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.

Trimester the third February 20, 2009

As of today I am officially into the third trimester.  Hallelujah!  I could not have even imagined this when I found out I was pregnant back in September.  It was too much to hope for to even get as far as the second trimester.  Time has definitely been going by faster since then.   Everything looks good – the baby’s heartbeat yesterday was 145, my belly was measuring just right, my weight gain is apparently just right (despite the many donuts and other sweet, fatty goodies that I have been consuming in the last several months – what?  baby needs them.), and all is well.  It is amazing to me to think that he looks like himself in there and is pretty much fully developed – just needs some fattening up (see: donuts) and a little more cooking time before being ready to greet the world in May.

I’ve been feeling him move more and more.  I do get a little nervous when I haven’t felt him in a while.  I know it’s okay, but I feel a little uneasy untilI feel him move again.  One night I was pushing my stomach around trying to get him to move because I was afraid maybe I overdid it a little at the gym (I kept my heartrate at an appropriate level, but I was slightly overheated). He kicked and I felt better.

World War 3 with my brother seems to be over.  It did take a while to resolve itself.  After he called me a bitch, told me he was happy that I was upset and told me where to shove my “suggestions” he wrote again, a little more conciliatory.  I got off my chest everything I needed to, he apologized, I apologized, and now we’re probably back where we were a few years ago – trying to at least tolerate each other, but not really making any effort to be friends.  Maybe I will send him the ultrasound pictures, though.  That might be a good gesture on my part.   Maybe I should also re-friend him on Facebook… and just see about blocking whatever content from him I can.  (I heard that is possible but haven’t investigated.)

Mike called this morning to tell me that he actually got a raise this year and a significant bonus.  We thought wih this economy and his overall company not doing that great he may not get a bonus at all.  So it is really exciting!  This will likely enable us to buy a house sometime this year.  I think our goal is to at the very least enjoy one more summer in the city and then maybe move as early as the fall.  We’ll have to start thinking about where we might want to move – a suburb that is far enough west to make his commute better without being too far from our friends who are still in the city, and without going all the way out to somewhere like Naperville, which to me is suburban hell.  I need a place that has some character and isn’t all chain stores and strip malls.  Hopefully we’ll find something in our (still pretty modest) price range in a place that is liveable. 

After a couple of really rough years, this seems to be shaping up to be another good one, maybe as good as 2005 and 2006.  I don’t want to jinx myself by saying that, but the year is full of promise.  A new baby, maybe a new home that we will OWN and the beginning of our own little family unit. 

I am counting down now – just 12 weeks until baby’s EDD.  My brother and I were both very late – I was three weeks late and he was at least 2 before my mom was induced (good thing because he was 9 lb 12 oz even then).  So, I am not counting on it being just 12 weeks from now, but at least that gives me a good estimate.  I’ll probably be working another 6-8 weeks, and then will have some time to relax and knit and walk on the lakefront (by April I should be able to do that fairly consistently).  I can’t wait.

A Fully Formed Baby February 11, 2009

I am still upset (day 3 of my anger) about the whole Ace thing – but at least I got to vent to Mike this morning (he has been away in NY since this came to light).  My mom, in an e-mail yesterday, told me she thought it was a nice connection between my “Ace” and his uncle.  Ugh.  I am not looking for there to be a lot of connections betwen those two.  If I was a bigger person, I could let this go, but it doesn’t look like that is happening.

 

However, that isn’t what I wanted to write about this time, despite the fact that it is still on my mind.  I’ve been wanting to write about how excited I am to be just weeks away from meeting our baby – well, 13 weeks, but that is still so close compared to where we were a year ago or 9 months ago when we thought we might never meet our baby.  I get so excited when I try to picture him – likely with dark hair and Asian features – he probably will look nothing like me.  It is certainly possible that he may have lighter hair, but in all likelihood it won’t be red like mine – I think that is almost an impossibility.  Anyway, I try to picture him and I picture myself holding him right after he is born and I get so happy and excited. 

Watching all this coverage of the octuplets in California and their batshit crazy mother (another post for another day!) I realize that our baby is almost as big as those babies that are in the NICU.  He is just as fully formed – just needs to put on some weight.  It is startling to realize that he looks like himself already, and has fingernails and hair and eyelashes, even if we can’t see him. 

In a week and two days I’ll be into the third trimester.  I have been very comfortable in the second, and loving my growing belly, especially now that I have been able to go to yoga and the gym and don’t just feel like I am gaining fat that I’ll never lose, but actually feel like it is all about the baby.  I am not avoiding gaining fat – I know I need that for breastfeeding, but it just feels much better to be able to get out there and work up a bit of a sweat (while still keeping my heartrate around 140, just as I have been instructed).

Thirteen weeks and counting.  I can’t wait.

Asshole February 10, 2009

Ever since Christmas we have been referring to the baby as “Ace”.  It came from a discussion with some of my cousins, one of whom suggested, jokingly, the name Horace, or Ace for short.  But, I actually really like the name Ace.  I don’t think we’ll really use it, but that has been his nickname for the last 6 weeks or so.  So, it was a big surprise to me when yesterday that same cousin wrote on my Facebook wall “Philip got a dog and named him Ace?  I might have to defriend him!”.  Well, I have already defriended my brother after avoiding him and then giving in.  He kept joining all these gun groups (including “I own a Lugerl, so don’t fuck with me” – I swear that is the real name of the group) and sending ridiculous, juvenile (he’s fucking 30 years old!), stupid posts.  I just couldn’t take it – I have never been adept at ignoring him.  So, I still don’t know if this is true.  I sent a message to my mom to ask and to Philip himself to find out, but neither has responded.  I wonder if it is the hormones that have me all worked up about this, but I am PISSED.  Why would he use the name we have been using for our SON and call his DOG that!?  Maybe because he wasn’t creative enough to come up with his own name.  I admit, it is kind of a good dog name, but don’t we already kind of have a claim on this? 

That was what was bothering me last night, keeping me up past midnight stewing about it.  Then this morning I have been stewing about it some more, and I have come to the conclusion (not for the first time) that I really hate my brother.  Yikes.  It sounds harsh.  But it is true.  If I were to say that to Mike or my parents or anyone, I think they would make me feel like I am the bad person for hating him.  But, how is it that I am the bad person when HE is the one that aimed a loaded gun at me and chased me to my room when I was 14 and he was 12?  (The reason I went to boarding school in the first place – to get away from him.)  I don’t recall him being punished, he has never apologized, and I don’t think he is sorry. He was the one that stole the keys to my car when  was 18 and made a copy so that he could drive my car whenever he wanted and I wasn’t around (and laughed and laughed about it last Christmas).  I am not the one who was BRAGGING this Christmas to the cute girl behind the bar about when he was in jail – recently!  Not sure if my mom is aware of that one – I certainly wasn’t.  I wasn’t the one who hid a bong in my sister’s room when I was in high school, or hid a disgusting, racist cartoon that I drew. 

He is the one who is a disgusting human being and has no concern for any one else – he has terrible social skills, table manners, and every other kind of manners.  And I am the one who is a bad person for hating him?  What an asshole.

Discouraged January 13, 2009

Professionally I am feeling pretty discouraged this week.  I have been working on paying myself a salary, which admittedly wasn’t huge anyway since I didn’t get started cooking for real until about May and haven’t been working every single day anyway… but then this week I have been working on paying taxes on that amount, and god dammit, 75% of what I paid myself I turned around and paid to the government (and yes, this is correct – I’ve been working with an accountant).

Now, I am a liberal and beleive I need to pay taxes, but 75%?!?!  So basically that comes down to the fact that on a given day, I am taking home about $50 (sometimes less with my most annoying client!).  This is too much work to be doing for $50.  It’s such bullshit that most personal chefs out there are working under the table, so they are taking home 100% of what they earn, while those of us who play by the rules are getting totally screwed.  How can we compete with their prices and still earn an amount of money that makes all the labor worth it?

Now that this is all becoming clear, I don’t know what I am going to do after the baby.  First of all, it would be absurd to pay for child care.  I would be paying way more than I am earning in a day.  Even to have Mike’s mom come in once a week (or drop the baby off there) so that I can earn $50 seems totally crazy.  I have never thought that I would be a full-time at home parent – though I think I would love it, I think I would/will really struggle with not contributing financially to the household.  We could make it work, but I think I would feel guilty not earning anything.  I don’t know… And I did tell a couple of my clients specifically that I was planning on coming back.  I would hate to disappoint them.   Hell, now that this is becoming clear I have a really bad attitude about my most annoying client – who pays me way less per day than other clients. 

Very discouraging.  Maybe this was too good to be true… and I’ll have to get a real job at some point down the line.  Makes me want to cry.

 

Edited to add:  Thank God I was wrong about all of this.  I checked with the accountant, and I was figuring one of the taxes double.  So, it wasn’t 75%.  It was still a lot, but much more manageable.

Movement (?) and Cribs January 5, 2009

The past few days I have been feeling what I think is the baby movement.  It started at 21w1d and has been kind of off-and-on.  Some felt like gurgling, some felt like muscle spasms, and some felt like gas.  I am not sure if it is the baby moving around in there, but I am choosing to believe it is.

I went nursery shopping with my mother-in-law this weekend too.  I know it is still a little early, but I am nothing if not a planner.  We went to a bunch of stores in the Chicago suburbs, and though we didn’t find anything to buy that day I did make a decision later after doing a little on-line shopping too.  I found a modern-looking crib that I just ordered (along with a mattress) and I’ll head back to Babies R Us before too long to make an armoire purchase.  My mom will stain the changing table to match and then we’ll be in business.  Maybe next week (when I only have two days of cooking planned) I’ll head out to Babies R Us and register too.  I am not sure how many showers I’ll have – maybe just one with my girlfriends here after a surprise shower over the holidays at my aunt’s house.  I thought my mother-in-law’s friends might also throw one, but maybe not – I haven’t heard a peep yet. 

I’ve somehow come down with another nasty cold and didn’t sleep much last night.  And there’s lots to do around the house to get cleaned up and caught up after the holidays.  Good thing I had today free to take care of all of it.

It’s a boy! December 22, 2008

I’ve been meaning to drop by and post a little something, but seem to always get caught up in something – holiday baking, crying over accounting, putting away knives, or watching trashy TV (hey – got to do it while I still can!). 

Last week we had our 20 (ish) week ultrasound and found out that come May 15 give-or-take, we’ll have a little boy.  I guessed it before the ultrasound lady said it just from watching what was going on on the screen.  I had been a little testy because they kept us waiting for an hour, which meant that we were likely to miss our appointment with the midwife which was scheduled for the same afternoon, but that all went away as soon as we saw our little boy sucking on his thumb/fist and moving around in my belly.  It was so exciting, and Mike was thrilled to have been able to be there to see it.  It is amazing how much changes in 9 weeks.  I think the last ultrasound I had was at 10 or 11 weeks, and though the baby was somewhat recognizable as a tiny human, this time you could see the bones in the spine, his little nose, hands and feet.

I went to a prenatal yoga class a couple weeks ago  and then a “rookie moms” group that one of my friends has put together last weekend.  I feel so lucky to be able to do these things after how close we were to giving up on IVF and starting the adoption process.  This is an experience that I really wanted to be able to have in my lifetime, and I am so grateful (despite the sciatica and hemerroids and upcoming pain of hopefully-natural childbirth) that the fates have allowed me to experience it.  It is fun and exciting to watch my growing belly and to think about the little boy that will be joining us next year.  Now if only we could agree on ANYTHING in terms of names…