper was rejected from the first journal we chose. So now I have to reformat it for another journal.

I also had my meeting with HR to set up my benefits/etc for my mat leave. That went better than I expected, also since M's company will cover my health stuff I only have to carry disability and life insurance for the year. They also gave me a diaper bag gift bag! It was ever so nice!

Let's see, what else. The boys were supposed to have a dentist appointment last weekend (for both of 'em) and when we got there we found out that their computer had crashed and that the appointments got lost (I booked them 3 months ago to get a Saturday appt), so we managed to get C squeezed in, but M has to wait until next week. I don't think he was dissapointed. So, C needs to see an orthodontist, I pretty much expected that, one of his front teeth is pretty much sideways in his mouth. So we'll see what happens with that appointment (It's not until June).

I went to see my obgyn again, baby is doing well, heartbeat was 147bpm, and apparently it was being a pain to get a heartrate from as it was chugging all over the place and the doc had to chase it to get the heart rate. So it appears that there will be no more ultrasounds unless something comes up.

I made the mistake of going to a Welcome Wagon baby shower this past weekend. It was a good and a bad idea. I felt really left out and alone because I was the only girl there not trailing at least a husband, girlfriends and mothers. I mean I know I have girlfriends and all, but it was just such short notice I guess. I dunno. I came home a pretty big basket case. Stressed and strung out about how much there was to know, to buy, etc. I'm doing better now, but every once in awhile it hits home again.

Definately have to get together with the girls more often I think. But it seems that everyone is so busy with all their own things nowadays it's hard to get time.

We also had PT interviews with C's teacher this week. It wasn't as bad as we'd feared, but he is dropping his marks/effort etc in school. A lot of it seems to be an attitude issue... if he doesn't want to do it, he won't, he'll actually argue assignment wording with the teacher. (sigh) She thinks he will grow out of it, I certainly hope so. These homework battles are really taking their toll on M and I... I mean how much can we keep going over and over and over and over the same things? C is 10 years old, he shouldn't need his teacher to pack his homework in his backpack to make sure he takes it home every night.

Well enough whining, today is a nice day, I'm in a good mood (so far), the sun is shining and I get to go home in an hour and a half.

Meh just nothin much new

So here's a rather blurry pic of my 19 week tummy. I don't think it looks like much, but M says it's "popped out" in the last week. Oh and like my PJ's? M bought 'em for me for Christmas!

Nothin much in the news really, I still haven't felt much movement from the baby, but who knows, maybe he/she kicks the heck out of me when I'm sleeping. Speaking of sleeping, I went to bed last night around 9:30-10 and when I got up I was still so exhausted I called into work and crawled back into bed until almost 11am this morning. I assume that means the baby is growing or something, because I really haven't done anything to justify needing that much sleep all of a sudden.

Today I'm just generally kind of down, not majorly down, just slightly... so here's nother pic to cheer you all up. It's Bear! I was messing around with the camera, and he normally loves to pose for it, this time M made some noise and Bear turned toward him and I captured him with his eyes closed!

Obgyn update

So, we had our first Ob/Gyn appointment today. Talk about chaos. The woman was tied up with a c-section so all her morning appointments were delayed. Then we finally got to see her and whooosh! off she goes to it sounded like 3 women in labor. She seemed like a nice lady, quick and to the point. I miss my regular doc, but I understand she's a lot more qualified in the baby sense.

The baby's heartrate this morning was 151bpm and it only took the doc 30 seconds to find it. She said the baby was moving around quite a bit this morning, but I'm still not feeling too much. I really hope that changes.

I'm also trying not to get too hung up on the weight gain issue, but I hate the fact that they weigh you every time you go in there. I'm up about 3kg from my initial appointment weight back in November. Mental note, just add more veggies ;) maybe that will make me feel a bit better.

The other nice thing, is that my blood pressure is down from my normal "doctor's office" blood pressure.

I have a new belly pic, but it's at home, so it will follow another day.

Fourth ultrasound

So, here is our baby measuring in at 18 weeks, 2 days (on Wednesday). His/her heartrate was 140bpm. I was told it can vary from 120-180bpm depending on baby's and mom's activity.

Definately looks like the baby has my nose (grin), nice and little. We saw some awesome footage as the technician showed us a cutdown from the skull right down to the feet. It is amazing what you can see. I especially liked being able to differentiate the two bones of the forearms. But the longbones in the legs were pretty cool too.

Baby was doing cartwheels, so she had some fun trying to get all the images required. Apparently they do a whole wack of measurements at this ultrasound. The tech spent a good 10 minutes just looking for a hand as the baby was laying on them.

C was very amused that the baby's head is almost the same size as it's belly right now.

We have the obgyn appointment monday morning, so if there's any more details from the ultrasound, I guess i'll hear about them then. If not, I'll call my GP after.

Nursery Pics

So, finally I got around to taking some pictures of the baby's new stuff. Here you see the crib we bought and the so cute bedding! The crib converts from a crib->toddler bed->headboard for a double bed, so if the kid doesn't destroy it, we're set for awhile. We're sticking with greens and yellows for colors right now since we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, and well, if we do, we probably won't tell anyone :p Plus I HATE PINK. Point to note people. It may be hard to tell from the pic, but the bed linens are a kind of pastel jungle theme. The elephant and giraffe squeek when you squish 'em too!


The fancy paintjob on the walls is courtsey of the previous owners of the house, it is also in the "kid's bathroom" across the hall from this room. Very cute, but I'm not sure how to paint over it when we decide to paint the room as the little bugs and flowers are slightly raised.

Here is a cockeyed picture of the change table. We wanted to add a few drawers to the room, even though there are a few built in. Now we're looking for a recliner/rocking chair for me to use in the room as we had to pull the futon out to make room for the crib (it was bigger than I thought).

New things bring new fears

Well we did get out shopping this weekend, I'll get to that.

Saturday C went with his mom for the day, so M and I went out shopping. I was going to take him to see Ghostrider, but he was still too sick to sit in a theater for 2 hrs, so we went to ToysRUs which started the shopping idea. At ToysRUs we looked at baby furniture and strollers and baby monitors and stuff. Trying to get an idea of what each of us liked and didn't like. After digging through there and not being terribly thrilled at the furniture prices we decided to hit Walmart. We were able to find a compareable crib and changetable at half the price of ToysRUs. So, yeah, we bought them both. Then we had to call the mom-in-law to come with the truck to help us bring it all home. We also went to Home Depot while we waited for her to get a new light fixture for C's room (his is pretty much dead) and a desk lamp for his desk (I don't think there's enough light over his desk when he sits there for homework).

We still haven't really decided on a stroller other than we want a "travel package" (infant car seat+stroller) with BIG WHEELS. I never realized how much of an issue it would be until we started looking. Big wheels are much easier to navigate with.

Then M, the mother-in-law, and I all went to Red Lobster for dinner, and I had a whole plate of seafood! Well not counting the potatoes and veggies. I had a snow crab and king crab combo which was pretty good until I got about 3/4 of the way through and I started to get a bit overwhelmed. I managed to finish the crab and my veggies though. Figured I could leave the potatoes.

So Saturday was a really good day. Sunday, well it started to go downhill from there. We were all really tired I think from Saturday and we had the house chores to get started on. M was trying to figure out how to fit the furniture in the baby's room and decided we needed to move the futon out, so we got it out kicking up a lot of dust probably along the way, so M started feeling pretty sick again. We also had D pop over for a visit and to show us her latest company endeavor.

We wrote off the rest of Sunday relaxing and recovering. Monday the boys got back at the furniture and I got onto the dishes and other stuff. Finally got my elliptical trainer together! Then when they finished all the stuff in the baby's room I went up to look and that's when it hit me. I'm having a baby? Can I really do this?

To top it off, I've recently been feeling really not pregnant. The baby has been pretty quiet the past week, no more fluttering birds. That gets me concerned, even though everything I read says it could just be that the baby isn't in a good position for me to feel it at this point. D says I'm showing, but I still just feel fat. I mean, on Saturday I even got an old pair of jeans on, and zipped up. Granted they weren't comfy to sit in like that, and I did spend the day with them undone under a long shirt but it didn't reassure me.

We have our 18 week ultrasound tomorrow and I'm hoping that this reassures me for a little while again.

So yeah, I think the "I'm scared" has settled in with a vengence the past few days. I'm cranky, I hate the way I look and I want to cry and hide. M is being a sweetheart and trying to reassure me, and I love him for that. I don't want to make it hard on him, and I know I am with my crankiness. I snap at him, I snap at C, I snap at the dog. I just feel like such a heel.

Hello hormones

Yes, that's what this week has been all about hormones and stress. I'm not really sure which is pushing the other, but they're goin hand in hand this week. I'm crying at the drop of a hat, and wanting to scream the rest of the time. It's that whole saying "I have one nerve left, and you're on it", except that the whole world is on it.

Grey's Anatomy last night had me sobbing as usual, even when not pregnant, the show could get me teary-eyed, and especially this story line for some reason. It's gonna be hard to wait till next week to see what happens next.

Everyone at work is stressed and bitchy, welcome to grant time. Thank goodness it's a long weekend.

Speaking of the long weekend, what's keeping me going is that M and I are going to try to get out to see Ghostrider tomorrow and to go out for an early dinner together while C is out with his mom. But M is sick, so I'm not sure how well this is going to all pan out. I'm trying to grab the two of us time when I can. I know once the baby gets here it's only going to get harder to spend some quality time together.

Wish I had something better to chat about rather than whining, but apparently this is the whining phase of pregnany. Perhaps next week will be better? I can only hope so.

We have out 18.5 week ultrasound on Wednesday, that will be exciting for sure.

And I suppose one of these days M and I should get out and start looking at baby stuff.

They got lucky

So, I didn't hang up on my parents on Friday when they called to wish me a happy birthday. They did at least start the conversation with "Happy Birthday" before going on about my sister's baby.

I took the day off Friday, and good thing too, I had one hell of a stress headache. Combined with still trying to get C to finish his homework from Wednesday *sigh* it wasn't pretty. I also baked a cake all before noon.

M took off the afternoon and brought me home a Snoogle! This is the most awesome pillow ever, not only for pregnant people, but anyone with back/neck/hip pain.

http://www.toysrus.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&catalogId=10052&langId=-1&productId=96751

I slept Friday night with the pillow and woke up Saturday with no headache! And I haven't had one since. Worst thing is getting tangled in the pillow when I get up in the middle of the night for my once to twice nightly pee.

Went out Friday with the in-laws for dinner. I probably would have enjoyed it more if the food didn't taste like formaldehyde... I don't blame the restaurant, I blame my hormones and headache. I'll have to go back when I'm feeling better and try again. Early night Friday.

Saturday we did some chores and tried to go pick up the odds and ends we need around the house, light fixtures, bathroom fan. We thought we'd just hit Crappy Tire since we didn't need much and it's closer. Except when we get there they are renovating and we can't find a damn thing! So we give up and head home. M has a nap and C and I play WoW until it's time to get ready to go out to B&C's fondue party.

The fondue was pretty cool. Didn't quite get to see everyone I wanted to because we had to leave to get C to bed. Tried pineapple in chocolate... mmmm and someone brought sour jube jubes, even nummier! and no, not in chocolate, just plain.

Sunday was relaxed as I did laundry and played WoW for most of the day. We met up with my family for dinner and they were relatively well behaved. Only one set of eyeball rolling on the part of myself, my baby sister her "bf" and M that shut my mom down talking about the sister's baby.

And now back to work this week. Still crazy as it's grant time. Things should settle down in March, guh. And of course today the sun is beating in my window even with the blinds closed so it feels like it's about 25 in here. I'm totally going to be having to work naked this sumer.

Ooo and talked to T last night, who I probably haven't spoken to since her b-day in October. Very happy to hear from her, I was getting worried as I hadn't heard from her over the holidays when she was in town. Got that all sorted out though, an hour later we'd pretty much gotten each other caught up.

Well time to get back to work.

Doctor's appointment update

So, had my doc's appointment today. It's been a month since I was last there and I was quite relieved to hear that yes, there still is a baby in there. We found his/her heartbeat right away (~159bpm) and my uterus is where it's supposed to be for this far along (halfway to my bellybutton).

To top it all off, I think the baby is finally definately moving. Perhaps being poked and prodded at the doc's office pissed him/her off but there's been definate chugging/flapping/vibrating in my lower abdomen. To the point it's making me giggle with how annoyed it feels. I can't wait until it's definate enough that M and C can feel it as well.

Two weeks until the next ultrasound where we find out perhaps if it is a boy or girl, if the baby is cooperative and shows us its bits and pieces. :)

So who's putting money on the fact that instead of "Happy Birthday" tomorrow when my parents call it will be "N had a ...". I mean it's great and all that my sister is spawning on my birthday, but really, that's no excuse. Guess we'll see what happens.

I also have a chocolate fondue to look forward to on Saturday, I have the boys convinced to actually come with me, so the whole clan will be hitting B&C's place.

I'm taking tomorrow off, so I can relax, bake my own birthday cake (sigh) but actually I don't mind all that much, I have a ton of ice cream, so getting an ice cream cake might be rather redundant this year.

Well best pack up, day's almost done.

Changing permissions

Ok, just a quick note. I was messing with my comments permissions and changed the settings. Let me know if you are having troubles commenting.

Down down deeper

I know I need to update this thing, and I have thoughts and stuff rolling around in my head, just not finding a way out.

For example, where is this 2nd trimester energy burst? I have yet to see it and it’s kind of getting me down. Well seems today everything is getting me down. I also don’t feel like my stomach is growing and maybe I’m expecting too much too soon but still, I’m tired of feeling fat and huge and wish I actually looked pregnant. I have a doc’s appt this week and I’m hoping that we can hear the baby’s heartbeat clearer (I still haven’t heard it with the fetal heartbeat toy I got), and also ask the doc about this constant tiredness. One of the gals at work says I should get my bloodwork done again to rule out anemia, I think I’ll ask the doc about it just to be on the safe side.

I’d also like to feel a definite movement from the baby. I know it’s still early and I’m probably worrying over nothing, but this is me… I have trouble with the intangible, that’s why I’m a scientist. And until this baby starts kickin up a storm, or I finally develop a tummy that my own husband recognizes as pregnant I just don’t feel it. The only sign I have is not having a period since October. Hell, sometimes I feel like putting on my old jeans just to see if I’ve outgrown ‘em yet. I’ve been wearing my maternity pants because they are more comfortable on my stomach as I seem to be more bloated with gas than anything else. I spend my evenings burping like crazy no matter what I eat, and it seems the only way to stop it, is to keep snacking… but I don’t want to do that either for fear of packing on 80lbs like my cousin did.

I think the other reason I’m down is my birthday is on Friday. The only message I get from my parents is when I sent them a cute picture of a puppy on toast and my mom writes back to ask if I have any “birthday plans yet” and maybe dinner on Sunday? I mean that’s what I was expecting, but my birthday is Friday for pete’s sake. I’m trying not to get to down on it since it’s probably just that my baby sister can’t make Friday night and not that my parents are so wrapped up in my other sister having her baby Friday as well that my birthday is on the backburner. I’m too used to being put on the backburner with my mother. It’s frustrating.

I suppose on the positive side, it frees me up to spend Friday with my boys.

Quick update

So a quickie update. This past week has been pretty chaotic. More homework battles with C. The kid just has no concept of forward thinking. If it isn’t in front of his face it doesn’t exist. *sigh*

We went to see “Smokin’ Aces” with free passes on Wed night. It wasn’t too bad, the price was right.

Guh, between homework fights I can’t remember what else happened this week.

I cleaned for almost 4 hours on Saturday afternoon while the boys were out. That was nice. But I overdid it and had trouble moving properly on Sunday. Maybe the whole nesting thing is starting, or maybe I was just disgusted with my house. Hard to say.

Other than that, everyone is fine. Baby isn’t doing too much this week, at least nothing noteworthy.

Wanted to get another belly pic done this weekend, but we just didn’t get around to it. Hope to get one soon.

Just feel totally burned out and brain isn't working all that well... maybe I should go have lunch.

Venting

Madame Zaritska's reading
Madame Zaritska, our resident clairvoyant, wants to help you prepare for the arrival of your child. Here she does her best to predict certain aspects of your labor and birth experience.
What she senses for youThe day you deliver, outside will be slightly overcast. Your baby will arrive in the early evening.
After a labor lasting approximately 4 hours, your child, a boy, will be born. Your baby will weigh about 7 pounds, 5 ounces, and will be 18-1/2 inches long. This child will have hazel eyes and be almost bald.
But there is more. I sense that you are in need of distraction. Some enjoyment.
http://sheknows.com/about/look/736.htm


The above was good for a laugh. I’ll take a 4 hr labor, who wouldn’t?

So my hubby was a sweetheart, when I said last week that I wanted that baby heartbeat thingy he jumped right out and ordered it online. I guess he missed the sentence following saying that I was going to go look for it on Saturday. I felt like such a heel when I brought it home and he got upset because he’d ordered one. Hopefully he was able to cancel his order, he won’t tell me either way. He’s still a sweetie for trying to get it for me!

Turns out, it’s a bit early for the listener thingy, all I can hear so far is my own digestion. Fascinating as it is, it’s not really what I was hoping to hear. I guess some day I need to learn patience, now’s as good a time as any.

So nothing new on the baby front, I suppose the tummy is getting a bit bigger, depending on what clothes I wear it’s more or less noticeable. I still have some sort of stomach upset at night, not sure if it’s my version of heartburn or what, but it’s still quite uncomfortable. Throughout the day I seem to be a lot better. Granted I’m still not able to stay up as late as I would like to at night.

On the home front, C is grounded again. He lied to us about having his homework done on Friday and got caught totally in it with a long note from his teacher. He lost his WoW privileges, and any ability to see the new Burning Crusade expansion until, well originally Friday. But then the very next day he managed to extend his grounding by another day by forgetting his homework at school. It’s totally frustrating, I know the kid is smart, he can spout information all day long, but ask him to write a simple sentence and he’s totally at a loss.

So what does his teacher do? Sends home 6! Assignments that are not done as she wants them. She wants the questions answered in “reflective” sentences. For one, what the hell is a reflective sentence? So I went through his assignments and figured well, let’s just get the answers written in even simple sentences. They were all answered in point form. But why could she not have sent these home when it was just 2 assignments? I mean now he has 6 to work on, and at the rate he works, it will take all weekend to get through them. It took him 2 hrs last night to get through about 14 questions (1 assignment). He’s already written the answers, but apparently writing them in the form of a sentence escapes him. I just don’t get it. I’m scared he’s going to be the kid in highschool who can barely read and write. Eventually this is going to really catch up to him. His marks are good now, but for how long?

So now we sit, he’s grounded until Saturday evening at the earliest, and that’s only if today and tomorrow go well at school and we don’t get any more nasty notes.

Oh and to top it off I started getting ahold of HR to sort out my mat leave. I’ll leave that for later, because it’s another thing that gets me hopping mad. Not work precisely, the HR department.

Other than that, I’m quite enjoying Burning Crusade J

12 weeks 6 days tummy

Just a quick update so everyone can see my ginormous boobs and the bit of baby tummy. Also for any of my "web friends" who haven't seen my tattoo, you can also get a peep at that.

Meh

Baby update

So yesterday was the doc’s appointment to followup the ultrasound last week. He confirmed that on January 8 the baby was 11weeks 4 days. Everything looked good. He tried to get a heartrate on the Doppler, but of course, baby wasn’t cooperating. He/she was running away and tumbling as fast as the doc scanned. He said he was able to get a heartbeat, but it was “transient”. He reassured me that babies at this age (12w3d yesterday) move around a lot, so it wasn’t surprising.

I’m also wondering about the baby moving thing. I read that you can feel movement as early as now, but I’m not getting too much. But, last night I felt a pulling/straining on some muscles at the front of my abdomen, wonder if that’s the baby pushing, or just my uterus growing. Interesting. Kind of like an achy muscle feeling.

Part of me is debating buying my own baby heartmonitoring thingy. You can get them at some maternity stores. Check this out.

http://www.motherhood.com/Product.asp?Product_Id=42151001&category_Name=Other+Accessories&Category_Id=1001&MasterCategory_Id=1

I may go on the weekend to see if the Motherhood Maternity store near where I’m having lunch has one of these. I think it would be so cool! WANT!

Family update

Let’s see. C’s back at school this week, so far so good *crosses fingers* We only had one minor incident with him not realizing he could undo his shoelaces to make his gym shoes more comfortable.

M’s website seems to be making progress; it’s nice to see him get a bit of relief after all the stress. He’s far from stress-free, but there’s some improvement.

My sister is having to have a C-section since her placenta is under the baby somehow which won’t allow a normal delivery. Found out that she’s going to be delivering (barring any problems) on my birthday. Isn’t that just hilarious?

Bear is as nutty as usual, my parents bought him a rawhide that’s about 3 feet long. He’s pulled the knots off both ends, but before he tore it apart it was a riot to watch him try to carry it up and down stairs. You’d think he’d grab it in the middle, but nope, he had to drag it by one end, the other end dragging along the wall.

Well that’s it for now I think, feel free to comment peoples with any questions you may want answered.

Short note

Changed the ticker at the top to reflect the new due date. We'll see how long this one fits.

Picture #3

So here you have it. Picture #3. Finally got the whole story as to why the 3rd ultrasound. Apparently on the other 2, the dates didn't quite match the size of the baby. This time things were much closer. My due date looks like it might be closer to July 24th than the 21st but that's ok.

It was cute, when she first tried to find the baby, she had to chase it. Heh, but apparently less pee is better as once the pressure was relieved ("here go pee out 2 cups and we'll try again") the baby settled right down.

He/she is currently approximately 5cm from "crown to rump" with a heartrate today of 167. The bright white patches are the jaw and nose forming. M and I got much clearer pictures as she was showing us realtime. We saw the nose, jaw, head, arms, legs, stomach, and umbilical cord. Oooo! We also saw the heart beating! Then we saw the baby wave "Hi" to us, and then proceed to try to stick it's hand in it's mouth (I think anyways).

I'm totally jazzed this afternoon, as finally finding out why the third u/s was necessary, and finding out that everything is proceeding as expected is a relief. And it's the first u/s I haven't cried at!

On the morning sickness note, it has lessened off a bit. Now it's more a "must eat now" stomach call. That's a little easier to handle.

Christmas chaos

I could have blogged over the holidays, but I didn’t. And there’s a pretty good reason why.

Let’s see… so I’m suffering through my all day nausea on the 19th thinking that maybe we should just order supper. So I figure we’ll get Swiss Chalet, they’re pretty good with being able to pre-order form work and then pick it up on the way home. Since we already had to go that direction since the parts to my elliptical trainer came in and needed to be picked up as well. So we get out food (and it was delayed which is not normal for them, if I order for 5 it’s ready for 5). Get home, eat, relax, y’know, nice normal night… right…

So about midnight, I hear C get up and go to the bathroom, and well it doesn’t sound right. I hear him get up again an hour later. Then my stomach starts feeling funny. Lovely. C and I have ended up with food poisoning. M sleeps through the whole of the night’s events with C and I taking turns in the bathroom. Thank goodness for 3 bathrooms in the house. Around 4am it’s getting so bad for me that I’m sitting there on the throne and getting sick and suddenly all I hear/feel is this wooshing sound and bam! I wake up under my bathroom vanity. I fainted? I can’t believe I bloody fainted! So now here I am, laying on the bathroom floor, not sure if I should move, calling out to M to wake him up, cause he slept through that too. Finally getting him up, and getting myself together, M calls capital health to see if I need to go into emerg. Food poisoning + 10 weeks pregnant isn’t a great combo. They said, no I didn’t sound dehydrated, so I could just rest at home and to come in only if I started showing signs of dehydration. Oh and did I mention I bashed my head too? Yeah, lovely “road rash” next to my left eye. So we pulled out the hide-a-bed in the basement and C and I took turns running to the downstairs bathroom all day. Luckily by the evening we were able to sleep and the next day we spent sleeping and eating crackers and drinking Gatorade.

This was not my plans to spend the last few days before the holidays. I had work to do that I had to beg off to other people in the lab, and I felt like a total poop. C made it back to school on the 22nd for his half day before the holidays.

It took a lot longer for me to get back to feeling anywhere near normal with the weakness from the food poisoning, and the nausea. Most of the rest of the holidays were spent on the cough watching tv. I had to nap every afternoon to even be able to function by dinner time. Even Christmas day at my parents I had to lay down. I managed to have a bit of dinner there, but was really happy to get home.

On a good note, had another doc’s appt on the 29th. We heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time (we’ve just seen it on the ultrasounds). The doc warned us he might not be able to find it as it’s still early, but he did… for a few seconds we listened to the most amazing sound!

New Year’s we did really quietly. P&B came over for a few hours and we ordered pizza and watched X-men 3. Then they took off and C, M and I watched more tv until midnight when C and I collapsed into bed. Thank goodness for napping!

New Year’s day, M’s dad invited/ordered us over for the turkey dinner he didn’t get Christmas day because someone turned off the turkey at noon and no one noticed until 3pm. Managed to eat not too bad there, and wanted ice cream for dessert, so M took me to 7-11 for ice cream, he’s a sweetie.

And well today, I’m back at work.