...taking the advice of Willowtree and Dumdad. I do love the Kinks, and Ray Davies's writing is so under-appreciated.
I had another doctor's appointment today, and since I'm writing, I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened.
Not a damned thing.
I'm now at 2.5 centimetres. Whoopee. My doctor's advice? Don't sweat it, and try walking.
Easy for him to say. It's not like he's trying to walk with a bowling ball hanging down to his knees. Not as far as I know, anyway.
I have been in a bit of a cleaning fit, lately. I've been vacuuming lamp shades and drapes, reorganizing books and DVDs. I halfway thought about baking a pie, but I can't decide what kind I want. Right now, it's a toss up between canned cherries and fresh blackberries, which are just coming into the stores. I don't think I can afford the blackberries, though. I'm hoping all this nesting activity means that labour will come soon. Of course, it could just mean I'm bored sitting around the house.
So in the meantime, we continue to wait, and ponder pie...
...with thanks to Tom Petty. I'm going to have to start researching songs that have to do with waiting, I think.
I'm still exactly where I was last week, at two centimetres. While I'm glad we haven't had pre-term labour yet, I'm getting kinda antsy.
I am having contractions. The little box they have at the doctor's that goes "ping" showed me that. There just not apparently strong enough to be doing anything right now. After being hooked up with various pads and bands, etc, I lay in a chair listening to my child's heartbeat. Unfortunately for everyone, Baby J doesn't like being touched all that much, and efforts to get her to stay in one place to continue monitoring her heart rate were pretty futile. Every time they got her pinned down for a few minutes, she'd turn over to the other side, which of course also made it difficult to monitor my contractions. With every move, she was snapping the velcro off the monitoring pads.
Eventually she calmed down, and the doctor looked at the readout and said incredulously, "Are you feeling those?"
"Well, some of them. But they don't really hurt at all".
So, I'm having regular contractions (apparently every fifteen minutes or so), they're just doing much to move me along. I've got another doctor's appointment Tuesday, so we'll see if we make it.
Would you believe I still haven't gone into actual labour yet?
I am, however, now officially on maternity leave with strict instructions from my coworkers not to do anything. Which means I now want to do laundry and clean the house.
I do have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and with any luck I'll still be at two centimetres and I can wait another week to have the baby. I'd rather not have her just now, since she'd be a bit early. I decided to go on maternity leave after feeling like crap on Wednesday, and taking Thursday off. Friday was my last day.
I am also overwhelmed at the generosity of my coworkers, who managed to organize a baby shower in just one day. We had registered at Target a few weeks ago, and one of the girls I work with said it seemed like most of the building was there on Thursday night. And now that the furniture for the nursery has finally arrived, we may actually have everything in place just in time!
Just a quick post to let you know I'm still alive and still gestating.
Although, my OBGYN says it could be anytime between now and my due date, May 3. Actually, I probably won't even make it to my due date. I was told to start seeing the doctor weekly, beginning next week, and that it might be a good idea to bring a packed bag with me, just in case. If I show any signs of imminent labour, they're just going to admit me to the hospital and be done with it.
I've developed a serious case of pregnant woman waddle, and I get to enjoy the smirks of my coworkers as I attempt to navigate the hallways of our building, trying to remember that I can't suck in my gut as I squeeze by.
I have to keep reminding myself not to climb things, reach up for things, reach down for things, or turn around suddenly, the last almost causing me to fall over due to my new center of gravity.
Heartburn has reared its ugly head, and I keep a jar of Tums with me at all times. My feet and hands have begun to swell just slightly.
It's as though my body has suddenly decided to throw all of pregnancy's symptoms at me in these last few weeks, a final assault leading up to D-Day, as it were.
But, I feel surprisingly fine. Yeah, I'm tired, and I'm working too many hours, but it's not as bad as I imagined it would be.
I've popped in to see a few of you, commenting when I can, and I miss you all. My maternity leave starts April 18th, and I'll make sure to come visit you all then.
Assuming, of course, I haven't already given birth.
If anyone has wondered where I've been, I've been trying to sleep. Yes, I've been trying to sleep for a week, and it's not working out as well as I'd hoped.
I've been managing maybe three hours of uninterrupted sleep before our darling Baby J wakes me with a dance routine. When I finally get shifted enough to calm her down, Ray gets up at 3 a.m. The the cats decide it's time to play. Then TFYO needs to get up by 6:30. And of course, I'm working afternoons most days.
I'm not sleeping much, but I've been trying. I try to go to sleep after I take TFYO to school, but between the construction workers building all around us, and Baby J's never-ending Jazzercise class, it makes it tough to settle down, and by the time I do, it's time to get ready for work.
I try to go to bed earlier, but it takes me forever to shut my brain off. I end up laying in bed, thinking about buying a crib, when we're going to paint, what I've got to do at work the next day, and all the while, my belly bump is doing the samba from one side to the other.
Have I mentioned I'm not sleeping?
In a way I'm glad the baby is active, because it's reassuring to know she's alright. On the other hand, she only slows down when I'm moving. The minute I sit, lay down or eat, she pretends to be a Rockette. And it goes on all night long.
Add in the fact that I've got a recurring case of "pregnancy dreams", and it makes a night of quiet repose even more difficult. There's nothing like finally falling into slumber, only to be interrupted by dancing lemons chasing me down endless corridors, and up and down immense stair cases. That's one of the tame dreams.
So, I'm off to try to grab a couple of hours sleep again before I have to head to work.
Wish me luck and some chamomile tea.
I promise to come visit you all when I stop having hallucinatons induced by lack of REM sleep. And if anyone needs any dancing lemons, you can come collect them at my house.
That lyric from the Canadian band Finger Eleven's single from last year "Paralyzer".
Which will make a lot more sense when I tell you that I almost chopped off my left index finger last night.
I really thought I'd have more pregnancy things to write about, but everything has been going along so well. My back aches have mostly subsided, my feet only hurt at the end of the day, I don't have any edema. It's been great. However, I'm still a tad absentminded, and therefore should not really be handling sharp implements.
My in-laws gave us a lovely eight inch santoku-style chef's knife for Christmas, after I was caught lusting after the one they bought themselves last year. And it is a gorgeous knife. It goes through carrots like they were cheese. Smooth action, nicely balanced handle. But it still is not idiot or pregnant woman proof.
What pisses me off is that the last thing I thought before catching my finger was "I bet this would hurt like hell if I don't pay closer attention to these onions I'm chopping."
Then, WHAM!
Fortunately for me, I only cut off half of the finger nail. But as anyone who has watched a spy film knows, pulling off finger nails is a form of torture. It bled copiously, and I confess to almost passing out. Mostly because I had to wash and dress the damn thing myself.
Here's a tip (no pun intended): If you're going to do yourself unintentional injury, make sure every one around you isn't busy doing something else. Also make sure you've got more than just Dora band-aids in the house.
My husband was very concerned, of course, but he was also concerned about saving the beans and rice I was in the process of making. I quietly suggested that he might want to toss the pile of chopped onion I was working on, and start afresh. I also told him he might want to wash the knife, the counter, the floor, and anything else I may have come into contact with.
My child was mostly concerned that she didn't have a band-aid, and since Mommy had one she thought she should have one, too. Too bad for her, I was hogging all the bandages to keep from bleeding on her.
By the light of day, it doesn't look as bad as I thought. It still hurts like hell, but when I re-wrapped it this morning (with Strawberry Shortcake water-proof bandages), I realized it was just the nail, and not the finger itself that had been cut. The nail bed looks pretty crappy, but overall the injury isn't too bad, and it's seems to have stopped bleeding. It's just in sensitive place, and smarts every time I bump it.
So, if my typing seems, well...odd, forgive me. My middle finger is doing double duty today.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
I' m into my second trimester of pregnancy, and it's finally happened.
For those not familiar with this delightful side effect of being pregnant, it involves forgetting almost everything you really need to remember and being able to drop things on the floor that you thought you had a firm grip on. And yes, that includes reality.
I locked myself out of the house last Wednesday as I was trying to get to TFYO's Halloween party. I had my hands full of camera, water bottle, purse, etc. The only thing I didn't have was my keys. That did not, however, stop me from locking the handle lock as I walked out the door. I realized my mistake just as it swung shut behind me.
I did have my cell phone so I could call my husband. The only trouble is, we live about forty-five minutes from where we work, so I knew I'd be waiting a while. It's a good thing it was warm
Our neighbour graciously made fun of me for not leaving an extra house key under the mat like he does. I graciously informed him that half the neighbourhood now knew how to break into his house while he was gone.
I also discovered during my forty-five minute wait that I would be a lousy burglar, myself. I could not get a window open no matter how hard I tried. And the credit card in the door thingy? Does. Not. Work. At. All. I couldn't even force the garage lock open.
Of course, pregnancy brain has affected me in other ways. I've cracked open the mic at work a few times, only to forget what the hell I'm going to say.
"Hey, that was...um. Who was that? Oh, yeah. The latest from Ozzy Osbourne." Fortunately for me, Ozzy's memory is about on par with mine right now, so it made for a good joke, anyway.
I also managed to juggle a cheesecake down the front of the kitchen cabinet. It was saved by the heroic efforts of my husband, who, in a move worthy of the Six Million Dollar Man, made a flying leap to catch the thing before it hit the floor. I could almost hear the "dadadadadadada" sound, as he shouted "N-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!" in slow motion.
I drop my keys. I drop papers. I drop CD's at work. I can't hand anything to anyone to save my soul. I drop food constantly, but thankfully my ever-expanding chest seems to catch most of it.
My only excuse, and thankfully everyone buys it, is that I have pregnancy brain.
Right. I'm sorry, what was this post about again?
Update: I posted this, and then realized I forgot to find a title for it. Crap. It's invading my blogging time, as well.
Update, Number Two:
I've just been given another award by the fabulous Jo Beaufoix, who is so fabulous she designed this award herself. She is also fabulous, because she gave all the recipients three different versions to choose from. I chose this one:
I'm not sure how Jo managed to get her head stuck back on, but I'm grateful to have made anyone laugh that hard. I'm also grateful she didn't sue me for damages or clean-up.
It was a horrible weekend. I've been sick. Really sick. Whoever coined the term morning sickness should be thrown up against a wall and shot. Then revived and shot again.
Sorry for not posting yesterday, and this post will be short, too.
I'm too busy sipping Gatorade, trying to stop this spinning in my head.
I lost two pounds over the weekend, which would normally have me jumping for joy. But of course, I'm supposed to be gaining weight, not losing it.
Yes, the doctor is giving me a prescription for Phenergan. I should have taken it when it was offered to me two weeks ago, but I thought I was tough. That's me. Tough as a bag of cotton balls.
Ugh.
So, if you don't hear from me or see me around for a couple of days, it's because I am...er, indisposed. I promise to catch up as soon as I can keep my intestines inside of me.
So, today is a little party all about your worst OBGYN stories, being hosted by:
Brillig, over at Twas Brillig and Amy from The Butrfly Garden. The whole point being that we share our most horrific stories about the people who we need, but don't always get along with. Go over to their sites, and you can sign up if you wish to participate today. I'm a little late to the party, but I usually am.
Thankfully, I don't have too many horror stories about OBGYNs, but there is one guy who sticks out in my mind.
It was late in my last pregnancy, I was close to bursting, when I began to have a little spotting, and what I thought were contractions.
So, off to the hospital we go for a quick check. My OBGYN, a lovely lady, said to just let the doctor on call do the check-up, and if I needed her, she was only a phone call away.
The doctor on call that day looked like he was about a decade past retirement. Nice enough guy, southern drawl, white hair, but stooped over and shuffling. It never occurred to me at the time the stooping might be from bending over to peer inside various female cavities over the hundred years or so he seemed to be practicing.
There was very little fanfare...
"Okay girl, off with your pants!"
"Um, do I at least get one of those paper towels?"
"What?"
"Do I at least get something to cover me up?"
"Why would you need that? It's not like I haven't seen the female anatomy before!"
He shouted. A lot. Mostly because he couldn't hear himself, I'm pretty sure. So, I hopped up on the table and the nurse gave me a weak smile, as if she really didn't want to be there, and handed me the giant paper towel to drape over my legs.
"Alright, now, young lady, I've been keeping this speculum in the freezer, just for you!" He let out a wheezy laugh. Apparently, I was supposed to find the idea of a frozen speculum amusing. Then I got a glimpse of it, and it was huge.
Girls, here is something I've learned. Speculums, like men, actually come in different sizes. So, if the one being inserted in you is uncomfortable to the point of shouting "Get that thing out of me!", you do have options. And you should ask.
At the time, though, I didn't have this handy piece of information. And I was not happy. Ray looked concerned at the contortions my face was going through.
"Um, is it supposed to hurt her this much?"
"Hurt? Why no, son, she's just uncomfortable! It's a woman thing. I don't think you'd understand."
It took forever, and I was starting to wonder if he was mining for precious metals underneath the sheet of paper.
And then I heard it.
It was faint at first, and I looked over at Ray to see if he heard it too. I was met with a look of puzzlement.
It was humming. I could hear humming. And it was the Bob Hope classic "Thanks for the Memories". It got louder, and louder, until finally Doctor Geriatric emerged from under the sheet in full blown song.
And as you can see, there is only one. We made sure to check. There is only one.
And it's healthy, and I am healthy, and everything is fine.
I really like our Nurse Practitioner, Nurse C., who is also a midwife. She is earthy and funny, and makes me feel at ease.
And TFYO is now at school telling everyone she's going to be a big sister. She also says she's going to help change the baby's diapers, even if they're stinky, which I find hard to believe.
The only thing I hate about going to the OBGYN (and guys, feel free to leave) aside from the speculum, of course, is the ridiculous paper towel they give you to cover your dignity. Or what's left of it.
Seriously. I know some cultures make walls out of rice paper, but I think they would know better than to try to make a kimono out of a Bounty Paper Towel. My poor husband just looked confused when I asked him to help me unfold the thing. I was afraid of ripping it, and thereby destroying the only thing I had to shield me from the world. It also came with a thin white plastic tie that didn't even begin to go all the way around my waist. Needless to say, I didn't even try. Ray asked me why a practice devoted to women and women's health issues would do something so humiliating. I told him that at least they weren't making me walk down the hall in it. And bless his heart, he even stayed in there through the pap smear. I love my husband.
Again, everything is fine, the baby is right where he/she is supposed to be in terms of development, and all is right with the world.
With much thanks to the late, great Robert Palmer for that one.
So, quick update on yesterday. We love Dr. G. Dr. G has guinea pigs, which completely won over TFYO. Oh, and TFYO is just as we suspected. I was told she is brilliant, incredibly bright, and probably has a very mild autism spectrum disorder, but nothing at the moment that warrants pulling her out of a classroom in which she appears to be thriving. I am relieved. And I now have someone to go to bat for me if the county school system decided to interfere. Dr. G says TFYO has a few quirks, which may need more attention as she gets older, but that compared to other Aspie kids she treats, this is really nothing to get worked up over. I'll have a full written report (with IQ scores, Asperger Diagnostic Scores, etc.) in a couple of weeks. Did y'all hear my big sigh of relief all across the world yesterday?
Also, I have my first OBGYN appointment today. And I'm also scheduled for my first ultrasound. I'm still getting sick several times a day. So far, well meaning people have told me this means: I'm having a boy; I'm having another girl; I'm having twins; or I had too much Mexican food last night.
One of those.
I am a little nervous. The first ultrasound is where you get to see if your little jelly bean is normal. So, of course I've been having bizarre nightmares (which come with being pregnant anyway). I've dreamed the baby has two heads. I've dreamed the baby has my head, staring out at me from the ultrasound. I've dreamed I was pregnant with a cat, which may have been because a cat was standing on me at that moment, trying to get me out of bed to feed it.
So, by the end of the day today, I'll know. And I'll have pictures to prove it's not a cat. Although, those first pictures usually look more like a tadpole.
There is nothing worse than having a cold when you're pregnant. Except losing your voice when you work in radio. So having both happen at the same time kind of sucks. But it also helps, especially since I couldn't think of anything else to blog about.
Diana over at Piffle recently had a cold and lost her voice. I know I didn't catch it from her (that would be a great trick!), but I certainly feel even more sympathy for her now.
Why is it that everyone in the world wants to call your phone when you have no voice? I started out with a squeak this morning, but by the time I got done talking to family, friends, people at work wondering where I was...I was left with a whisper. And people were asking me what was wrong with my voice.
And I've discovered that both children and animals know that this is a weakness and go out of their way to do things they shouldn't do, because how threatening is a woman in her bunny slippers screaming in a whisper?
Cat scratches the sofa (again).
"Zoe, knock that off!" She looks at me quizzically, and picks just a couple more times at an errant thread to see if I'm serious. And then I find myself whispering, "Damn it, your hearing is better than mine! I know you heard me!" Normally, she'll take off and run around the house like a mad cat when I scold her for clawing the furniture when she has not one, but TWO perfectly good scratching posts. Today, I got a slow blink, a yawn and a stretch, and a casual saunter into my bedroom. You think they've settled in?
TFYO yesterday afternoon.
I'm trying to sort out dinner and her homework and trying to clear the detritus that inevitably collects on our kitchen table. And she immediately runs back to the office and hops on the computer for her favourite activity of typing random words in Notepad, which she knows she is not supposed to do without permission.
"TFYO! Get off the computer, you know you're not supposed to be on there!"
At least, that's what I meant to say. It came out more like "Hiss, hisss, scrtich, hiss, damn it, ow!"
She can't hear me, and my husband chuckles quietly.
They're all against me.
I think I may resort to writing in LARGE letters with a Sharpie marker on brightly coloured index cards. It would make for great conversation. Kind of like Wile E. Coyote. Given the way the last couple of days have gone, I'd probably be using "Yipe!" "Help!" and "Suuuuuuper Genius", a lot. I'd also have one for "Vanilla Chai please", "No, I don't know what happened to that production order" and "Can I please just go to the bathroom by myself for once".
For a person like me who talks for a living, this is murder. It's torture. It's...it's...listening to Britney Spears.
Lyric courtesy of Squeeze...not really about morning sickness, but close enough.
Morning sickness. I wish I had it. Don't get me wrong, I'm kind of happy I'm not heaving my guts out every moment of the morning, but I've discovered what so many other women who have more than one child have figured out: every pregnancy is different. Sounds like a no-brainer, I know, but it really just didn't dawn on my until now.
When I was pregnant with TFYO, I had the most regular, compartmentalized morning sickness, ever. Six a.m., right on the dot for three months, beginning when I was three weeks along. It was so easy.
I was doing morning drive radio in Charleston at the time, and it fit perfectly into the show clock. I hosted the show, and Ray was the news anchor. I'd start to feel queasy around 5:58 a.m., so I'd wrap my segment, say "WSC news-time is 5:59, here's Ray with the news." I'd close the mic, run down the hall to the bathroom, be sick, rinse my mouth, wash my face, grab some water and be back in my chair in time to say "WSC news-time is 6:06". I'd go on with the show, and I didn't have to worry about being sick for the rest of the day.
So what's different?
Well, I'm not actually getting sick for starters. I'm just queasy from the time I get up until about one o'clock in the afternoon. So, I'm probably not eating as much as I should in the morning. Right now, I can usually choke down a bit of juice, a piece of toast and my prenatal vitamin. I just can't face food.
But come one o'clock you better get the hell out of my way, because you might get eaten along with everything else in my path. Even the cats start getting a little wild-eyed around 1 p.m. I'm ravenous. I eat everything. And that's a problem when I'm at work, because we can't have food in the studios.
After I stuff myself for about six hours, then I'm exhausted. And the process starts all over again the next morning.
The good news is, unlike last time when I had a serious pie and burrito habit (I promise, I'll explain at some point), I haven't really started gaining any weight yet, which means I'm still fitting into my clothes.
So thank you all for your kind words of concern. I'm actually not spending much time praying to the god of all things porcelain. But I kind of wish I was. At least it would be done.
And I promise, no more posts about being ill, okay?
I recently got a coupon in the mail for this. I don't know why someone thought this was a good idea, but Spam in a POUCH? A single serving of Spam. A Spamlette, if you will.
Just so you know, this is not a sponsored post (although, if there's someone out there who wants to pay me to write, email is in the profile!!), because I'm really not crazy about this stuff. It's very popular down here in the South, though, as it is a pork product, and we do love our pork down here. It's also apparently more popular in Hawaii than in any other state in the union, partly because it was so ubiquitous during WWII. My mother-in-law said they seemed to serve it almost as much as macaroni salad while she was there.
The last time I came anywhere near Spam, I was doing a morning show in Charleston, SC. I had recently found myself hosting the show alone, and our program director thought he'd be helpful by giving me a topic to talk about, rather than us discussing the news of the day. That topic : Spam, the food, not the e-mail trash. His brilliant idea was to get me to eat the stuff on the air.
What I didn't know at the time, was that I was already 3 weeks pregnant, and had just started to feel the first effects of morning sickness. He waved that open can under my nose, and I just about tossed my cookies into his lap. There followed after that a wave of phone calls from people extolling the virtues of the wobbly pink brick, including a lady who said she always made Spam salad on crackers as an hors d'oeuvre, and no one knew it wasn't really ham. I got to meet her a few weeks later at a remote, when she brought me a Spam cookbook. She would call the show once a week and refer to herself as the "Spam Lady". She was always very sweet, but thankfully never brought me any of that Spam Salad. Perhaps my ever-expanding waist line and descriptions of dealing with morning sickness during our morning show kept her at bay.
I still have the cook book, by the way, it was one of the first books my child pulled off the shelf to look at before she could read, I think she was about 8 months old or so. I still can't help but wonder if that first whiff of Spam during my early pregnancy is what turned off the four-year-old to meat.
I'm a geek. I'm a married geek. I'm a married, unemployed voice geek with two small children. I'm not pretty, I'm not ugly, and I'm somewhere south of normal. But that makes me pretty okay, doncha think?
