Charlotte's Birth Story

Just as I finished doing the bedtime routine with Emily on Sunday night at 9:10PM and went to leave her room, my water broke. I looked over at Emily and saw her big eyes looking at me, so I calmly said "goodnight sweetie", then ran for the bathroom. I at first headed for the guest bathroom, but remembered that my mother-in-law would be spending the night and using the bathroom so I didn't want to make a mess in there! I changed course and headed to my bathroom and quickly diapered myself in a towel so that I could waddle downstairs and tell Will to start calling everyone. Then I went back upstairs to take a shower. I had one contraction while I was shaving my leg that was uncomfortable enough to make me stop for a bit, but otherwise I was just feeling little squeezes.

My mother-in-law arrived to watch our daughter, and my mom and sister arrived to head to the hospital with us. We left the house at about 10:15PM.

On the way to the hospital I had 2 contractions that required a bit of breathing and concentration. Mostly I was uncomfortable because Charlotte was kicking up a storm, I felt like I needed to pee, and I could feel some gas bubbling around in my stomach. There was just entirely too much going on in my pelvis!

When we got to the hospital, I tried to head to the bathroom to relieve some pressure but the check-in lady saw me and stopped me. She said I'd have to give a urine sample as soon as I got to L&D so I should just check in first. Of course it took over 10 minutes! I only had a couple mild contractions but I REALLY wanted to pee!

I finally got to L&D, got a chance to pee, and was settled in at around 11:15PM. I was checked and told I was 4cm. I was having contractions about every 10 min, and a couple periods of discomfort in between each contraction that I still thought were due to Charlotte moving so much combined with gas pains, but once I was on the monitor it turned out they were contractions too.

Over the next hour the contractions picked up to the point where I was losing control. I had gone natural with Emily and hoped to do so again, but I was having difficulty relaxing and breathing through and ended up doing a lot of yelling instead! I was feeling them mostly in my back, so I tried leaning forward but that felt terrible. I went back to a sitting up/semi-reclined position, but that wasn't very good for the baby heartrate monitor so the nurse had me turn sideways a bit. As with my labor with Emily, moving brought on contractions, so as I rolled one came on and I kind of got stuck in a half on my back/half on my left side position where I remained for awhile. This position was unfortunately not a very good one, but I didn't want to move an inch because I wanted as long between contractions as possible!

The contractions at this point felt like my contractions I was having at 7-8cm with my first labor! When I was checked at 12:30, I was a whopping 5cm. The idea of spending the next 5 hours in pain this bad was NOT appealing to me, so I asked for an epidural. My mom said "But Sara, you're in transition!", to which I replied "I am NOT in transition, transition is going from 8-10cm and I am only at FIVE! I want an epidural NOW!"

The nurse started my IV and told me that once the whole bag of saline was in, she'd call the anesthesiologist. I was NOT happy, and with each contraction was yelling at my mom, the nurse, and random other nurses who came in the room to squeeze the IV bag and get it in there quicker! Everyone thought this was amusing, but I know for a fact that they can do this to get fluids in quickly in an emergency and I was furious that no one was listening to me! I've never seen liquid move more slowly!

The nurse finally said she'd call for him when the bag was only half empty, and when we got there 10 minutes later she checked me and I was 7cm. The fact that I had dilated 2 cm in 10 minutes was lost on me, I had my eyes set on an epidural and I was getting one!

The anesthesiologist finally got there around 12:45AM (I know, that was pretty dang fast but it didn't feel like it!). Once the epidural was in (which wasn't painful at all) I laid back and all of a sudden felt the baby drop into the birth canal. The nurse checked me, and I just had a lip of cervix left. It took about 2 more contractions for me to start to feel the numbness creeping in, and my left side was going numb before my right. I was worried because I have heard of epidurals that only ever take on one side, but the anesthesiologist said it is normal to go numb on one side first and it didn't mean I'd NEVER go numb on the other side.

My body was starting to push on its own, and I had to puff through each contraction because the doctor wasn't there yet. I heard the nurse ask the anesthesiologist if he wanted to catch the baby, and he said "I prefer to wait until the mother cat has licked off the afterbirth". I was focused pretty inward, getting ready to push, but even so that comment made me pause and think "What did he just say?!?!"

The doctor arrived at about 1:15AM and I started to push. Pushing with an epidural is much harder than pushing without! I could feel the muscles that were doing the pushing, but I couldn't feel the results, if that makes any sense, and I definitely couldn't push as hard. I seemed to do ok though, because 3 contractions later, she was out!

I always used to think a fast labor was a good thing but you know what? I actually preferred my 11.5 hour labor with Emily to this 4 hour labor! With Emily's labor it was gradual enough that I was able to stay on top of the contractions whereas this one went from zero to sixty before I knew it and I got scared and unable to relax.

If I had asked for the epidural 1-2 contractions later, it probably would've been too late to get one. I ALMOST wish that had been the case, but now I have experienced labor both ways. I was definitely more comfortable with the epidural, and I think it allowed me to be more patient about pushing so I didn't tear as much, but at the same time I definitely didn't get the same burst of post-labor endorphins this time that I had with my natural birth.

Either way, Charlotte is here, and I'm glad to be through labor! I'm super-glad that both times my water broke it was in the privacy of my own home. It's nice to not be a ticking time bomb anymore!

Progress

I visited the OB today (the good one!) and was given the very encouraging news that I am "a good 3cm dilated, 50% effaced" and she can feel the baby's head. Also cervix is "low", which doesn't mean much to me but it's better than 2 weeks ago when the doctor said "Where is your cervix" while he was digging around up in there. Um, I usually keep it right where you're looking, can you REALLY not find it? I am apparently measuring 37 weeks now vs. 39 weeks last week, so I guess Charlotte dropped further? When I mentioned to the good OB that the irritating OB told me last week that second time moms don't drop down, they drop out, she said "I really don't know what he meant by that". I'm glad to hear that someone with a medical degree is just as confused by the irritating OB as I am.

Most exciting is that the doctor said I would be very easy to induce. So if, for some reason, I'm still walking around pregnant in a week and a half, all she'll have to do is break my water. It's actually quite a load off my mind to think that pitocin will probably never have to enter my veins. AND, if I make it to my 40 week appointment next week, I get to see the good OB again. I guess the front desk lady only forces you to see a different doctor if you specifically ask for the good OB. I kind of want to strangle her.

I know women walk around 3 cm dilated for weeks sometimes, but last time my body didn't mess around so I'm hoping the same will be true this time. I have actually been having lots of contractions today as long as I'm up and walking around, but they die down when I sit so I'm thinking it's not labor yet. They definitely don't hurt like labor contractions did last time, but then again my water hasn't broken yet and I've heard contractions are much less painful before your water breaks.

So I'm sitting here, periodically thinking "Hmmm, that one felt pretty tight in my back, maybe I should start to call people", then deciding against it. My mom's contractions with my youngest sister didn't hurt until her water broke, and then she only had about an hour until Kathleen was actually born so I worry about that happening to me. I have a lot of people to collect before I can go to the hospital!

I'm also spoiled in that Charlotte has cooperated so well so far, I find I am now trying to make her arrival come at the PERFECT time. I keep thinking I should get up and walk, since that makes my contractions come, but it's getting towards the evening and if laying around vs. walking will make her come tomorrow after I've slept vs. tonight as I'm falling asleep, well that would be good right? She's not even due yet, so another couple hours in the womb will just make her less likely to have jaundice and more likely to have nice strong lungs, right? And she's not going to weigh much more tomorrow morning than she does tonight, so it wouldn't be much tougher for me. Then again, if I manage to get labor started right now, I could have her by bedtime tonight and then I wouldn't have to worry about visitors busting into my delivery room because no one is allowed in until tomorrow morning anyway.

Or I could still be 2 weeks away from having this baby. Either way, 3cm is 30% of the way to pushing, yay!

So I will continue to hang around in limbo, making sure that my phone is nearby and vacillating back and forth between thinking I should rest and thinking I should get up and move.

We made it

Here we are, January 4th, and Charlotte is still in my tummy. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. This issue I've worried about pretty much since I got pregnant is now officially not an issue anymore. My lesser worry, a big snowstorm, does not appear to be too much of a possibility in the next 10 days either. BIG sigh of relief.

Brad and Kim's wedding was lots of fun, I can't believe they're actually married now! Mostly I can't believe Brad is married now. It's always weird when someone you grew up with gets married I suppose. But everything went well, I managed to do some slow dancing, sobbed through most of the ceremony, first dance, daddy/daughter dance etc. and even managed to FREAK Will out when he saw a random puddle of water on the floor in the place I had agreed to meet him before heading to the reception. I found him running down the hall with a panicked look on his face yelling "Are you OK?" It's nice to know he cares.

So now, I am kind of at loose ends. I really appreciate the extra time Charlotte is giving me to get ready, but I honestly expected to have a baby by now so I am kind of just hanging out at the house, napping a lot, slowly putting up curtain rods and VERY slowly getting the Christmas stuff put away. It is a really strange mix of super-relaxing and super-tense. I am constantly paying attention for a gush of water, or a contraction that hurts in THAT way. I am making a pork shoulder for dinner tonight, and when I started it cooking this morning it was strange to think I might not be here to take it out of the oven 8 hours later.

It's also weird because if I were going away on a trip for 2 days and leaving Emily here with grandparents I would make sure all her clothes were clean and put away in the right place, her bed made "lasagna style" with several layers of clean sheets and waterproof pads in case of an accident, plenty of food she likes easily accessible, the house clean etc. The problem is, I don't know WHEN I'm leaving this time, so I am trying my best to keep everything perfectly ready at all times but it's tough because I'll let you in on a little secret...I don't usually live that way. More often than not, I pull her clothes out of a (clean) laundry basket to get her dressed vs. her closet. If some clothes or sheets are dirty, I usually don't wash them right away because we have more. If she has eaten all of her favorite snacks or dinners I don't worry because I know what she likes and I can just go shopping and make some more food. I try to keep the house clean, but it certainly doesn't stay clean and I always work best on a deadline which I don't have this time. Well I DO have a BIG deadline, but I don't get to know when it is.

I did actually think I was in labor last night for awhile...my back hurt so badly that it woke me up out of a dead sleep at 1:15AM. I decided I was having back labor (I just KNOW I'm going to have back labor, as much as she has ground on my back during this pregnancy) so I stumbled out of bed and went to the bathroom (which is always the first order of business upon waking). In my sleep-dazed state, I was thinking to myself "If this is very early back labor, I need to go to the hospital and get an epidural NOW!" because boy did it hurt. I tried talking to Charlotte and telling her that I didn't mind her coming now, but there was a much easier way to do it for both of us. If she could just turn her face towards my back we'd all be happier.

Once I laid back down in bed (on my left side this time) I felt a little better and soon I was back to sleep so it obviously wasn't labor. I suspect it was a bit of digestive upset, possibly caused by my over-indulging in frozen buckeye filling I discovered in the freezer before bedtime :-(

Emily seems to realize something is afoot, because she has been spending a lot of time in "No, Mommy, no!" mode. This morning she wanted noodles, she didn't care that we didn't have any noodles, then she wanted yogurt, no not this yogurt, YES WE DO HAVE OTHER YOGURT, she wanted to see the doggie visiting Tank next door, she wanted Tank and his friend to come BACK outside, SHE wanted to go outside, she wanted to watch a pony show (???), she wanted to be picked up but she was not willing to use her words to ask and say please etc., all liberally sprinkled with crying and whining. Luckily there are also times during the day where she'll sing songs about how much she loves me and be a total sweetheart, so I guess she's basically just being a 2 year old. Just a more whiney one than she usually is.

So, as much as it surprises me, it's looking like I might actually make it to my 39 week Dr appointment this week. We'll see what's up then, and we'll see if they start trying to schedule me for an induction again like they did last time. But no matter how well I feel, and no matter how few signs of impending labor I am having, this baby WILL be here in the next 3.5 weeks, and most likely earlier! I'll hold out hope that Charlotte continues to be agreeable and won't decide to come while I'm at the grocery store or just laying down to sleep for the night. But I've been so lucky already I will definitely take whatever happens and be happy!

Happy No Ear

I've read many blogs today that discuss how bad the year 2009 was and how much better everyone hopes 2010 will be. I'm inclined to agree. In 2009 the economy sucked, Will was sick most of the time, and I feel kind of like I slugged my way through the year. We definitely had many good things happen too and I'm not discounting that, but I will be glad to leave behind the year of being pregnant with a sick husband while trying to mother a toddler.

When I think about resolutions, I can think of lots for NEXT year, but in 2010 I know my body and my time will be almost completely claimed by a baby and a toddler so I am giving myself a free pass for this year. Instead I am feeling pretty good about what I have accomplished in the last week.

Christmas = Survived



Just barely




Train table = Pimped



Relaxation Trip = Accomplished without incident. Relaxation achieved.


My hair = Cut

I figure I will not have time to get to the salon anytime in the next couple months. I also figure I am going to a different place next time. I liked the way the girl cut my hair 2 years ago, but she keeps trying to give me bangs nowadays and I am just not really thrilled with how my hair keeps turning out.


Baby = Dropped (although the doctor says she dropped OUT, not DOWN. Whatever. She's not living in my lungs anymore so that's a win in my book)



Charlotte's room = Decorated...



....more or less.
Wal-Mart is still out of C's. Poor little Harlotte.
I also can't make the curtains hang right but I am too lazy to wash or steam them to get the fold marks out.
I also would rather gouge out my eyes than ever put those wispy little stickers all over the wall again. I hope Charlotte likes dandelions because those are staying put for a GOOD long time.

Embarrassing supplies for after the birth that make me feel like I'm 80 = Purchased


Not pictured = Gigantic pads (I have a couple leftover from last time and hope to steal enough from the hospital to get by), sitz bath and hemorrhoid pillow. I didn't need the last two last time, and I hope I don't this time but if it turns out I do I wanted to leave SOMETHING for Will to buy. He's half responsible for this baby's arrival too.

Hospital bag = Packed


My New Years Eve = Will be spent in bed spooning my snoogle


Now if only the baby will stay in until Monday or Tuesday that would be just swell.

I wish you all a Happy New Year. Or as Emily says, a Happy No Ear.

Exhausted doesn't even begin to describe it....

Will went to bed at 6:45PM, I just have to last 1 more hour until Emily's bedtime. Thank the LORD (and Playskool and Gemmy) for the Busy Ball Popper. Between that and the trampoline Emily might be occupied and tired out with minimal effort from me by 8:30. I am SO sleeping through my massage tomorrow, and I'm ok with that.

Never EVER plan to be this pregnant at Christmas if you already have kids.

Christmas Countdown

Bleh. I am finally on the upswing of whatever disease has claimed my energy and productivity for the past 4 days. I tried blogging while I was sick on the couch, but everything I wrote was far too whiny and unintelligible. A far cry from my usual sophisticated prose. I've spent the past 5 days either watching 18" of snow fall, or doing a lot of groaning and mouth-breathing. The snow was cool because it's the most we've gotten in 15 years (we USED to get snow, but then El Nino or La Nina or whoever showed up and we haven't had more than a couple inches in any given year for a LONG time) and because I did not go into labor while we were snowed in! The mouth-breathing tends to keep Will awake at night, but sorry dude, anything less than 2 fully functional nostrils is just not enough and I need to switch over to my mouth. I'm breathing for two here.

But now, I find myself unceremoniously dumped practically on the feet of Christmas Eve, and instead of slowly transitioning from sick mode back into normal life I've had to hit the ground running to make sure everything is bought and wrapped and baked and prepared for Christmas. I think I'm almost there, but despite all my efforts to get prepared ahead of time, I am still rushing and stressed and looking forward to when Christmas is over and I can relax for a bit. I am in good company though, because all the parents in Frederick county unexpectedly found their houses full of kids this week, as they have canceled the last 3 days of school before Christmas break. I imagine losing the last 3 child-free days before Christmas would be pretty panic-inducing.

One of my errands today was to go to my now-weekly doctor appointment. As usual, I left pretty irritated. For brevity's sake, I'll explain why in a list.

-The nurse told me casually that I'd gained 4 pounds in a week. I knew for a FACT that I had not and said so. It took a bit of arguing, but she finally realized it was a typo and I had actually gained 1 pound, but I had actually ACTUALLY only gained 0.6 pounds, because last week my weight ended in 0.2 and this week it ended in 0.8 but they ROUND, the bastards.

-As I was getting my blood pressure checked, a nurse tried to send another lady's husband back to hang out with me. Once it was determined that this was NOT my husband and I did NOT want him in the exam room with me, the nurses told me the story of when they had accidentally sent a guy (named Marcus) back into an exam room with a lady (with a husband named Mark) who was on the table at the time. Apparently this was hilarious. If it were me, and some strange dude walked in while I was in the stirrups, I probably would have sued. It may be no big deal to an OB/GYN nurse who sees women's whole worlds all day every day, but for the rest of us (and as I am trying to teach my daughter right now) 'ginas are private.

-I was left to sit in the BAKING hot exam room for 35 minutes with no phone service, and only a breastfeeding pamphlet and a copy of Parenting magazine that I had already read for entertainment. By the time the doctor showed up for his 4 minutes of face time, I had completely shredded both the paper under me and the woefully inadequate paper "modesty sheet" I had been provided because HELLO, I'm 37 weeks pregnant and it's really uncomfortable for me to have to perch on an exam table for 35 minutes so I'd had to do a lot of wiggling and re-adjusting.

I could go on, but I'm sure you've all heard more than enough about my OB appointment by now. Oh, except for the result...I'm 1cm dilated, but not effacing yet. So it's no guarantee, but I will probably stay pregnant for a bit longer. But I'm 1/10th of the way there! Yay!

And now I have to go. Will has not done anything Christmassy yet this year, so we've waited until today to take Emily to the mall to visit Santa. Better late than never, I guess. Hopefully we'll still have time left today to do the millions of other things on my list.

2 days until my massage...

My Eggo is Preggo

I haven't watched the Top Chef finale yet, so I am hiding in my house, avoiding Facebook and Twitter and certain blogs and the newspaper and random strangers walking by on the street so that no one can spoil the ending for me. Just because I can't stay awake late enough at night to watch it, and just because we don't have cable shouldn't mean I can't be surprised!

I just read over my last post, and all of that still applies, really (except there has been blessedly less cockroach-petting this week). If you are pressed for time, here is a quick summary for you:

I'm pregnant blah blah blah I hope the baby doesn't come too soon because there's still a lot to do blah blah blah preschool for Emily blah blah blah.

So yeah, still finishing Christmas shopping, still worried about Charlotte arriving earlier than planed, still looking for preschools, although I've made some progress on that front. I've found two that I really like, and she's already in at one of the two so all I have to do is send them $50 by February and it's all taken care of. Despite that fact, and despite the fact that ANY of the preschools I've looked at would be 100% fine (a point Emily relentlessly drives home every time I take her to visit a new one and she just walks right into the class, helps herself to some blocks or play dough and starts to play like she belongs there) I am still obsessed with finding the PERFECT preschool. I guess I've read too many blogs where moms have had big problems with their childs' preschools and I want to make sure the one I choose is the best possible fit for Emily.

But since I've settled into a weekly routine of preschool visits, doctor's appointments and Christmas-related errands, there's really not much that is interesting to report. If this pregnancy lasts exactly as long as my pregnancy with Emily did, I will be slightly skinnier (but much baggier) and sporting a cute new accessory in 3.5 weeks. I'm in the "I'm afraid to leave the house too much lest I get too tired or go into labor" period of my pregnancy, the time when you just kind of curl up in the nest like the huge egg you are and wait to hatch. I bought a dress for the wedding on January 2nd, and I even restrained myself from asking the saleslady at Motherhood which dress would be best for hiding a gush of amniotic fluid. I have even seriously considered wearing some depends, but then I start to think about how very convenient diapers would be at this point because they would save me about 100 trips to the bathroom per hour, but Will says he would flat-out divorce me if I ever wore diapers and purposely peed in them, and I think that's fair so I will probably avoid the temptation. I settled for this one, and I even got it in a medium, so now I feel all svelte. But in reality I look like this:


Except that usually I have arms.

And you all have my permission to rub my face in all these "oh please don't let me give birth too early" posts when January 24th rolls around and I'm still pregnant.

Coming back to life

Wow. I can't believe November is half gone. The last thing I remember was Halloween. And this was supposed to be my lull before the holiday season in which to get ready for the baby that will be here in LESS THAN 2 MONTHS. Yeah, that hasn't happened yet.

Halloween was incredibly busy, like I fell asleep at my friends' Halloween party on the couch watching Bolt with the toddlers before 10PM busy (I am a party ANIMAL). But we managed to take Emily trick or treating as an eff-a-lant, and that was my goal for the day so it all worked out. She still needs to learn that it's important to knock on someone's door BEFORE yelling trick or treat, and that the proper way to show appreciation for the candy is to say "thank you", not "I want a lollypop instead", and that you should not go busting into people's houses even if they do have a really cool light up ghost sculpture in the front hall, but she had a blast and is still talking about trick or treating 2 weeks later. Even better, she didn't notice when all of her candy except for one lollypop mysteriously disappeared. We're definitely not going to be able to pull that off next year.

The next few days were spent getting Emily excited about going to the farm, showing up to said farm only to find out that it was closed for rain (even though there was no rain), desperately trying to find a different farm to take a very disappointed 2 year old to, going back to the original farm the next day because damn it, I had free tickets and I was going to use them, realizing that chasing a toddler up and down slides and onto moon bounces alone CAN'T be good for keeping babies that are not yet finished gestating inside where they belong, taking Emily to the local science center's open house because she needed some education after all that fresh air (and apparently because I was trying to kill myself), then kind of just dropping dead with the swine flu.

I am now DECIDEDLY immune to the swine flu, because when I showed up to my OB last Friday coughing my lungs out into my fetching little SARS mask, the nurses said "Oh pshaw! You can get the swine flu shot unless you're moderately to seriously ill" and gave it to me. I certainly FELT at least moderately ill, and a swine flu test or even having them take my temperature before getting all needle-happy would've been nice, but they know what they're doing, right?

Then I don't really remember much about the next 4-5 days, except that my lungs somehow filled with razor blades and that I called the ER at 3AM on Saturday night because I figured my flu had gone into pneumonia or bronchitis but I wanted to make sure they'd bother to admit me if I bothered to drag myself in. Of course they don't give medical advice over the phone and told me to call my doctor, but the thought of trying to get the OB on call (who barely speaks english) to understand my hoarse croaking over the phone, followed by a night of sitting on a hard bench in the ER waiting room exhausted me enough that I was able to fall asleep and just continue my fevered moaning from home for the next few days. Also Tamiflu? Sucks.

So now I've finally started wobbling, delicate and weak, back out into the world, and it's a scary place. After spending so very long on my couch, I kind of miss it. There are no nor'easters hitting my couch, there are no preschool representatives trying to sell me their "hands-on approach to education" on my couch, and there are no impossibly, exhaustingly wide grocery stores to walk across when I'm on my couch. And on my couch I am not asked to do high-level problem solving, like "Should you buy ice cream now, when you don't have time to run it home to your freezer before it's time for your ultrasound appointment?" or "Should you bring some food to eat or just randomly run errands until it's too late to get lunch and then have to starve until you can go home again?"

I am hoping it's just that I'm not fully recovered yet. It's tough to take it easy when you've finally started feeling better and the doghair tumbleweeds are starting to become sentient and the groceries are not buying themselves and preschool waitlists are filling up, but I'm hoping if I force myself to take it slow, I will be back to normal (well, pregnant normal) soon. I don't think I can handle bumping around in this squinty brain fog, crashing into curbs and melting gallons of ice cream for much longer.

And because I don't have the brain to figure out a good way to finish this post, LOOK! PICTURES!

One excited eff-a-lant


Emily, Will, and me looking huge in my Juno costume that I kind of ran out of motivation for putting together


Pictures from the ultrasound...they surprised us and did a couple in 3D which was awesome


Charlotte's nose and mouth


Fight the power! Also, hide the face, which Charlotte does fantastically

Bad timing

I have decided that for all the planning and waiting we did before getting pregnant with Charlotte, we still timed it badly. I have been worried about it snowing on delivery day since the beginning, but I'm starting to settle down about that a little. I just SO don't want to have Charlotte at home and have to clean up afterward...it was much nicer to have a team of nurses do that for me last time. I will also consider it a miracle if I manage to attend my friends' wedding in the beginning of January without my water breaking on the floor, or right as I crawl exhausted into bed that night next to a drunk husband.

But now, on top of that, it seems I've decided to have a baby smack in the middle of (what the media is telling us will be) the worst flu season in 30 years, and daily I struggle with "I need to get a flu shot, but there aren't any flu shots to be had anyway, but maybe I SHOULDN'T get a flu shot because the H1N1 vaccine is so new and hasn't been tested on pregnant women and remember DES and thalidomide, but if I DON'T get the shots then Charlotte won't have any immunity and if she gets sick I'll never forgive myself and I am careful about Emily's vaccines and NEVER get her the yearly flu shot but maybe I should this year and oops, my head just exploded". Then Will tells me that our AWESOME insurance is going to turn into not nearly as awesome insurance as of January 1st, just in time for me to rack up a $14,000 hospital stay. That is, IF I'm lucky enough not to need pain meds or a C-section or have any complications. If I have Charlotte as early as I had Emily, I will be giving birth on January 5th. It's enough to make me want to induce on the 31st just so that I'm covered under the old plan AND get a tax deduction for this year. But that would probably leave me delivering in a broom closet, since lots of people seem to aim for that time of year.

Having a baby just wasn't exciting enough for me, I guess I had to add in some extra stress.

BUT, I have now bought a couple of warm footie pajamas and sleep sacks for Charlotte, moved a bookcase out of her room, and my mom has ordered the crib. So we're practically all ready to bring her home (hah). Oh yeah, and I have probably already gained my allotted amount of weight for my entire pregnancy, so I have that covered too. I am not sure though, since every time I see a scale I hiss and run away. I am virtuously eating a carrot right now because I'm sure that'll undo all the bad eating I've been doing.

The problem with getting ready now is that if I were to get Charlotte's crib all made up, the bedding would be dusty by the time I brought her home to sleep in it and I'd have to wash it again anyway, and if I did start cooking up extra dinners to freeze then there wouldn't be ANY room left in the freezer, instead of the approximately 1/100th of a cubic foot of free space we enjoy now. But if I wait much longer I'll have even less energy for doing these things, plus I'll be in the middle of holiday season which comes with its own impressive to do list.

It shouldn't be surprising to me anymore that parenting presents you with never-ending conundrums, but it is still annoying. Especially since I've brought most of these issues on myself with my poor choice of baby timing.

So I've been cleaning. I hope it's not nesting, or at least if it is I hope it's a very early bout of nesting. Even though I will have to clean everything again a million times before Charlotte makes her appearance, cleaning is a nice distraction from stressing about the things that it's too early to do, and the things I have no control over. Plus if it turns out I do actually need to take people up on the offers to clean my house, at least they'll be cleaning a house that was clean not too long ago. I'm not sure what about my upbringing caused me to think that no one will like me unless my house is clean, but it's there in my psyche.

And all the while, Charlotte's kicks and punches and rolls get stronger and stronger, to the point where I wonder if she's trying to liberate herself without the benefit of labor contractions (or to the point where I am considering liberating her myself without the benefit of labor contractions just to ease the discomfort), reminding me that snow or not, wedding attended or not, stocked freezer and completed nursery and clean house or not, she's coming soon.

Angry angry hippos

I had another doctor's appointment today, and all is well. I saw Dr. "Are you sure it's not twins...well don't worry, it IS your second pregnancy" again, and once again, he pulled the same crap. He unrolled the measuring tape, held it almost all the way up to my sternum, and said "Wow, the baby is growing FAST!" Then he paused just long enough for me to envision myself struggling to push out an 11 pound monster baby, and amended "Actually you're measuring 26cm, that's exactly right". Does this guy just not think before he talks? Does my stomach just LOOK huge because the rest of me is so very svelte and willowy? No matter what, I don't think I want to see him anymore.

I had my gestational diabetes test today, so I got to drink the kool aid medicinal-grade bug juice. I know the stuff has to be super-sweet, but does it have to be chock full of red dye too? Are they TRYING to make it as bad for you and the baby as possible? Don't get me wrong, I am far from angelic about my eating, but it just seems unnecessary to make it dayglo red.

So I got to experience the dizzying (nauseating) high, followed EXACTLY 30 minutes later by the spectacular crash that led me to notice that a certain set of 3 chairs in the waiting room did not have dividing armrests between the seats, and if they left them off then it's TOTALLY ok for me to just crawl over there and lay down for a bit, right? I mean, if they WEREN'T inviting me to lay down in the waiting room they would've put armrests between ALL the chairs.

Tomorrow marks 27 weeks for me, and depending on which source you go by, it also marks the end of the 2nd trimester (commonly referred to as the "feel-good" trimester) and the beginning of the 3rd (commonly referred to as the "angry hippo" trimester). I think Charlotte has been keeping track. I could almost hear her think "Ok, we've reached the 3rd trimester, time for you to be uncomfortable now" as she executed a somersault and flipped head-down. This is excellent in theory, because that is where she's supposed to be facing, but in practice it sux. I think I have been very generous with the percentage of my body I have devoted to housing her, but it felt like she was trying to crawl into a couple of places she is not supposed to be, namely my spine and my bladder. Today my waddle is a bit more pronounced (I can still walk like a normal person, but it feels SO much better to waddle and my dignity is gone anyway so why not be comfortable?) and my belly is larger still. I remember getting all whiny around 31 weeks when I was pregnant with Emily, so I guess it makes sense that it would happen a bit earlier this time. And adding to my issues is the fact that I have run into 2 other pregnant women in the past 2 days who are both at least as far along as I am, and they were both still tiny and nimble. I, on the other hand, have been grunting so much as I shuffle through my day that I've noticed Emily now exclaims "Ooof!" every time she sits down.

I know, whaaaa! I spend the first 16 weeks of pregnancy complaining that I have no belly and then a mere 11 weeks later I'm back at it complaining that I look big and pregnant and HEY YEAH, now I remember that this pregnancy thing is actually pretty uncomfortable.

Oh well. 11-ish weeks from now I'll be complaining that at least when I was pregnant I had an excuse to be fat and BOY are babies easier to take care of when they're inside you. But we'll have a Charlotte, and she'll (probably) have a middle name, and I'll be in the throes of the love that makes it all worth it.

I still get to complain though.

Top 5 songs for making pregnant ladies cry

Well this pregnant lady, anyway.

These days my playlist is like a minefield. I have to be careful about which songs I listen to while Emily is in the car, or while there is a lot of traffic, lest I dissolve into a sniveling mess and cause alarm to those around me. Here I present the top 5 songs I try to avoid.


5. When She Loved Me by Sarah McLaughlin

This is the song that plays in Toy Story 2 when Jessie the cowgirl is thinking about the little girl who used to own her, and how she grew up and got rid of her. Maybe it's because the little girl's name is Emily and she's outgrowing her toys and becoming a pre-teen, but that damned song gets me every time. And of course that's one of Emily's favorite movies to watch these days.

4. Finale B from Rent (or as I think of it, No Day But Today)

I feel like I have kind of "outgrown" Rent. I still like to listen to it, but to 28 year old Sara it seems a bit much. However when it came out I was 15 year old Sara, full of teenage angst, and this musical SPOKE to me. Nevermind the fact that I didn't have AIDS or live in poverty in New York or have any interest in being an artist or even KNOW anyone who was gay, but I found connections the way only a teenager can. My mom took me to see it on Broadway for my 18th birthday. We sang a Rent medley in vocal ensemble. My senior quote was the opening lines of the song, so I definitely have memories associated with it, and I think it's the nostalgia and memories more than anything that make me cry like a baby when I hear it, especially when I'm carrying one.

3. Slipping Through My Fingers by ABBA

This song hit me hard a year ago when I saw Mamma Mia in Bar Harbor. I had reached the point where it was time to try for another kidlet if I wanted my children to be 2 years apart, and I was fairly panicked at the thought of having another kid so soon and missing out on a phase of Emily's life while I was focused on a newborn. I worked through my issues shortly thereafter, but this song is still a doozy and I challenge any mama of a little girl to listen to it with dry eyes, especially with pregnancy hormones thrown into the mix.

2. What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie

A song about sitting in the hospital while your loved one fades away, culminating in the line "Love is watching someone die, so who's gonna watch you die?" Who WOULDN'T cry at this song, pregnant or not?

And #1....

The War was in Color by Carbon Leaf

Oh, this song. It came out when I was pregnant with Emily and when I heard it it pretty much knocked me flat with the sobbing. I listened to it a couple times while I wasn't pregnant, and I was able to get through it without crying. I suspected that perhaps just hearing it the first couple times got to me and now I was ok? But that hypothesis was disproven last week, as the song popped up on Will's Ipod while I was driving and I almost had to pull over. I'm talking great, heaving sobs, mascara running down my face, the whole bit. I always have to click a couple tracks back to A Girl And Her Horse in order to recover, because that is by far the crappiest song Carbon Leaf has ever released and it gets my mind off the sad.

So there you have it. If you see me driving around town sobbing, don't worry, it's probably just that one of these songs has popped up and I wasn't fast enough to change the track.

The agony and the ecstasy

Some of you may be wondering, where are all the pregnancy gripes? I haven't heard her complain about anything for days at least. Well, truth be told, for the past week or two I haven't really had any. But my body doesn't want things to get boring around here, so in the last couple days it put an end to the boring-ness and started up with the SCIATICA! That word just LOOKS scary.

I remember it from last time; I think it started later on in the pregnancy though, but it didn't stick around the whole time so that is comforting. It is both the best and worst pregnancy issue that I have. I say worst because when I bend or turn or step a certain way, an intensely painful jolt runs down the back of my right leg, usually causing me to emit a loud noise or exclamation and alarming everyone in my vicinity. It also provides low-level background pain while I'm walking. So yeah, the pain sucks.

But it's also quite manageable compared to other problems, because if I lay down it goes away entirely. Most issues or injuries or illnesses you encounter are kind of just THERE, no matter what you do, and when you're in constant and inescapable discomfort it starts to wear on you. But I can get perfect relief just by lying down, so it's bearable. Unfortunately I can't lie down all the time (well maybe I should say fortunately, because lying down all the time would basically be bedrest and I SO don't want to be on bedrest) so I have to deal with it. When I lay down in the evening to make it stop though, I tend to fall asleep, resulting in 11 hour sleep marathons. But at least I don't require a nap when I do that, and I am more productive during the day.

Like today I got all my errands done, and then came home to continue being productive. I picked out a crib for the baby and found the cheapest place to buy it, scheduled an appointment (for tonight) with my seamstress so that we can hopefully make me look like slightly less of a rhinoceros in the bridesmaid dress I have to wear next month, got the house clean again, showered, and started dinner.

OH! And in news that is interesting only to me, I also did a little research and confirmed my suspicion that pregnant ladies only need to avoid RAW MILK soft cheeses. I was wistfully caressing a particular hunk of cheese at the Common Market today when a person who worked there happened by and exclaimed "THAT is the BEST cheese I have ever had!" She went on extolling the virtues of the cheese for about 3 minutes while the saliva ran down my chin and onto my belly, and when I saw that it was pasteurized milk I decided to just hope that a bite or two wouldn't give me listeria and I bought the stuff. When I got home I discovered I can enjoy it guilt-free, and OH, it's like it came from heaven's refrigerator. It's bleu-cheesy in the middle, and somehow it magically fades to brie-like with a rind on the outside. It embodies both of the types of cheese (well all 3, because it's goat milk) that I have missed so very much while pregnant and IT'S ALL MINE!

Good thing I'm only cutting down on processed sugar today and not on fat. Although it probably won't help me look like less of a rhinoceros in my dress. Oh well, I'm sure the baby is enjoying it too, and it has, like, calcium and stuff so it's, like, actually good for me, and yeah.

My Who down in Whoville

Well, we had our ultrasound today, and Zippy cooperated! The technician (who was full of exclamations about the baby like "Hey there gorgeous" and "what a cutie-pie" that were delivered with complete professional boredom) was able to get a "hamburger shot" (which I will not post) but that means we have a little girl in there! Here are the other pictures:

Her foot (a VERY long, thin Deyle-looking foot. I sincerely hope she doesn't end up with size 13 feet like her grandmother and aunts on Will's side):


Her face:


So the first thing I thought when I saw this side-profile picture is that she looks kind of like a Who, what with the teeny upturned nose and her mouth down at the bottom of her face. What do you think?


I'm sure it's just an unflattering angle. And considering Emily looked like a terrifying skeleton and then came out looking adorable, I'm not too worried.

So yeah, we'll have 2 girls! Will and I are very excited to see our two little blonde girls running around in dresses looking adorable. I'm also excited to be able to re-use all of Emily's old clothes and other pink paraphernalia, and to be able to see how they are similar and different without wondering if the differences are because of their genders. I guess my morning sickness this time WASN'T because I'm having a boy!

I am also excited because I will be getting 2-3 MORE ultrasounds during this pregnancy to monitor our little girl's growth (she measured 1 day ahead today, so she's doing great so far). So yay for that too!

And while I'm posting pictures of one of my girls, I've got to post this picture of my other girl. Does she have a kickin' tan or what? I'm jealous, neither her mommy or her daddy tan like that, we just burn:


Also, just because it's adorable, here is Emily modeling her life vest for our trip next week, and her new hiking boots:


She looks totally prepared to be a big sister :-)

Acro-baby

This pregnancy has been very different from my last. Not 100% different, but still kind of opposite all the same. If -10 represents a pregnancy where you suffer severe morning sickness the whole time, can't move because you ache so much and the baby spends all its time pummeling your organs and +10 represents one of those pregnancies where women are like "Hmmm, I seem to have a stomach ache. OH! Did I just pop out a baby? I never even knew I was pregnant!" then I would rate my first pregnancy as a +7, and this one so far as a -2. Emily traveled about docile-ly in my uterus, gently nudging me now and then but not really giving me any bad symptoms or aches. And this pregnancy is not by any means BAD bad, but still a bit more on the bad side than the good.

I felt the first identifiable flutter of movement about 2.5 weeks ago, at almost exactly the same gestational age (13 weeks 3ish days) I felt Emily move for the first time. Predictably, I didn't feel any more movement for the next week or so, and over the past week I have felt the baby pretty much every day but only very tiny bumps here and there and I'm never sure if they're actually the baby or my newly rebellious lower digestive system. However I am no longer able to lay on my stomach comfortably, and when I'm up walking around I feel like I have a tiny bowling ball sitting in my lower abdomen. This is in stark contrast to Emily, who always floated around up high, affording my bladder copious room and behaving herself quite nicely in there.

But today must be the day. Zippy has decided that the gagging and nausea, crippling backaches, early-onset waddling and exhaustion are not enough to REALLY make sure I know (s)he is there. I swear if I had an ultrasound right now you would see a baby with its limbs flung out in the shape of a star. It feels like when you bite into a dorito and it gets lodged across the top of your mouth, except it's happening in my pelvis. It's not PAINFUL, but it certainly feels odd. Periodically Zippy will perform some sort of spin or roll and the pressure lets up for a moment, and then (s)he will return to the original splayed position. It's neat on the one hand, because it's the first real, strong movements I've felt, but Zippy is surprising me with his/her strength and activity level already. I wonder how the next 5 months of us sharing a body will go when the baby is already pulling stunts like this now, when (s)he still has some room to float around and move. This kid had better find a new favorite position before things get too crowded in there, or I'm going to have to start poking back. And I had better figure out if this baby is a girl or a boy soon or else I'm going to drown in my own pronoun overuse.

I'm infinitely glad the baby is still in there. I'm glad to be able to start feeling the movements for sure. I suppose I'm even glad to be experiencing some of the bad parts of pregnancy so that I won't be as tempted to have a third child when I'm 97% sure I only want two. Also I will not go through life being one of those annoying women who chirp "My pregnancies were so easy, I don't know what all the fuss is about". But this pregnancy has me a bit gun-shy at this point. It has forced me to realize that I am not, in fact, a pregnancy viking, and that it wasn't my body itself being immune to most of the discomforts of pregnancy last time, it was just an easy pregnancy. Which then leads inevitably to the same questions I'd ask myself last time when some sort of new symptom showed up. How bad is it going to get? And if I'm not just naturally good at pregnancy, maybe I'm not just naturally good at labor either? If Emily was so agreeable and calm in the womb and continued to be so after her birth, does this mean this little acrobat is going to continue being crazy once (s)he is born? I've been feeling pretty smug, having been through all this before and having read the statistics that second-time mommies tend to have an easier time of it in many ways, and now my fondly-held beliefs are somewhat shaken.

Ok, and I just took a quick break to consult google's opinion on things that can be more difficult the second time around, and now I'm as terrified as a first time mom reading What to Expect... Nice job, Sara. Sheer, unbridled terror was one of the only symptoms that was much better this time around and you had to go screw that up too.

A monster (baby) of a post

I've started several blog posts over the past week, but most of them have just been me whining and trying to make up my mind on various minutiae that I find important. I have decided to spare you the boring details, and just give you the results of my many hours of deliberation.

#1, I think Will and I will take a trip to Jamaica in October. I want to see the Caribbean again before I have a second little kiddo to feel guilty about leaving (it has been 3 years! Waaah!) so I decided we'll hop down for 4 nights and stay at one of the super-cheap all-inclusives down there (i.e. not Sandals, unfortunately). I chose Jamaica because it is the cheapest place to fly to aside from Puerto Rico (and I don't want to go there). So now I just have to decide whether we want to go to a resort that has a higher satisfaction rating and is near town, or a resort that has a slightly lower satisfaction rating but has a really neat location with a snorkeling lagoon and lots of rocks and tide pools to hop around and explore. Not to mention it is right next to Hedonism 2, so if Will and I get tired of sitting on the beach looking at the ocean, we can just turn our chairs 90 degrees to the left and sit on the beach watching people have orgies. And then probably 180 degrees to the right because I doubt many people who go to Hedonism are young attractive people anyone would actually be interested in seeing in the nude.

#2, We are going to convert Emily's crib into a double bed, skipping the toddler bed phase altogether. She is still in a crib because she has never tried to climb out and I am afraid to mess with what works. She sleeps like a champ, and I don't want to change something for the sake of changing it, then start waking up to a little girl poking me in the arm at night just because she's tickled she can get out of bed by herself. But on the other hand, we DO need to change her bed over at some point, and the earlier we do it, the less likely it will be that she associates the change with the new baby, and there are going to be enough changes going on then that we don't need to add more.

So then I had to decide on bedding. Emily's room is light pink, so I didn't want anything that was too light pink because I don't want her bedroom to look like the Barbie aisle at Toys R Us. I fell absolutely in love with this set, but was forced to fall right back out of love with it when I realized it would cost about $700. So now I'm in love with this bedding (CUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!) but of course it is sold out. So now I have to wait. And I hate waiting. But I guess while I wait I can consider the intelligence of putting a dry-clean only comforter on the bed of a child who is probably a year or two away from being nighttime potty-trained. Hmmm.

#3, I think we ARE going to go up to Camp Gorham with Will's parents, but we're going to be staying at a different place about a mile away so that we can have our own room. We'll have to pay more than we would've of course, but it makes a fairly impossible situation actually possible so I guess we'll suck it up.

Ha! I guess I didn't really spare you the minutiae of my decisions. Except that this really is the abbreviated version...I like to make things difficult.

So now onto the main event! We got to see Zippy up close and in person today!

We arrived at the office about 15 minutes early, my bladder "comfortably full" as was instructed. We didn't end up going back to the ultrasound room until about 10 minutes late though, so my bladder was starting to verge on uncomfortable by the time I hopped up on the table. The technician started going to town on my stomach with the ultrasound thingy, and the first thing she said was "Oh my gosh, look at your bladder! It's this great big black abyss over here and it is FULL. Are you ok?" By that point I had already glimpsed a little miniature human being on the screen and it really wasn't terrible, so I bravely soldiered on. This makes the second time an ultrasound technician has been shocked at how full my bladder was, so I guess I don't have to drink quite as much water before these things as I assumed.

So we got to watch the baby kicking around for awhile, but Zippy stayed stubbornly curled up on his/her stomach so the tech couldn't really measure the nasal bone. She had me roll onto my side and jabbed me repeatedly in the stomach with the ultrasound thing, creating earthquake-like conditions in my uterus, and we finally got the baby to roll onto its back. Then she said "Stay right there, when the doctor comes in he'll want to take a look too, and since this is the best we've seen the baby the whole time just keep that position."

So yeah, then we waited for over 30 minutes for the doctor to show up. Laying in one place with your goo-covered belly hanging out and without any pillows for support is not real fun, and Will did not seem to pick up on my subtle comments that he was perfectly positioned to give me a nice backrub, but the time eventually passed and the doctor finally showed. It's always nice to meet someone for the first time while covered in goo with your pants pulled obscenely low, but at this point I am used to the fact that pregnancy robs you of all dignity. The doctor had quite a lot of personality, he was the type who will just keep going with the jokes if he has someone who will joke back, so we all had quite a humorous conversation for awhile. He was young and he seemed like someone who we would hang out with even outside of doctor's appointments, which made it all the more shocking when he started asking me about "last menstrual periods" and "previous vaginal deliveries". When I think of someone who is a High Risk Obstetrician, I think of an older guy who is very serious, and this guy was quite the opposite. That was a good thing for us, but it's difficult to imagine him breaking the news that your baby doesn't have a heartbeat anymore or other such serious things that he probably deals with on a daily basis.

The minute he put the ultrasound thing back on my stomach, he said "This baby is a pain in the butt". Apparently Zippy was laying facedown again, perpendicular to the way babies usually lay, and with his/her hands in front of his/her face. But at that point I had seen that the baby had all the expected appendages, along with a heartbeat and was moving around a good bit, so I didn't really care whether they got the measurements or not, I had seen what I came there to see! But they eventually did measure the nasal bone, and it appears that the likelyhood of Zippy having a genetic disease is quite low, so that's definitely good.

Another good thing is that while the OB told me "If you're going to have anything wrong with you while you're pregnant, treated hypothyroidism is one of the best" (woohoo?) he also said that we'd throw a few extra ultrasounds in every 6 weeks or so just to track the baby's growth and make sure things are progressing as they should. This makes me exceedingly happy, but also irritated because I had hypothyroidism when I was pregnant with Emily too, and what I wouldn't have given to have an extra ultrasound or two thrown my way! I will enjoy my plethora of ultrasounds this time around, but I already have the peace of mind of knowing that I've made a normal baby once before and I can probably do it again. Poor Sara of 2006 was a terrified wreck until she got to see her baby at 20 weeks. And I know, I know, waah waah, about 99.999% of women who have given birth since the beginning of time never saw their babies prior to delivery, but what can I say, I am a selfish American with an overblown sense of entitlement and easy internet access and I want what everyone else is getting!

I am also very glad though that someone is taking my thyroid thing a bit more seriously. My regular OB and my endocrinologist are fairly blase about the whole issue, and I know that most of the time things are fine, but there ARE issues that can arise, and if we have the technology available and the insurance to cover it, shouldn't we monitor things if we can?

In closing, Zippy pics!

The top of Zippy's head, with 2 hands (I only count 4 fingers on the one hand but I'm sure the other one is there somewhere, RIGHT???)


The elusive laying on his/her back position...poor thing looks pretty uncomfortable despite the cushy placenta bed upon which he/she rests. I don't blame him/her for preferring to curl up on his/her tummy.


This position made the technician chuckle...Zippy is working on sitting up already! Also butting me in my abyss-like (abysmal?) bladder (not pictured)


And here is the piece de la resistance. The only picture we got of Emily at her ultrasound was a front-facing picture where she looked like a terrifying skull emerging from behind a curtain that she was pulling aside with little bony fingers. I tried to find this picture, but it's nowhere to be found, leading me to fear that it's hiding somewhere waiting to quietly creep out and scare the heck out of me. Well, terrifying skeleton, meet even MORE terrifying alien with exposed brain baby:


I can already see the family resemblance.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh

Zippy has a heartbeat! It's somewhere in the 170's, which is pretty much where Emily's was at this point too, but apparently that's pretty standard. My OB also assured me that it doesn't feel like I'm carrying twins, PLUS I still haven't gained any weight (sweet!), PLUS they'll now draw my blood for me AT the office instead of sending me to the creepy lab across the street that is always crowded and just skeezy. So I am feeling pretty jazzed. Once we got past the confusion of me having to convince the secretary that I was pregnant (they had me down for a well-woman check, and I had to tell her that I WAS well, but I was also pregnant) and once I managed to produce my second urine sample since they got all excited and threw away my first one, everything went very well.

The thing that got me most excited though, is that I get to have an ultrasound in 2 weeks! Squeeee!

Apparently in the time since I was pregnant with Emily, they have started to offer early screenings for genetic abnormalities. I don't have any risk factors, but it includes an ultrasound so hells yes I want to do it! I had my appointment today in a room with a sign over it that said "Sonogram". I asked the nurse if that meant I got a sonogram, and she hemmed and hawed and basically said "Maybe". I sat there waiting for the doctor, staring at the sonogram machine (and Will sat there giggling at the pile of condoms that they use on the sonogram probes) hoping for a sonogram but also not.

The rule, it seems, is that if the doctor can find the heartbeat with the doppler, that's proof enough that you're pregnant and the baby is doing well so they don't do a sonogram, but if they can't find the heartbeat, they go looking for the baby. This rule makes me feel so torn. While she's pushing the doppler around in the goo on my belly, and I'm laying there listening to the static, part of me thinks "Please let there be a nice strong heartbeat" while another part of me that I keep telling to shut up thinks "Please don't let her find the heartbeat so that we can have a sonogram and see the baby!". SOMETHING is making me exhausted and making my stomach pop out, so I am pretty sure things are progressing as they should, but even still I can't quite bring myself to wish not to hear a heartbeat.

But hear a heartbeat we did, so Zippy is in there presumably growing away and doing what he/she should, AND we get to see him/her in 2 weeks! Now that we have a heartbeat and I'm not having any concerning symptoms, my odds of miscarriage are down to about 4%, and I am at the point where I would already know if my pregnancy was ectopic, or molar, or if I had a blighted ovum, or any of the other strange and terrifying things that can go wrong but still mimic a healthy pregnancy.

But even with many of my concerns eliminated, I still can't wait to see those arms and legs on an appropriately-sized, properly attached baby waving at me in 2 weeks :-)

Downtime and Dreamtime

Ahhh. Just got back from my little vacation from real life, and it was quite nice. While Will was in Orlando for 2 days I kind of moved in with my parents and sisters for a bit. They were thrilled to have Emily and I there for a couple days, and I was thrilled to be able to take naps and not have to clean my house and make food. I felt a bit guilty about being such a slug, and I did help out when I could, but they really did spoil me and it would've been a waste of their effort if I didn't enjoy it, right? :-)

So now I'm back at home, vacuuming up clumps of dog fur and trying to think of what to make for dinner. Breakfast-for-dinner (Brinner) has been popular recently, due to the inherently high carb content of most breakfast foods and my almost complete preference for carbs these days.

But don't feel too bad for me, on Sunday we leave for Ocean City! And since poor Will hasn't taken any vacation days yet this year (only sick days :-() he can stay the whole time. Emily asks every day to put on her bathing suit and go to Ocean City, and I'm excited to see what she thinks of the ocean this year. I also want to take her on the carousel at the boardwalk, bike riding, swimming in the pool, all sorts of fun stuff. Oh, and I want to relax and sleep too :-)

But before we leave for OC, I have a couple of crazy days of getting ready and packing, plus a 10-year high school reunion to attend on Saturday. A slight wrench has been thrown into the works by the fact that my belly has genuinely popped, and I look 20 weeks pregnant (or at least how I looked when I was 20 weeks last time). The outfit I got for the reunion will definitely not fit, or if I CAN squeeze my freakishly large belly into it it definitely won't look GOOD, so I have to pull something out of my maternity clothes box. Luckily I like most of my maternity clothes a lot. I have, in fact, started wearing my maternity clothes already because it's so uncomfortable to wear regular pants, and I might as well be comfy, since I have the clothes sitting there already.

I am actually quite grateful that I have a belly. I don't know what it IS, because it's definitely not baby yet, but it's in the shape of a pregnancy belly, so I'm going with it. I am grateful because now I will look pregnant and not just fat at the reunion and OC. It appears that I'll be lucky enough to skip the several month long "Ugh, I just look chubby" phase this time around.

And it may be too early to say, but I haven't been nauseous or gagging for a couple days in a row now, so I am heartened that I might be through the worst of the morning sickness. Which really wasn't TOO terrible, but I'm just a whiney wimp. In fact, aside from the lingering tiredness and the food aversions, I'm starting to really enjoy this pregnancy. The boob fairy finally showed up, although it seems she's been less generous this time. I'll take whatever I can get though. My nails are awesome, my belly is present, it feels like I'm already in the second trimester, even though I'm barely 9 weeks.

My dreams are dreadfully boring though. Pregnant ladies are known for having very vivid and often explicit dreams, and I'm wondering where my piece of that action is. In the past week, I have dreamed about scrubbing a bathtub (for a LONG time), putting all my school supplies back into my backpack at the end of a class (for a LONG time...I seriously must've dreamed about putting things in my backpack for about 20 minutes), and waiting in various lines at the grocery store (for...you guessed it, a long time). I even dreamed last night that I poured myself a glass of wine, but then thought I shouldn't drink it for some reason and dumped it out. I can't even drink wine and have fun in my dreams! My dream life is just like my normal life, just way more boring.

I guess I could be having BAD dreams, and I guess boring is better than bad, but geez. If I weren't already asleep, my dreams would PUT me to sleep.

Pregnancy post

I haven't posted for awhile because I have been trying to wait until something non pregnancy-related and sufficiently entertaining to blog about happened to me. Since I found out I was pregnant almost all of my posts have at least mentioned my pregnancy. However it's kind of an all-consuming thing...my biggest project I have going on these days, so I may never post again if I try not to mention pregnancy. So I guess you just have to deal with the fact that I'll be talking about it for the next 8 or so months.

So here it is! The post I've been trying not to write! A post that's ALL ABOUT ME BEING PREGNANT!

So yeah. I'm pregnant. And it's much harder this time around. When I was pregnant with Emily, I only had about a week where I felt slightly queasy if I got too hungry. I slept 8 hours a night, then got up and jogged 2 miles every morning. I traveled to Mexico and Japan. Emily never kept me awake with kicks to the liver. I pretty much figured I was a pregnancy viking.

But this time? I'm nauseous pretty much all day. All that appeals to me are carbs and dairy. If I smell vegetables or meat (or heaven forbid, fish) cooking, I start to gag. I am sleeping 9+ hours a night, but don't ask me to function without an afternoon nap. Exercise? Yeah, that's not happening.

I made plans to take a pilates and bodyjam class on Friday, but Emily didn't take a nap, plus all sorts of people called me and stopped by the house so I didn't get a nap. I was panicky-tired, but my mother-in-law was coming over to babysit Emily, so I went ahead and went to the gym since I can't really sleep when Emily's awake and there are people in my house anyway.

Well I called Will on my way to the gym, and I just broke down crying. "I am just...so...TIRED!" I sniffled. "And I want to eat SOMETHING that doesn't turn my stomach." So instead of working out, I abandoned my long-suffering friend Carolyn to yet another solitary workout, bought some food at Common Market, ate it in my car and then fell asleep and drooled all over myself in a busy public parking lot. Pregnancy is already embarrassing me, and I haven't even been asked to pee in a tiny cup with my giant belly blocking my view of the proceedings or showed a whole roomful of people my world yet.

I DO realize how lucky I am. Some women throw up several times a day the entire time they're pregnant. Some women can't get pregnant. Some women wish they had morning sickness because at least it's assurance in these iffy early weeks that things are progressing as they should. But since I had such a wonderful pregnancy last time, I can't help but compare it to this one and wish that I had been sick back when I didn't have a demanding little toddler to take care of (Mommy no lay down! Mommy go outside with Emmy!)

Childbirth is painful, but at least you know that as soon as the suffering is over, you'll get to meet your baby. Morning sickness happens months before you even feel the baby moving. Even having been pregnant before, the baby is kind of still an abstract idea at this point but my nausea is not, so I have to keep reminding myself why it feels like I've had the flu for 2 weeks, and probably will for the next 4 weeks.

Maybe the sickness means I'm having a boy this time. Or (oh my God) twins. I actually have started showing a bit this week. Not that I look pregnant yet or anything, but my tummy has pooched out a bit even though I haven't gained any weight yet, so things are already rearranging in there. Hopefully just because this is my second pregnancy, and not because I'm pregnant with (oh my God) twins. Can you tell I'm worried about having twins? If only my doctor was kind and did ultrasounds in the first trimester. Maybe if I act freaked out enough she'll do one for me.

1 more month until the second trimester.

Need a web designer? I suggest you ask someone else

Yesterday was pretty awesome. And it was made all the more so by the fact that I expected it to suck.

I dropped Emily off with Grammy, then headed to my endocrinologist's office. I'd called the office several times over the past 2 weeks, trying to tell her I was pregnant and needed to get my thyroid levels tested. It's incredibly important to have your thyroid levels under control for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy because the baby's thyroid doesn't start working until about 12 weeks. So I was getting pretty nervous and angry as the weeks passed. I decided to go into the office in person and put the smackdown on the receptionists (who are annoyingly protective of the doctors...I KNOW they're busy, but I am a patient and I haven't heard back in 2 weeks! I'm not getting any less pregnant!) I was a bit nervous because I hate confrontations, but morning sickness decided to hit me harder than it ever has so far yesterday, so I figured I could draw on my sick pregnant lady anger to get me through. They assured me they'd have a lab slip ready for me tomorrow. "I WILL be back tomorrow!" I threatened.

Then as I drove away the nurse called and said she had mailed me a lab slip on Monday. Good then. Thanks for letting me know jerks.

Next on the agenda was going to the lab where I used to work. They had contacted me because they need some website updates. How hilarious is that? *I* know more than anyone there about web design. ME. Who knows next to nothing. Oh well, I figured I'd give it a shot, although I fully expected it to be a waste of time because I don't remember the passwords or even how to use Frontpage in the first place.

Well amazingly enough, I was able to install Frontpage, remember where all the website files were, and update everything they needed me to. I kept expecting to hit a brick wall and not be able to fix things, or worse still break the website, but it all worked. My boss also offered again to make me lab director, and took me out to lunch. My morning sickness let up just long enough for me to scarf down an awesome cheeseburger and fruit.

So I was paid WAY more for 2.5 hours of work than I ever earned for a whole day's work there as a chemist, I got to visit with all my old coworkers, and my old boss took me out to lunch, which she had never done before. This consultant thing is definitely the way to go. Too bad I don't actually know what I'm doing, and even if I did I would be in competition with part of Will's company, so probably no future there :-)

Then I went to my parents house to pick up Emily and had dinner there. The morning sickness definitely came back when they started cooking the tuna. I seem to be doing better today though.

So I feel good for having earned some money, and quite amused that I earned it through working on a website. Sure my yard is un-mowed and the dishes languished in the sink for far too long, but hey, I got paid! For the first time in 2 years! Yay!

Ok....what?

So we got Will's liver levels tested the other day, and they came back wonderfully, completely normal, along with all the other tests they did. No problems. Not even Epstein-Barr.

Whaa?

Apparently, Will has NOT had Epstien-Barr these past few months. The doctor who told him he had it said today that no, he HAS had it at some point in his life, but he does not have it now.

Welcome to the medical community, where every bit of good news is accompanied by another bit of news that makes it less good!

So all of a sudden Will started feeling like crap, his liver levels went haywire, he was tested for EVERYTHING that makes your liver levels high and came back negative for all of them, and a month later they're back to normal but he's still feeling mostly like crap. And the fatty liver that was caused by the Epstien-Barr? Was not caused by Epstein-Barr. So his levels are back to normal and that's good, but what on earth made him/is making him feel so lousy?

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Anyway.

We went to Virginia Beach this weekend for our buddy Eric Jones' engagement party, and that was fun. Even the 9 hours of driving was kind of nice because Will and I got a chance to just hang out and talk for a long time. But we were the LIFE of the party, let me tell you! Neither of us could drink, both of us were exhausted, and we had to duck back to our hotel between the engagement party and the after party to take a couple hour nap. Then we went home at 11. Woooooooooooooooo!

Virginia Beach was nice, and it was neat to have a chance to meet some people who we'll be hanging with when the wedding comes around next year. I'll be the girl who had to pee but didn't want to know where the bathroom was (I thought the guy asked me if I KNEW where the bathroom was, not if I WANTED to know where the bathroom was...who asks that?).

And as a super-special extra bonus to spending hours sitting right next to me, Will got to witness first-hand the craziness that is eating during pregnancy. On the way down to the beach on Saturday it took me over an hour to eat my lunch. I was hungry, but every bite I took made me a little queasy, so I had to take a bite, wait a couple minutes, take a bite, wait a couple minutes. I discussed how much I'd like to keep my pregnancy eating habits while I'm not pregnant, because the queasiness isn't really that bad, it's just THERE, and anything that slows down my eating and makes me stop when I'm full is good. Then on the way back home the next day we didn't stop to eat lunch until we got to Wegmans at 2, where I put away a tray of california rolls, 4 gigantic scallops and 3 gigantic shrimp before Will had even eaten half of his sushi tray, then I wandered off and bought a big box of grilled vegetables (which I ate half of) and finished it off with a fruit bar. Having eaten my weight in food I was finally feeling satisfied, but I was impatient to get home and I suggested to Will that maybe he'd like to finish his food while we shopped. He informed me that he prefers to actually CHEW his food, and he was going to sit right where he was while he was doing it.

So between completely crashing at 9:00PM for the last 4 nights, getting weird dizzy spells, and wildly oscillating between "don't make me look at anything I have decided is unappealing today or I will surely gag" and "is that a leftover cheerio on the floor! GIVE IT TO ME NOW, I'M STARVING!", I think I just might actually be pregnant.