No change (except in my mental state)

Cervix check this morning revealed no change.  Doc started talking about c-section again.  She wanted to schedule one today, but I opted to wait till next appt.  If no change at next appt, c-section will be quick.  If some change, she will give me till 41 weeks.  I am DE-pressed.

Change in attitude

One week (or so) left and I am trying to change my attitude.  I have been so anxious to get the little bugger out that I haven’t been “enjoying” the last week or so of pregnancy.  Then I realized a couple of days ago that this is likely the last time I will ever be pregnant, the last time I will get to feel the internal motions of a little human being.  We hope we can have another, but with our fertility it isn’t guaranteed.  So I am trying to appreciate the sensations, live in the moment, and wait as patiently as possible.

I started maternity leave on Thursday so I have had 2 days “off” to do stuff around the house and nap.  Napping is highest on my list of things to do, but I did set up the pack and play in our bedroom and go to the bank.  See, I am being productive too.

I went to the doc last wednesday and she didn’t think anything was going to happen this week.  Cervix was completely unchanged.  Trying not to obsess about when/how/IF I will go into labor.  I will try to update before it happens, though.

Lots of contractions, no progress

I am in the home stretch now, we know (well, hope, do we ever really know?) we will have a baby in a carrier in less than 3 weeks.  The only question then is when, people, when?  I have been having contractions on and off since Friday.  They last for several hours and seem to get into a good pattern,  then peter out and die.  Yesterday I had an NST and two contractions were caught on the tape.  I had been contracting since about 11, the NST was at 1. They were 18 minutes apart then.  The rest of the night, the contractions continued, getting to be about 8 minutes apart by 5 pm.  After dinner I went for a walk (hoping to make them stronger and closer) and they went away.  Oh well.  I go in to the doctor tomorrow and get checked again, hopefully the contractions are making changes to my cervix.  (At last check, my cervix was high and “finger tip” dilated and the baby was at -1.  Think Low Cervix! thoughts for me.)

With Iz, I didn’t have any contractions till right at the end so all these “non-real”contractions are playing with my emotions.  Every night I think “Should I finish packing my bag?  Should Iz sleep with mom?  Is tonight the night?” only to be disappointed again.

Speaking of disappointment, I was going to the spa today with my girlfriend to get pedicures, but they were totally booked.  We are going to lunch still, but will have to put off our pedicure date till another day.   Damn, I was hoping to use my perfectly pedicured toes as my focus point.

Say what?

Everything went great!  The u/s showed us an average sized baby with a very low head (my bladder could have told them that).  The estimated weight was 7 lbs which sounds like a lot to me, but apparently is normal.  I went in with Mike ready to fight the doctor about the vbac, but she seemed completely ok with the vbac!  I don’t know what happened, but she was just as nice as she could be about it.  She said that she had 3 other clients that were all due around my time and were all trying for vbac.  Nothing to argue about.

I feel like this huge pressure has been lifted off my shoulders and I can start really thinking about labor and delivery.  I want it to happen early (7 lbs already?  How big will be be at birth???), but not too early (mom isn’t here next week and I plan on spending the week hanging out with Iz).  Wow, I am so excited!

Pre-U/S post

I am nervously sitting here waiting for my u/s this afternoon.  It is all I can think about.  The babe is kicking away so I am hopeful everything will be ok.  I will be leaving in 1 hour to meet Mike for lunch, then off to the doctors.  I will post again when I return.

<>

Waiting too

When I read the title of your last post, Cat, I could totally relate.  I feel like waiting is what I am primarily doing these days too.  5 more weeks worth.

I had another doctor’s appt. yesterday and it went well.  My iron levels are up so even though the iron supplement is making me want to puke for an hour after taking it, I promised to soldier on and take it till delivery.  She was happier with my glucose numbers so I am off the insulin hook for now.  I am scheduled to have an u/s next week so we can measure the size of the baby and then “discuss our options”.  I have been doing a lot of reading on vbac and have a stockpile of data ready so I can go in and make my case for wanting to continue with the vbac plan.  Mike will go with me to back me up.  I have only gained about 23 lbs, about half what I gained with Iz and I am measuring right on track so I feel like this baby is going to be of normal size.

We went on the tour of the hospital yesterday and it made me want a vbac even more.  For c-sections, the moms are in labor and delivery for just a moment, then taken to the operating room.  After they remove the baby, they take it upstairs to the post partum ward while the mom has the rest of the surgery and is then in recovery alone for another 1.5 hours.   So with a c-section, the mom and baby are separated for the first ~2 hours of life.  I REALLY don’t want that.   With Iz, we were serparated, but she had to go to NICU and there was nothing we could do about it.   I don’t want to volunteer for the separation.  Yet another reason to try for vbac.

<>When we were introducing ourselves for the tour, I mentioned we would be trying for a vbac.  Another couple came up to me and asked who my doctor was.  They want to try for a vbac too, but their doctor wouldn’t let them.  I told them my doc’s name, but warned that mine didn’t want to do a vbac either and it would be a fight.

<>Another couple of weeks till spring break.  The week of spring break, I will be taking care of Iz full time and I am excited to spend some time alone with her before the baby comes.  I have some fun activities planned, I hope the weather (and my health) holds out and we can make them all happen.

pictures and lists

I added a post on my family site with a new belly photo.

<><>I made a list today of things I need to get done before the baby arrives.  These are specifically baby related things and not the (more stressful) work things that need to happen before the I leave for maternity leave.

Stuff that needs to be done before the baby arrives:

1) Clean the baby carseat, install the car seat bases in the CRV and my mom’s car.  (The car seat is all sticky for some reason.)

2) Clean the stroller and put the stroller in our car and the small stroller in mom’s car.

3) Buy an outfit to bring her home from the hospital.  (the girl needs at least one new thing)

4) Pack a bag for me and the baby.

5) Put some groovin music on my mp3 player to listen to in the hospital.  Buy some new books for the hospital stay.

6) Set up the pack and play in our bedroom, clean it and find the sheets.

7) Buy a few essentials we don’t have, like butt paste, baby lotion, and a sleep positioner.

Buy a new diaper bag.  I want a sleeker one than we had from last time.

9) Buy a gift for the baby to bring home to Iz (something our neighbor told us about.)

10) DECIDE ON A NAME! (Maybe that should be #1!)

Stuff that can wait till after the baby comes, but who wants to put stuff off?

1) Clean the baby toys that we got from Iz’s toy box and put in a basket in the baby’s room (I want Iz to start thinking of them as the baby’s toys, not her toys.)

2) Figure out if we want a swing and find the one we want.  There is a big baby consignment store thing in March and I was hoping to find a swing then.

3) Buy some collage picture frames and make one for the baby’s room and for Iz’s room of family members and baby pictures.

4) Make some art for the baby’s room, the walls are looking really bare now.
Woo, I am tired already.  I think I will go out tonight and get the basket and supplies and look for a new diaper bag.  Shopping is always the first thing to tackle on a list, right?

trying to Re-Lax

Oh my, what a couple of weeks.

When I last updated, I talked about finding radon in the basement and the contractor never showed.  Well, he did show up the following morning and after installing a new fan that we hope will solve the radon problem, he did an “energy audit”.  He went around taking measurements and finding areas that were leaking air.  He was in the basement for quite a while and I was getting ready to walk out the door to work when he came back in and said that we had a “major problem”, never a good thing to hear when getting ready to leave town for the week.  Using his infrared camera, he found a water leak behind one of our walls.  It was a fairly serious leak and had apparently been going on for a few days and was just getting ready to seep into the carpet where we would have noticed it if we had been here.  I made an emergency call to the plumber and waited for him to arrive which made me late for a meeting at work.  I skipped the meeting (I got to work about 15 minutes before it was done) and got in trouble for that.  Oh well.  Hopefully we got the radon fixed and the water line fixed in the same day.

Mike and I headed out for a weekend in Gatlinburg to celebrate our 12th anniversary (since our first date).  We had a great time.  The cabin we rented was amazing and had a media room with a 72 inch screen and theater chairs.  It  was by far the nicest cabin we had ever stayed in.  I was feeling a little sick when we left, but otherwise the weekend was perfect.

We left the cabin on Monday and drove back home for a couple of hours before I had to fly to San Diego for a week of work.  The flight out was beyond awful, I arrived very late, then had problems operating the rental car requiring me to call roadside assistance around midnight and sitting outside for 20 minutes while someone talked me through it.  Work was very productive and i was happy to be there, but my sugars ran high the whole week (I think because I was eating a few hours later than my normal times).  I flew back home on Saturday, happy to be here for the duration of the pregnancy.

On Sunday I just laid around and felt like crap.

Today was my doctor’s appt.  The one where I was going to confront her with the VBAC vs C-section discussion.  Here is the problem: I have talked to all my girlfriends including a nurse that works at the hospital in labor and delivery and tried to get a recommendation for a new doctor.  The nurse was the most helpful, she said I should try to a stand alone older male doc (she gave me a couple of names) for 2 reasons.  1) A doctor in a big practice would be hesitant to take me away from my doctor and 2) no local doctor was going to be pro-vbac, the best I could hope for was a person who was practicing in the late 90s when vbacs were more common and not too scared to give it a try.  So having this depressing  information under my belt. I didn’t want to be too aggressive with my doc because I really don’t want to change to a stand alone doc.  I went into the doctors office prepared for a nice calm discussion and everything went wrong.

As it turns out I am severely anemic and getting worse.  I mentioned that I was really tired and they tested for anemia and it had dropped several points since my last test even though I have been religious about taking the iron supplements.  She also felt my sugars were too high last week and I should go on insulin.  I asked her to one more week and she said I had to fax my numbers into them on Friday and if they were ok, we would put the insulin off.  If not, they would start it next week.

Ugh.  So no big c-section talk today.  I am just feeling very defeated by this pregnancy.  The good news is that I have only gained 20 lbs (compared to ~45 at this stage with Iz) and I am measuring right on target for the date (33 weeks).

When I got back to work, I got in trouble for missing the meeting 2 weeks ago and then had a confrontation about some stuff in a committee I am on.  I so can not deal with this right now.  I just need to bow out of the committee and reduce my stress levels.  I keep thinking Re-Lax, Re-Lax.  Any good tips on avoiding stress that involve no exercise or sugar would be most welcome.

And that has been my week.  How was yours?

radon and nesting

ARGH!  When we bought our house 2 years ago, we knew there had been a radon problem and there was a radon mitigation system in place.  The system consists of two pvc pipes that go into/under the foundation and pump the radon gas into the attic/out of the house.  We have this gauge thing in our garage that looks like a thermometer and from what I can see, it reads “0″ so I assumed all was well in the radon world.   However, Mike has been wanting to test the basement for some time and finally got around to it.  We got the results yesterday and came back with radon levels of 11 (the maximum allowed number is 4) and we both summarily freaked out.  I started calling radon mitigation services that morning and all the numbers seemed to go to someone’s house (never a good feeling).  I finally got someone on the phone and his first question was “do you hear the fan running?”  Umm, there is a fan?  No, we don’t hear a fan running.  Well, he says, fan has probably gone out.  I will come by in the morning and take a look.  I will call before I come.

So this morning found me anxiously waiting the radon guy.  8:00 came and went, then 8:30.  I called around 8:45 and got his voice mail to ask if he had a time in mind that he would arrive.  He called back at 9:30 saying he couldn’t come out today, how about Friday.  Since we are all going out of town and want to get this fixed asap, Friday doesn’t work for us.  he said he had another job tomorrow that he could push to Friday and would come by tomorrow at 9.

<>I hate dealing with contractors.  If your radon  person cancels on you tomorrow, I apologize.

<>Since it was already 9:30 and I was meeting Mike for lunch at 11, I decided to clean the house (lets just call it nesting) instead of go to work before lunch.  I cleaned our kitchen bar area which always gets junked up with everything imaginable and takes forever to sort and put things away.  Then I cleaned our bedroom which was where all the excess stuff from the former storage room – now nursery was “temporarily” placed (3 months ago).  The bedroom looks loads better.  I guess we will set up the pack and play in there for the first couple of months of baby life.

The nursery is really coming together too, I need to take some pictures.  I bought a white bookcase yesteday to put by the rocking chair and hold books, little toys, and my iced tea while I nurse.  We still need to get some baskets or bins for additional storage on the closet shelves and bookcase and some artwork supplies (we are making our own artwork for the baby’s room!).

<>Speaking of the nursery, I went with a barnyard theme (you know, horses, cows, sheep, ducks) because it was nice colors and gender neutral and I thought it would be easy to find barnyard stuff anywhere.  (I hate being held hostage by the big baby store.)  WRONG.  Everywhere I look there are all zoo animals and bugs and butterflies, but no barnyard which is why we are making our own artwork.

<>I am off on Friday for a romantic weekend (!!!) and then off to CA for a week of work.  Will try to check in sometime.

GD diet

Thanks for the comments with regards to VBAC.  I will be thinking over my possibilities over the next 2 weeks and let you know what happens.  My next doc appt is scheduled for Feb 18.

<>I had cereal this morning!  This is a huge deal for me  since I am only allowed 2 carbs in the morning and most cereals have three or more in a “single serving” (1 cup or less), not including the milk which also counts as a carb.  I went to the grocery store yesterday in hopes of finding a cereal alternative and discovered that cheerios and Special K have lower amount of carbs.  I got the regular cheerios and the protein plus special K.  I had cheerios today (with cheese because it didn’t have the required protein) and I will try to special K tomorrow (it has the added protein so I can just have cereal).

<>Breakfast has been one of the hardest meals to adjust to this new diet.  I don’t ever feel like cooking in the morning except on the weekends and I just want something quick and easy.  I have been having cheese and toast for the past 2 weeks, so it was nice to have a different option today.

<>Lunch is also rough since I usually eat out.  We are trying to stick with places that have eggs or tofu as options.  I have been having a lot of salads with egg and stirfry.

Dinner is pretty easy now.  We are rotating through tofu, soy dogs, soy burgers, soy breakfast sausage, eggs, fake ground meat, and tofurky italian sausages.  Many times, I just make one of these to go on the side of whatever else we are eating to increase the protein content. Last night, my mom made meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggies.  I just made some soy burgers to have instead of the meatloaf and all else worked out great.

Snacks are almost always a piece of fruit with peanut butter, nuts, or cheese.

Not to say that it still doesn’t suck because it does.  I am constantly thinking about what I am going to feed myself and that gets old quick.  We have gotten rid of most of the candy and sweet stuff from our house so I haven’t had to struggle against eating that stuff, but I still miss it.  It seems like everyone is having a birthday party or celebration lately.  Our anniversery is coming up on Sunday.  We are renting a cabin and going to the place we got engaged and had dinner after our wedding.  The night we got engaged, we took home these amazing desserts to eat in front of the fire.  No dessert this time.  I am trying to stay positive, though, I just hope this helps the baby.  Nine more weeks!