Maxwell Thomas – 6 days old today May 31, 2009

Max arrived all of a sudden on Monday, Memorial Day.  Though he was 10 days late in the end, once he was ready to get out, he wanted OUT!  My friend Julie had her twins by cesarean at 2 am that morning.  I thought for sure Max would not have the same birthday as the girls, but I was wrong.  At 4 I woke up with contractions, but they weren’t that painful – felt like menstrual cramps.  They were about  4-5 minutes apart and then over the next few hours slowed down to 8 then 10 then 20 minutes apart.  I was starting to get frustrated – he was already 10 days late, and labor kept seeming like it might be around the corner and then going away… But then after two walks, a trip to Borders and lunch at home my contractions started to change and become more painful around 1:00 or 1:30 that afternoon.  They sped up and got more intense really quickly and by 2:00 or 2:15 we called our doula, she arrived just before 3:00.  At 3:07 we were on Lakeshore Drive headed to the hospital. 

After three contractions between the car and the triage area (and after going through transition in the car on Lakeshore Drive - not so much fun) , my water broke in triage and I started feeling like I had to push.  They rushed me upstairs, got a tub and started getting it filled up, and got me a squat bar.  I pushed for about 20 minutes on the squat bar and another 20 or 25 in the tub, and he was born at 4:48 pm.  Really only 4 hours or so of what I would consider labor.  It was so intense because it was so fast – I hardly got a break between the pushing contractions.  But I am grateful that it was quick.  Thank God I was prepared for natural childbirth, because even if I had wanted and epidural, there wouldn’t have been time for it.

M ax is beautiful and perfect and healthy.  He was 8 lbs 3 oz at birth and 21 1/2 inches long – the same length that my 6′8″ brother was at birth.  Probably my little half-Japanese baby will not be 6′8″ though…

We’ve been home since Wednesday night adjusting and things overall are going great  We have some breastfeeding problems, but I am pumping to try to increase my milk supply.  Thursday night was really tough when we realized he wasn’t getting enough and was really hurting me and we had to end up giving him some formula, which is not how I had planned this at all.  Fortunately we had a fantastic lactation consultant come on Friday and though the problems are not solved, I feel like we are on our way to a solution.

Mike leaves in two days for Switzerland and has been absolutely amazing taking care of me and Max – feeding him and changing diapers and keeping up the house and also snuggling with the baby and really getting comfortable quickly with handling a brand new baby, which he had never done before.  I’ve been so impressed with how he has handled it all.  He is going to have a hard time being away, and I am going to struggle with him away, but I am now feeling really happy that my mom will be here and then my dad and Cathy will be here.  I am definitely not ready to be alone with him quit yet.

We’ve had a couple of field trips besides to the pediatrician already – yesterday to Best Buy and Whole Foods and today Max and I went alone into our little downtown area to get a gift for our doula who is coming for a post partum visit tomorrow.  It was so great to get out and enjoy the beautiful day and walk around town with my baby.  Our doula was also great during the delivery and worth every penny that we paid her.  Even with our Bradley class, I think there were some times in the birth process that Mike might have been really freaked out if she wasn’t there to tell him that what was happening was normal. 

It still seems pretty surreal that this little person came out of my body less than a week ago and that he is mine, ours.  I love just sitting and watching him make his funny little faces and sleep in his funny little positions with his hands going every which way.

41w2d May 24, 2009

According to the midwife on Friday, I was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced, so making some progress.  However, it is Sunday and I am not in labor.  I did lose my mucus plug yesterday (sorry – TMI…) and the contractions that have been happening for the last week-plus continue, but nothing big is happening.  Next appointment is Tuesday.  If he is still doing okay in there, they’ll send me on my merry way again and induce on Friday (at 42w exactly).  We made the decision to wait until the last day possible to give my body the best chance of going into labor on its own, but with Mike leaving the following Tuesday for Switzerland for 10 days I am not too excited about that plan… But I know it is the right decision.  It also gives me three more very long days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) to fill on my own.

The last couple days have been much easier because Mike has been home, so I have some company and something to do, despite the fact that our cable TV and internet has been out at home since Thursday.  GREAT timing Comcast – thanks for that.  Fortunately it is a long weekend, so I get to have him home again tomorrow, though his parents might be coming in for dinner.  I like his parents fine, but don’t really feel like spending another weekend day with them.  I feel like we have seen a lot of them lately and I will probably be seeing a LOT of them in the next few weeks after the baby arrives.  His mom has been pretty good about not hovering (unlike my mother who calls every other day and infuriatingly predicted that the baby will arrive this weekend – I am not sure why that bothered me so much, but it made me really angry), but does feel the need to pass on all of her friends’ advice about how to get labor going.  I have just about had it with the advice and the “trust him, he will come out when he is ready” that I am getting from everyone.  Yes, I know.  Thanks.  That doesn’t make it any easier to wait and wait when Mike is leaving on the 2nd and I am going to be left with just my mom to help me in my first few days of being a mother myself.   Between that and my increasingly painful hemeroids (still don’t know if I am spelling that right) I am READY for this to be done.  You would think that after waiting more than 2 1/2 years it wouldn’t be so bad to wait a few more days.  But, good lord, I am tired of waiting!  I have to keep a good attitude though – this is a much better problem to have than we had at this time last year, and a much better problem than we could have had if this round of IVF hadn’t worked…

Ugh May 19, 2009

I thought that after the past 2 1/2 years of waiting – ttc, then getting sick, then IVF, then pregnancy – waiting for this kid to be born would be the easy part.  Ugh, was I wrong. 

My due date came and went last Friday.  Friday evening I noticed I was having some painless contractions, so we started timing them and they were getting closer together, peaking at about 6-8 minutes apart.  So we called the doula to give her a heads-up that we might be calling her in the middle of the night to go to the hospital.  Four days later there is no change.  I am still having contractions every 10-12 minutes sometimes, every 6-8 minutes other times.  They are not getting more painful, there has been no bloody show – nothing is happening in terms of a progression. 

After Friday we cancelled all our weekend plans (including going to the grocery store!) and got mentally prepared to have this baby.  Now that I am sitting here on Tuesday, seemingly no closer to having a baby (though I know I am really 4 days closer), I am getting frustrated, grumpy, and really antsy.  I have fabric for a second quilt that I am working on and maybe I’ll go to the movies, but I really have little to occupy my time, and that is a hard state for me.

My mom, as usual, is driving me nuts too.  She bought me a webcam “for my birthday” – she seems to not realize that it is not a gift for me, but something for her… Yesterday at 8:30 am my time we had a date to test it out.  She got the time wrong and totally wasted my time while I sat here waiting for her.  When we finally got together on the computer later in the day, she still couldn’t figure out how hers worked.  Then she told me she was thinking about taking the train out here when the baby is born which makes NO sense at all if she is so concerned (as she seemed to be) about getting here as quickly as possible.  Then she e-mailed me later to tell me she heard that raspberry tea might help with labor.  I wish she would just keep her advice to herself, especially when she doesn’t have any idea what she is talking about – it isn’t raspberry tea, but raspberry LEAF tea, and I have been drinking it by the gallon (at my midwife’s suggestion) thankyouverymuch.  Ugh.  I have a feeling that the first few days of Mike’s trip when she is going to be here staying with me are going to be some very difficult days between taking care of a newborn without Mike and trying very hard not to kill my mother.

Next midwife appointment isn’t until Friday – they’ll hook me up to the fetal monitor for 20 minutes and do an ultrasound to check for the level of amniotic fluid and then decide what to do.  At some point we’ll have to make a decision about whether we want to be induced before the 29th.  I think the worst case scenario is induction on the 29th that leads to  c-section and Mike leaving on the 2nd for Switzerland.  I could potentially still be in the hospital when he leaves.  Ugh.  That is going to be a very hard 10 days either way.

Come on baby, time to come out!!!

I Have an Outie May 6, 2009

My belly button has finally popped out in the last week or so.  Before it was still an innie in the morning and would pop out sometime during the day – it was almost always out by dinner time.  But now it is consistently out.  It is so bizarre though – it is like a little nose or something.  It protrudes further on the top ridge and then tapers down towards the bottom.  But the turkey timer has popped out, so hopefully that means that he is close to done. 

I wouldn’t be worried about the timing if it wasn’t for the fact that we found out this morning that Mike got accepted to the next level of this leadership program at his job, which is FANTASTIC news for him, but not such good timing since it means he’ll be in Switzerland from June 3 to 11.  The timing could be worse (like May 15 to 25), but if the baby is two weeks late (the latest they’ll let me go), he’ll only be a few days old when Mike leaves, and we will have only been home for the hospital for a day or two in all likelihood.   So now I am really hoping that this baby is on time or a few days early.  Hopefully all my sleep and good nutrition and protein will help him get out of there on time.  Not that these things probably have anything to do with it… Ah well.  A girl can hope.

I am concerned about solo-parenting a baby so little, but also concerned about having a lot of motherly visits – both his mom and my mom.  They both make me a little crazy (my mom way moreso than his mom, actually), and if they think I am in need of a lot of help while he is gone, I think it is might be more than I can take.    I am not sure how I’ll delicately handle the “I am fine, please leave me alone” conversation when (not if) the time comes…

Back to the belly-button thing – I have really been on the tail end of a lot of the physical things in pregnancy.  I didn’t feel him move until pretty late in the game – I think I was 22 or 23 weeks along before I knew I was feeling movement.  I couldn’t identify body parts until at least a few weeks after the books/newsletters were saying that I would be able to, and now finally my belly button has popped. 

I still feel really good.  Getting out of bed can be a challenge, as can be picking up dropped knitting needles off of the floor, but I can still bend over to pick things up for the most part, and am not feeling uncomfortable.  I have been going to the gym some still (though have not been good about doing my kegel exercises or the other exercises they taught us in our Bradley class).  The elliptical machine has been good for me the last weeks/months as has the pool when I can force myself to get in.  When my feet are swollen, it does feel really good to get in the pool, but I find it totally boring, not a workout, and sometimes cold getting in, so I don’t find I have a ton of swimming motivation.

I have pretty much completed my to-do list that I had been working on.  I think the two last things are to finish my quilt (I am going to go pin it now) and my knitting projects (three projects down – a green sweater/hat set, a football helmet style hat, and leg warmies) and one project to go (a tan sweater and maybe a matching hat if I have leftover yarn).  If he is late I am going to find myself with a LOT of time on my hands.  I always say that I am never bored because I don’t sit still well and always have lots of projects going on.  But if I really get to the end of my to-do list (other than the general cleaning stuff I do every week or every-other week) I am not sure how I will fill all my time besides going to the gym and knitting, and that only takes up so many hours in the day.  But at least I will feel like I really got everything done before he arrived, which would be nice. 

So, anyone out there in internet-land, please think happy thoughts for an on-time or slightly early baby so that Mike gets in some bonding time before he has to head to Switzerland for 10 days!

Nesting April 29, 2009

Last week was my first week of no work, and it has been great so far.  I am getting stuff done and still having time to relax and go to the gym (or not…) and see my friends.  It is definitely a luxury that I am grateful for that I am able to do this for a month (plus or minus) until the baby arrives.

This week I am definitely nesting – purging clutter, cleaning and organizing kitchen cabinets, cleaning out the linen closet, etc.  It feels good to have everything in order before the baby comes and creates all kinds of disorder. 

We went to a cloth diapering class last weekend.  I was fairly well decided that I want to try it, but Mike was on the fence at best.  He is all about easy, and was not excited about the extra work of cloth diapering.  But after he saw that besides the extra laundry (which will be mostly my responsibility since I will be home either full time or part time) it really isn’t much harder, he is totally on board with it.  So I need to go out sometime this week or next and get stocked up on our cloth diapering supplies. 

I am still feeling really good.  I am not uncomfortable except for those occasional times when my feet and ankles get swollen – I don’t like that feeling.  But fortunately 15 minutes in the pool seems to cure that pretty easily.  Hopefully these next couple of weeks I’ll stay feeling good.  I don’t have any stretch marks yet either (knock on wood) – maybe I got good genetics there.  I’ve gained at least 35 pounds already, so I’ll be a little over the recommended 25 to 35 pounds.  I am somewhat concerned about being able to lose the weight, but hopefully with breastfeeding and lots of walks on the lakefront I’ll do okay.  My one real complaint right now is that I am not really sleeping much.  I’ve been taking naps most days, but I can’t seem to stay asleep at night.  I don’t know if it is him moving, or if I just can’t sleep – I am not feeling uncomfortable at night, I just can’t stay asleep and then when I wake up I am up for an hour or so. 

We had a big scare on Monday night after our last childbirth class.  It was dark outside and raining and we had to cross the street to get to the car and like idiots we decided to cross halfway, wait, and cross the other half when the coast cleared (not at a light).  But we learned our lesson about not doing stupid things like that.  I started to cross the second half, then hesitated because it didn’t look like Mike was going, then he told me not to stop, so I ran as fast as I could since there were cars coming and I needed to get out of the way.  Apparently my legs don’t move as fast as they used to, because after I was most of the way across I started to fall forward because I couldn’t keep up with the momentum.  I feel on my knees and an elbow – thank God I didn’t fall flat on my belly.  After my fall I didn’t feel the baby move for about half an hour – when he had been moving the whole night up until then.  I was so scared that I had done something horrible to him and just as I was thinking that I didn’t know how I could possibly go on with my life if I had killed the baby with my idiotic fall, I felt him move again.  He’s been moving ever since, so I think everything is fine, but I was so scared for a while.  I have one very scraped and bruised knee, but if that is the worst that happened (I keep visualizing one of the two of us getting hit by one of those cars – oh my God it could have been so much worse!) then we were very lucky.

Last weekend we got the armoire moved into the baby’s room and the clothes unpacked into it.  This weekend Mike is planning on putting all the air conditioners in the windows so that we can tuck the treadmill away in the back storage area and then we can get the rest of the nursery stuff put away.  The glider chair arrived this morning, so now everything is here.  It will be so fun to get everything arranged and pictures on the walls and have that room totally ready for him to come home.   I was feeling a little superstitious when we were putting stuff together last weekend and taking things out of boxes.  If something horrible happens, we can’t return anything anymore… But I have to think positively.  It’s kind of hard to trust still, even 2 weeks from my due date, that everything is going to be fine after what we went through to even get to be pregnant. 

As usual my mom is driving me nuts.   She wants us to call her the moment I go into labor so she can get here as soon as possible.  I keep telling her that I might be in labor for 36 hours – who knows – this stuff is impossible to predict!  And I don’t really want her driving here at 3 in the morning either if it happens in the middle of the night.  But she wants to know as soon as anything happens.  I made no promises when I talked to her yesterday – just told her we would keep her informed.  I am really not excited about having her and my in-laws sitting at the hospital waiting for the baby to be born.  It feels like pressure to me, even if that isn’t what they intend.  In fact, in an ideal world, I wish they would not be there waiting and we could call them after the baby is born and tell them to come in 5 or 6 hours – after I have been able to nurse the baby and then we all sleep for a little while before having visitors.  But this is a battle I am losing on all fronts – with my mom, Mike’s mom, and Mike too.  My mom, as usual, just seems to not care one bit what I want – just what she wants.  It is so aggrivating.  I don’t know how to change this dynamic which really needs to be changed for my own sanity over the next years with this child.  Ugh.

Off to the linen closet now to continue my nesting and get rid of all the clutter and unnecessary stuff back there.

T-minus 5 weeks April 10, 2009

Ever since I hit the second trimester, and then the holidays, the time has been flying by.  I am now counting down – five weeks from today is my due date.  As a major pre-planner, I am feeling woefully unprepared.  I don’t own diapers, a car seat, or lots of other things that will be necessary and/or helpful when the baby arrives.  But, a mini-shower tomorrow with Mike’s family in from Michigan and a real shower next weekend should remedy some of that, and then I can go buy whatever else we are going to need. 

We own all the nursery furniture that we need, but the crib hasn’t been put together, the armoire is in the dining room (as it is going to require taking the nursery door off the hinges to get it into the bedroom), the chair hasn’t arrived, and my mom is bringing the changing table next weekend.  So, right now that room is still just a total disaster area with the hand-me-down baby stuff scattered all around. 

Next week is my last week of work too.  I am cooking just one day next week and also finishing up the grantwriting project that I have been working on (due Thursday), so by Friday of next week, which also marks 36 weeks, I’ll be totally done working and I’ll be able to focus on getting stuff around here done.  I already have a to-do list that takes up an entire sheet of paper.  (Those who know me IRL would not be surprised by this!)  Hopefully the baby won’t come early and I’ll have time to get to all of it.  The nursery furniture situation probably won’t be remedied until the weekend of the 25/26, which is a little close for comfort for me, but with my parents coming in for the shower next weekend, that’s just the way it is going to have to be. 

Despite these rather minor stresses, we are just getting more and more excited.  I met four new babies this week, which helped with the excitement – 3-week-old twin boys, an 8 month-old that I hadn’t met yet, and a 2-week-old baby girl.  So fun.

A few people know the baby’s (probable) name, but we aren’t telling many people.  I did tell the nurses at the RE’s office and one friend in Maine. Everyone else will have to wait until May to find out.

We’re still debating cloth diapers – Mike is still pretty hesitant and I am a little hesitant – and are going to a cloth diapering class in a couple weeks to see what we can learn about it and whether we really want to take the plunge.  In the meantime I have registered for a few different types of diapers, so we’ll see if some nice family and friends will buy them for us so we can try them out.  We are finding out that more and more of our friends are using them and really love them.  In fact, all four of the new babies I met this week are diapered this way. 

Baby Ito has been moving around a lot the last couple of weeks, except for a couple hours this morning when I didn’t feel him at all – I drank some chocolate milk and laid down to see if I could feel him moving, and sure enough he did after a few minutes and has been moving ever since.  But I was a little nervous when I hadn’t felt him…I am still afraid that this miracle is going to be taken away from me.

But overall, all is well and I am both really excited for the birth to get here, and still nervous about the whole birth process.  I just can’t wait to see him!

Days like this will soon come to an end March 14, 2009

With Mike away the last few days on his annual trip to spring training baseball games, this year in Florida, I have had a lot of really relaxing time to myself.

Yesterday I worked during the day, and then went and got an hour and a half massage (yes, spoiled, spoiled, spoiled!) and went out to dinner with some girlfriends.  Today I had some things to do like cleaning bathrooms and the kitchen and going to order the glider chair.  Other than that I spent a lot of time doing crafts and relaxing.  I sewed a new curtain for the nursery, did e-mail, knitted, curled up in my “nest” to finish the book I’ve been reading (The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett – I totally recommend it) and ordered Thai food for dinner. 

Nowhere to be, no one to take care of – it was a lovely relaxing day.  I haven’t been lonely at all since he has been gone.  Each day other than today I have spent some time with friends, but today was fine too.  Mike and I were talking the other day about how much I have changed in that regard in the last 9 years.  Used to be when he was away it drove me crazy – I didn’t know how to fill the time with him gone.   And I HAD to have plans each evening with friends, otherwise I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I suggested maybe I am just more comfortable being on my own, have more hobbies to keep me busy, etc.  But then we realized that maybe it isn’t something so deep.  Maybe it is that we have cable TV now and I have that to keep me company.  Kind of a horrifying thought…Is that really why I am okay on my own?  I hope not.

I skipped the gym today even though it was on my to-do list, in favor of curling up and reading.  Sometimes it is hard for me to remember that relaxing and taking it easy IS productive during this brief period of my life.  Growing another person is hard work for my body – and I have been to the gym 4 days this week.  So, I cut myself a little slack.  I am headed to yoga in the morning too, so I’ll feel good about that. 

My due date is two months from tomorrow.  I know that after that (or at least soon after that) these lovely relaxing days will be no more for a while.  I am not complaining – that is what I signed up for, and I am excited for it.  But it is strange for me to think that soon I will hardly ever be alone.  I spend SO much of my time alone these days, between my solitary job, my homebody-ness of late, and Mike’s work and travel schedule.  Soon I will have another little person that I will be spending 24 hours a day with at least for the immediate future.  I am excited about it, but also feeling a little wistful already for all this alone-time.  I just have to take advantage of it over the next couple weeks.

Also, in reality, this could potentially be the only time I get to experience being pregnant.  I hope to God that it isn’t.  I really, really hope that we are abe to have another child.  But, in case it is, I really want to enjoy the next 9 weeks of feeling the baby move inside me, knowing that I am nurturing and growing this new life.  What an amazing experience.  I sometimes feel like May 15 (or thereabouts) can’t get here soon enough so I can meet this little man.  But at the same time I need to remember to enjoy these days too, before my life is changed and before this being leaves my body.

Nesting March 12, 2009

I definitely have been nesting the last few weeks – literally and figuratively.  I decided a month or two ago that our house is consistently too dirty, so I decided to make a cleaning schedule. Now a reminder comes up in my Outlook to-do list each week to clean the bathroom and kitchen surfaces, every-other-week to vaccuum the house and mop the kitchen floor, and other tasks on different schedules.  It helps and gives me a good reminder to do things like cleaning the humidifier that I would normally put off.   Crossing the task off the to-do list is often incentive enough to actually do it.

And, I’ve been literally nesting too – my favorite thing lately has been to build a “nest” in my bed with pillows and  quilt and curl up there and read and nap.  It is so comfy cozy.  Good thing there isn’t a TV in our bedroom – I might never leave my nest.  Mike is gone for a few days, and last night I didn’t even get under the covers – I just slept under the quilt in my nest. 

My belly seems to be growing larger by the day, but my belly button hasn’t popped out yet.  The top ridge of it is kind of sticking out a bit, so that you can see it through my clothes depending on what I am wearing, but the whole thing isn’t protruding yet.  Now that my belly is bigger my boobs (which are HUGE) don’t seem quite so ridiculously enormous.  It is a little more proportional now.  Though I have to admit that I do miss my marathoning-body, I do love my pregnant body too.  My thighs rub together (which they didn’t two years ago), my arms have more flab on them, and it isn’t just my belly that’s getting bigger.  But who cares!?  My body is finally doing this amazing thing that I thought it was going to reject altogether.  I’ll lose the weight eventually (which will definitely mean cutting down on the sugar intake that I have been following throughout my pregnancy), and for now I am not too worried about it.

Every few days the baby has a crazy-active day and then I spend the next few days worried because he isn’t so active.  Every time I go to the gym I think he gets lulled by the motion and I don’t feel him for a while – that is always a little worrisome.  Today he is having a less-active day and I have been focusing, trying to feel movement several times today in order to make sure he’s still alive in there.  You read things in magazines and hear stories about late miscarriages and stillbirths and infant death and though I know it is rare, it is hard not to worry about it, especially when it isn’t easy to just get pregnant again.  Just have to stay positive…

I am kind of thinking about cloth diapers at the moment, but what a pain in the butt with our laundry two floors down (the outside stairs) in the basement… but I read that disposable diapers don’t decompose for 500 years if at all… with around 6000 diapers over the course of this baby’s babyhood, that’s a lot of damage.  The gdiapers seem cool, but way expensive, and so I am back to maybe cloth.  Mike will resist this… but maybe he can be convinced.  I thought it was going to be way harder to convince him to not circumsize this little boy, but I won that battle pretty easily once I presented him with the facts.  I still need to do some research.  I’m not that into it at this point, but feel environmental (and financial) guilt when I can save those diapers going into the landfill, and potentially a couple thousand bucks…

31 weeks tomorrow.  This weekend I need to go order our glider chair (we opted for the world’s most expensive one it seems) which should arrive in about 6 weeks.  Hopefully before the baby does.  It is very comfy and modern, though, and can move into our living room once we’re done with it in a nursery capacity.  We’ll just have to be really careful to keep it as clean as we can.  I am a little worried about baby spit up on the brown upholstery.  I guess that’s why god invented burp cloths. 

The back storage area is slowly but surely getting cleared out.  There is still some more work to do, but we can’t take the bed down and put the nursery furniture up until after my shower on April 18 anyway since both of my parents are coming to town with their significant others.  One set will stay with me and one set will stay with Mike’s parents.  But we definitely need to offer a decent place to sleep since once the baby comes their options will be the pull out sofa and an air mattress.  At least until we move…

I am just working a few more weeks, though they are pretty slow weeks with two clients out of town for two weeks each.  I also accepted the contract grant writing gig that I did last year.  I raised my price by a whole $1000 and they accepted. It actually should be a little easier this year, but with four being accepted last year, I now have a demonstrated record of success, so I think they’re willing to pay a little more.   Mike warned me not to ask for too much because of the economy, but I started high and they accepted without any negotiation – so I feel pretty good about that.  The deadline is April 21, which is coming up pretty quickly as far as grant deadlines go, and should give a pretty good cushion between the deadline and my due date.  And I should still be totally done working by my shower, which will give me four weeks to relax and get ready for the baby.  I am pretty spoiled that I am able to do that.  I am pretty spoiled in general (says the girl who will get a 90 minute prenatal massage tomorrow).  At least I appreciate these things, though, and don’t expect them or take them for granted…And I do what I can to contribute – like taking the grant writing job.  Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I am not bringing in more income to help out, but I am really so much happier now professionally than I ever was working in an office, and that counts for something (fortunately for me I have a husband who understands that fact too.).

30 weeks March 6, 2009

Today I am 30 weeks pregnant.  3/4 of the way there, 10 weeks to go – how far I have come from this year last time when I was not even started with IVF #2.  I love my growing belly (even though other parts of me are growing too which isn’t as fun) and over the last week or two have started to be able to actually watch my belly move and jump as the little guy in there moves around.  Amazing.  The baby seems to have had a bit of a growth spurt over the past two weeks too, because it really seems to me like there has been a lot of belly-growth over that time.  I am still gaining about a pound a week, but it seems to be manifesting itself much more in an outward growth of the belly than it was before.

And just this week, I think the baby has a name – at least a first name.  We aren’t sharing it, but I think we have decided what it is going to be.  We have a couple ideas for middle names, but haven’t made any decisions yet.  Our friends in NYC just had their baby this week, and we had been waiting to see what they named him before making a decision about the name for our litle guy.  They chose names that weren’t on our list, so we were happy about that. 

I really thought that once I was pregnant I would have no problem with pregnancy announcements, and it is really bothering me that that hasn’t proven to be the case.  Yesterday one of my very best friends announced that she is pregnant with baby #2 and due in mid-September.  While this is WAY less painful than it would have been a year ago, or even less than that, I still find myself feeling sorry for us that we are not in control of the size of our family like 90% of the population is.  We might have another baby, we might not.  I have always (or as an adult at least) wanted three kids, Mike has always wanted two – what happens if we are a family of 3 from here on out?  This is where I remind myself how lucky I am that we will even be a family of 3 and not just the two of us from here to eternity.  But, there will still be some major disappointment to come if it comes to pass that we aren’t going to be able to get pregnant again.  (I think it is only going to be in the cards financially to pursue a few more rounds of IVF OR adoption – not do IVF first and then move to the very expensive option of adoption if that doesn’t work.)  Only time will tell, and there’s no point worrying about it now, but it does still make me very sad.  I don’t want to feel this way when my friends make pregnancy announcements – I am sure there are way more of those on the way over the next 10 years.  I just hope that I am able to make my own too.

I have never been so great at looking at the positive – I tend to focus on what I don’t have and what is wrong with my life.  Things are about as good for me right now as they have ever been, and still I am thinking that there is something wrong.  Right now there isn’t, but certainly the possibility is out there that there might be down the line in a year or two.  I wish I was able to let that go until the time comes to worry about it, and appreciate all the wonderful things that are going on in my life.  Right now I have a flexible job that I like, a healthy marriage and an apparently healthy baby on the way (and I am healthy too, which hasn’t always been the case).  And I am happy overall, and most of the time I do appreciate these things.  But, somehow it is still hard for me to hear even my best friends’ announcements.  (Though, like I said, WAY less hard than before – there were no tears, not even the threat of tears, no anger, no days-long depression as there have been in the last year or two.)

Ten weeks still seems like a ways away before meeting the baby, and fortunately it gives us time to clear out the nursery/guest bedroom and get the new furniture in there and get everything set up.  Almost nothing has been done so far.  Thirty weeks ago I was in the middle of a cycle that I was convinced wouldn’t work, it was summer, and I was really not a happy camper.  How much can change in that amount of time.  There is lots to be done in the next ten weeks, but I am hopeful that it will go by smoothly and quickly and before I know it my son will be here.

Scare February 24, 2009

I had my first real pregnancy scare this week. Sunday night Mike and I went out to dinner with some friends for an annual restaurant week excursion.  After we got home I started having cramps.  I thought maybe I was going to have some intestinal issues, and since I don’t like to talk about such things (but have actually become much more comfortable talking about them since being pregnant) I didn’t say anything.  I think I fell asleep for about an hour, but was up at 3:30 when Mike woke up and I told him I had cramps.  By that time I had realized there was nothing intestinal going on, and it felt like menstrual cramps.  I was planning on calling the midwife first thing in the morning, but he talked me into calling at 3:30 in the morning.  Partly I couldn’t sleep because of the pain, but partly I was worried that something bad was going on in there.

The midwife said that based on what I was describing, she wasn’t too worried (cramps were constant and I wasn’t having contractions or any other signs of going into labor) and said maybe the baby was just having a growth spurt and putting added pressure on my uterus.  I was able to get another hour or two of sleep after that.  Monday I was a little lethargic and not feeling a whole lot better, so I called to see at what point I should start being concerned. (As if I hadn’t started already…) They said I should come in today if I wasn’t feeling better.

This morning I had to go to court to testify at a preliminary hearing against the homeless man who was apparently living in our basement and stole our bikes (and our laundry detergent, interestingly) and was feeling a little better, but not 100%.  So I went in to the midwife this afternoon and met a new midwife with crazy Mormon hair (you know what I mean?  Long straight hair with the crazy curls up-and-away from her face in the front?) who called me “Steph” as soon as she met me (a pet-peeve).  She checked the baby’s heartbeat, which was fine, checked my cervix, which was “soft-ish” but fully closed, and said that everything looked fine.  She didn’t have an explanation, but at least I know my cervix isn’t dilating and nothing seems to be wrong with the baby. 

So, I ditched out on book club tonight to stay home and rest.  Hopefully I’ll be feeling better enough by the weekend to continue with our party on Saturday.  I invited 26 people over (whoops!) for turkey – I have to pick up the turkeys (!) tomorrow at Whole Foods – so hopefully I won’t have to cancel on everyone.  I’ll just take it easy between now and then.