matson has finally arrived! a friend suggested that i write down matson's birth story before i forget the details, so i figured i'd take advantage of my blog for that.
our due date of march 22 came and went with no sign that mats was interested in joining us, and other than the occasional light contraction, the trend continued as we hit 41 weeks and moved closer to 42 weeks. my doctor's practice doesn't deliver babies post-42 weeks and doesn't schedule inductions for the weekend, so they initially set us up to induce at 41 weeks and 2 days, which was a thursday night. we'd been planning on a natural labor all along and were really hoping to avoid induction if at all possible, and thankfully my doctor was willing to work with us to get the induction date moved back to sunday night, 41 weeks and 5 days. (i know that pitocin makes contractions a lot stronger and harder than normal, which makes it all that much more likely that you'll need an epidural; i was hoping to avoid an epidural because it seems as though it's better for your body to be able to work naturally through labor and delivery - better success with breastfeeding, easier pushing, etc.)
the friday before our induction, we had a non-stress test where i was hooked up to an external fetal monitor to check contractions, heartrate, and movement just to make sure things were still looking okay for matson. he was super active, i had all of one contraction in the thirty minutes i was hooked up, and as the doctor said, baby was just too comfortable in my womb to want to come out on his own! i wasn't quite a centimeter dilated and my cervix was still pretty far posterior, so they decided that when i came in sunday night, they'd do a cervical ripening gel (turned out they used a tablet) overnight to get my cervix in motion, then start pitocin in the morning if it was needed - about 30-60% of women who have the cervical ripening treatment end up having it jump-start their labor.
we spent all weekend hoping and praying to be in active labor by the time sunday night rolled around for us to head into the hospital, but while the irregular light contractions continued, they never morphed into anything more. as we were finishing packing up our bags, the full weight of the situation - heading to the hospital knowing that we were absolutely going to have a baby in the next day or so - hit us, and while we were so excited knowing that matson was coming, we also found ourselves grieving the end of the first part of our marriage. not that life with kids isn't good, but we've had a really awesome first five and a half years of marriage, and have so much fun together just the two of us. even if the change is good, having a baby is still a huge change for our relationship, and change is hard.
we still went to small group that night, then headed up to the hospital in snow flurries, to be there at 9pm. by the time we got checked in, monitored, and had the first tablet inserted, it was close to 11pm. they offered me an ambien to help me sleep through the night, and while i refused at first, i called the nurse in for it by 12:30 as i realized i was getting no sleep which wouldn't be very helpful for labor the next day. i slept soundly til 3am when they came back to check me and insert the second tablet - pretty shortly after that tablet started to work, contractions started coming on more strongly and quickly, and i dozed off and on until around 7am when i decided sleep was a lost cause and woke up scott to start our day. i had had grand intentions of taking a shower, fixing my hair, and putting on a bit of makeup before the induction started since i had to have it at all - the shower was as far as i got, though, and even at that, i had serious thoughts of sitting down in the tub to finish my shower as contractions continued. they started pitocin around 9, but by 8:30 i told scott to call our doula, liberty, to come in - i was already in such pain from the contractions that i figured we'd have our 10 hours of laboring with her, then just go ahead and get the epidural. (i think scott made the call just after i ate a grape popsicle and promptly threw it up.) she arrived by 9:30 to me sitting on the birth ball next to our bed, moaning, with my head propped up on some pillows on our bed and scott sitting behind me rubbing my back.
from there, everything is kind of a blur to me. i had my eyes open for maybe a cumulative grand total of 2 minutes in the next seven hours, and spent a bit of time sitting on the birth ball or leaning against it while kneeling on all fours on the bed, but most of it laying on my side in bed clutching at either scott or liberty's hands while the other one rubbed my back or my feet. at one point, since i was having crazy contractions but wasn't dilating, the doctor (dr. moore) came in and inserted a balloon to force my cervix to dilate - it would fall out naturally once i hit 4cm. i have no idea how long it was in there, but while it was still in, my water broke on its own - which was awesome news, since it meant that my body was starting to take over labor and things should be progressing faster. liberty left the room to tell the nurse that my water had broken, which i assumed (correctly) meant that there was meconium in my amniotic fluid.
one memory i do have is, as they came back to remove the balloon for me since my water had broken, was scott saying, "woah, is that her mucus plug?!" (apparently it came out attached to the balloon.) i think around this time, after a few hours (scott thought maybe 2?) of pitocin, they stopped pitocin since my body had taken over - hooray! i was relieved to hear it, but when someone said that i could now labor away from my bed and liberty was running through my options - walk around, birth ball, tub, etc - all i could say was "tub". (scott said that i only spoke in verbs and nouns the whole time.) i was in there for maybe 40 minutes (again, per scott, who wasn't positive) when i started feeling like i needed to push, so they made me get out. i was very sad about this, because my legs were shaky and i was super cold in the room, having just been relatively cozy in a warm tub. i was only at a 7, so they let me back in the tub for a while more. i think i felt the urge to push again, so i had to get out maybe a half hour later, and didn't get back in again. i did some pushing on the bed, got checked a few times, and after approximately an eternity, was finally at a 10 - again, hooray! i was super cranky, because while i was able to continue pushing for a while, when they were able to see the head, they made me stop pushing until dr. moore made it to the room.
finally dr. moore came in, and i was able to commence pushing again. i know i'd been falling asleep between contractions throughout the day (probably because i'd only gotten about 3.5 hours of sleep the night before), and while i feel fairly certain i was awake throughout the final pushing, i can't be sure. scott thinks i was only pushing for about 10 minutes after dr. moore arrived, and it felt like each time i pushed people were saying, "just one more push and his head will be out!" so i'd push, then, "just one more push!", etc. about two minutes before matson came out, i felt my leg on scott's side being shifted, and realized that a nurse was taking my leg as he was being led to a chair - he said later that he was pretty sure he could have made it, but was starting to feel woozy and didn't want to be that dad who passes out in the delivery room. his head was finally fully out after an enormous pushing contraction, and then i think just one more push and his body followed. i'd been in intense pain all day, and it was suddenly just ... gone! someone told me to open my eyes, and i saw a gray-ish baby being taken to the warmer in the corner so that mats could be checked out by a nicu nurse for the meconium in my fluid. he was in great form, though, and checked out wonderfully other than a pinched nerve in his neck so that his head was pulling to the left and his left arm was sticking out at a wonky angle.
matson is a fabulous baby. his neck thing was fine by the time we got to our room, he started nursing right away and is a champion feeder (he only lost about 5.6% of his birth weight in the hospital, and was up 2oz from that at his 4-day pediatrician checkup today, which she said is pretty remarkable). he's got adorable blue eyes and loves snuggling. hands down the hardest part right now is that he doesn't like to sleep unless he's being held - sweet during the day, but makes for reeeeeeally long nights. i got about 6-7 hours total sleep two nights ago, but other than that have averaged about 3-4 hours a night/day since sunday night when we went in for our induction. my parents are here to help out, which is awesome, but if they have him and i'm trying to sleep, i wake up as soon as he starts to fuss. i discovered cotton swabs this afternoon to take a nap, but was only able to sleep for an hour. sigh. i'm trying to remember the joys of being matson's mommy, though, because there are so many, and that he'll figure out the sleep thing sooner or later and we'll be a little rested again. he's been going longer stretches on his own, though, and the pediatrician suggested letting him sleep in his car seat since he likes being snuggled up in close quarters. (he also likes his bouncer seat and the curved pad on the changing table??)
so that is matson's birth story! overall, i am so happy with how things went, and incredibly proud that i was able to make it through labor with no pain meds. liberty has since told me that it's incredibly rare to have a pitocin labor and not have an epidural. honestly, even though i didn't mention her much through the story, i don't think that scott and i could have made it through without her. her encouragement and support (and massages!) gave both of us the energy and motivation to keep going without an epidural, and made the pain bearable. if you ever have any intention of doing a natural labor, i 100% recommend getting a doula - she was completely awesome, and a great supplement to scott's incredible help.
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
done and to-do
nursery is getting closer to completion by the day! this weekend, i made and framed a collage for the wall above matson's crib, had scott paint the edges of the closet where i spackled last week, we got the closet doors re-installed (and by we, i mean i mostly watched while scott did all of the work), i got fun fabric put into embroidery hoops to hang on the wall above matson's changing table, i ordered everything remaining from our target registry (have a few more things to get from babies r us, as well as finishing buying our cloth diapers and accessories), and i sorted through all of his clothes, took tags off, and bought a free and clear detergent to wash them in. yes, i am nesting, why do you ask?
(speaking of clothes, by the way, we are so set! i was looking through our stash thus far, figuring that i had enough newborn clothes and debating whether to get a few more 0-3 month items. my friend jami has a 10 month old son, though, and graciously offered to lend us his clothes if we were interested - i said sure, and holy cow! she gave me a box and bag of just newborn/0-3 items, and between her clothes and what we had for mats already, we filled his hamper to the brim, all with tiny, adorable clothes for his first few months of life!)
remaining on my list is having a maid service come in next week (my birthday gift from scott :)), washing matson's clothes, organizing the nursery and closet, attaching the cushion to the gliding ottoman (ahem), hemming/cute-ifying matson's curtains, doing some general house organization, freezing some meals for nights we don't have family around and no friends scheduled to bring us food, and trying to remind myself that mats won't really care how perfect his room and our house looks or doesn't look.
(speaking of clothes, by the way, we are so set! i was looking through our stash thus far, figuring that i had enough newborn clothes and debating whether to get a few more 0-3 month items. my friend jami has a 10 month old son, though, and graciously offered to lend us his clothes if we were interested - i said sure, and holy cow! she gave me a box and bag of just newborn/0-3 items, and between her clothes and what we had for mats already, we filled his hamper to the brim, all with tiny, adorable clothes for his first few months of life!)
remaining on my list is having a maid service come in next week (my birthday gift from scott :)), washing matson's clothes, organizing the nursery and closet, attaching the cushion to the gliding ottoman (ahem), hemming/cute-ifying matson's curtains, doing some general house organization, freezing some meals for nights we don't have family around and no friends scheduled to bring us food, and trying to remind myself that mats won't really care how perfect his room and our house looks or doesn't look.
more baby preparations
this has been the month of preparing for baby - we started off the first weekend of the month with our childbirth class, have taken infant/child cpr and breastfeeding since then (and have a baby care class this upcoming saturday), signed up for a doula, had my work baby shower, began weekly doctor appointments, packed my labor bag, and have finally begun to finalize nursery decor plans. i think that's about it.
regarding the baby classes - i think we're both glad that we're taking them. as i've said before, we've been reading through "natural childbirth the bradley way", so there wasn't a ton in the childbirth class that we were surprised by, but nonetheless we found it both helpful and affirming. some of the things that the instructor talked about, such as relaxing through contractions to manage pain (even for women who are planning to get an epidural), are right on par with what the bradley book talks about. we came out of the class feeling like we've been doing the right things in preparing and that while some parts of the book are outdated (which we recognized already), others are right on track. breastfeeding and cpr both gave us a little more confidence with things that neither of us is familiar with, which i think will be helpful. (hopefully no need for familiarity with cpr, though!)
we signed up for a doula through our hospital a few weeks ago, and i finally got to chat with her on the phone for a bit this weekend. from her website, in which she offers crystal healings and features a photo of herself at her wedding wearing fairy wings, i feared that she might be a little flaky - but after talking with her, i think she'll be great. she worked as a nurse for 12 years and has been doula-ing for about 2 years, so she's been through a ton of births and seems like a great source of experience and calm. she was excited that we're planning to do a natural (pain med-free) birth, but is supportive of whatever clients end up doing and says that her goal is to make sure that however baby comes out, that we're happy with the experience. i'm down with that!
you'll notice, by the way, that i earlier said "begun to finalize nursery decor plans" - i don't yet have any nursery decor completed, and changed my mind on half of it last friday, but i do have plans! i think it'll be cute when it's done, but you'll have to wait until then for pictures. (and by the way, mom, i finished the ottoman cushion!!!! i'm going to stop at joann's tonight to pick up some sturdier thread/cord to adhere it to the ottoman - but the cushion itself is done and looks great. i actually did it last monday on my day off, but slacked on picking up the thread all week.)
regarding the baby classes - i think we're both glad that we're taking them. as i've said before, we've been reading through "natural childbirth the bradley way", so there wasn't a ton in the childbirth class that we were surprised by, but nonetheless we found it both helpful and affirming. some of the things that the instructor talked about, such as relaxing through contractions to manage pain (even for women who are planning to get an epidural), are right on par with what the bradley book talks about. we came out of the class feeling like we've been doing the right things in preparing and that while some parts of the book are outdated (which we recognized already), others are right on track. breastfeeding and cpr both gave us a little more confidence with things that neither of us is familiar with, which i think will be helpful. (hopefully no need for familiarity with cpr, though!)
we signed up for a doula through our hospital a few weeks ago, and i finally got to chat with her on the phone for a bit this weekend. from her website, in which she offers crystal healings and features a photo of herself at her wedding wearing fairy wings, i feared that she might be a little flaky - but after talking with her, i think she'll be great. she worked as a nurse for 12 years and has been doula-ing for about 2 years, so she's been through a ton of births and seems like a great source of experience and calm. she was excited that we're planning to do a natural (pain med-free) birth, but is supportive of whatever clients end up doing and says that her goal is to make sure that however baby comes out, that we're happy with the experience. i'm down with that!
you'll notice, by the way, that i earlier said "begun to finalize nursery decor plans" - i don't yet have any nursery decor completed, and changed my mind on half of it last friday, but i do have plans! i think it'll be cute when it's done, but you'll have to wait until then for pictures. (and by the way, mom, i finished the ottoman cushion!!!! i'm going to stop at joann's tonight to pick up some sturdier thread/cord to adhere it to the ottoman - but the cushion itself is done and looks great. i actually did it last monday on my day off, but slacked on picking up the thread all week.)
how to sleep well while pregnant
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pregnancy
so the bradley method of labor is largely about relaxation - relaxing your body through contractions rather than fighting against them, which apparently helps to minimize pain and help you keep energy to make it through to the birth without needing pain meds to get rest. the book we're reading gives you a certain position to lay in (on your side, one leg propped up on pillows, one arm in front of you the other behind you), and has your "labor coach" guide you through relaxing all of your muscle groups while giving you a lower back massage.
i really hated the position at first and thought it awful and forced. not going to lie, though - we've been practicing our relaxation techniques the last few nights right before bed, and i am sleeping better than i have in months! i had been waking up probably 2-5 times a night on average (sometimes to go to the bathroom, but often just to sit up, look at the clock, and go back to sleep) since about 23ish weeks. on the nights that we've done our relaxation practices, though, i have slept soundly straight through the night, not waking up at all until my morning alarm. it's wonderful! and i hope scott doesn't mind, but we'll be practicing every night until this kid comes. and maybe continue afterwards. (i like the backrubs.)
i really hated the position at first and thought it awful and forced. not going to lie, though - we've been practicing our relaxation techniques the last few nights right before bed, and i am sleeping better than i have in months! i had been waking up probably 2-5 times a night on average (sometimes to go to the bathroom, but often just to sit up, look at the clock, and go back to sleep) since about 23ish weeks. on the nights that we've done our relaxation practices, though, i have slept soundly straight through the night, not waking up at all until my morning alarm. it's wonderful! and i hope scott doesn't mind, but we'll be practicing every night until this kid comes. and maybe continue afterwards. (i like the backrubs.)
nesting weekend
we had a gloriously productive weekend - i love it when that happens. saturday morning, we finally buckled down and finished clearing out matson's room-to-be of non-baby-related paraphernalia. since i'd already gone through it once, this mostly just meant scott carrying stuff into the basement for me. the white paint from when we moved into the house two and a half years ago was looking pretty gloopy, so we went to lowe's for a fresh can ... and picked up some closet doors while we were there! we got the shelves and wall brackets all painted up with our lovely semi-gloss bright white, and the closet doors are mostly done - two coats on the front and one on the back (which you really won't see anyway since we got bifold doors), which just leaves the sides and top/bottom of the doors to do.
hmm, when i write it out, it really doesn't sound like we got all that much done. keep in mind that we had to wait for paint to dry before we could apply more coats, so a fair bit of that was just waiting time ... and we interspersed all of that with things like running four loads of laundry, going to a one-year old's birthday party, doing mounds of dishes, and hosting small group last night (for which i made baked ziti, garlic butter crescent rolls, salad, and a blueberry apple coffee cake). oh, and that scott worked for four hours yesterday.
once we get the shelves and closet doors up and the crib assembled (still need to buy a crib mattress - maybe that'll be next weekend's task), i think we'll be pretty well set as far as the nursery goes! i guess things still on my to-do list include finishing the glider's ottoman cover (which was my plan for this weekend until that got sidelined by the closet doors) and figuring out some wall decor. curtains are also on my list, but i'm not letting myself think about that until the glider's done - scott's been making fun of my ability to follow through on projects that i start, so i feel a need to show him that i really can finish things. really, though, with just a few hours of work this weekend, i feel way better about our level of preparedness already.
speaking of preparation, we're also slowly working our way through our labor book and hoping to be finished reading it by about 36 weeks ... which gives us five weeks! we started reading it on our way to phoenix for christmas three and a half weeks ago (is that really all?? christmas seems forever ago!), and are just shy of halfway through the book. hmm, although in retrospect we skipped some substantial portions of the beginning of the book about things like choosing a doctor and a hospital and why pain relieving drugs are evil. we may need to pick up the pace a bit.
hmm, when i write it out, it really doesn't sound like we got all that much done. keep in mind that we had to wait for paint to dry before we could apply more coats, so a fair bit of that was just waiting time ... and we interspersed all of that with things like running four loads of laundry, going to a one-year old's birthday party, doing mounds of dishes, and hosting small group last night (for which i made baked ziti, garlic butter crescent rolls, salad, and a blueberry apple coffee cake). oh, and that scott worked for four hours yesterday.
once we get the shelves and closet doors up and the crib assembled (still need to buy a crib mattress - maybe that'll be next weekend's task), i think we'll be pretty well set as far as the nursery goes! i guess things still on my to-do list include finishing the glider's ottoman cover (which was my plan for this weekend until that got sidelined by the closet doors) and figuring out some wall decor. curtains are also on my list, but i'm not letting myself think about that until the glider's done - scott's been making fun of my ability to follow through on projects that i start, so i feel a need to show him that i really can finish things. really, though, with just a few hours of work this weekend, i feel way better about our level of preparedness already.
speaking of preparation, we're also slowly working our way through our labor book and hoping to be finished reading it by about 36 weeks ... which gives us five weeks! we started reading it on our way to phoenix for christmas three and a half weeks ago (is that really all?? christmas seems forever ago!), and are just shy of halfway through the book. hmm, although in retrospect we skipped some substantial portions of the beginning of the book about things like choosing a doctor and a hospital and why pain relieving drugs are evil. we may need to pick up the pace a bit.
why you should always upgrade to metal hardware
quite the eventful week we've had!
on the pregnancy front, last tuesday, i had to do my 1-hour glucose screening (which tests for gestational diabetes), and at the same time they do a few other blood draws to test for things like iron and antibodies, the latter having something to do with the fact that i'm rh-negative*. turned out that i have low iron and failed the glucose test. bummer. i wasn't entirely surprised by the iron thing and am now faithfully taking my iron supplement. i was a little more bummed about the glucose thing because i really didn't want to have gestational diabetes. (according to my internet research, in addition to having higher risk of type 2 diabetes later in life for both mom and baby, there's also a correlation with higher rates of adhd for babies of gestational diabetes moms?!) i went in for the followup 3-hour glucose test on monday morning, though, and evidently passed that one with flying colors - hooray!
unrelated to pregnancy, we went into the laundry room on saturday morning and i thought it smelled really musty. since we live in denver where there's super low humidity (it's standard here to actually have a whole-house humidifier on your furnace to keep things a little moist), musty is not a normal basement smell and thus indicated a water leak. and, alright, confession, i'd actually thought it smelled a little musty when i was doing laundry after our christmas trip and just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. so when i smelled it again, and stronger, i knew we should look into it.
i noticed some dark (ie, fresh) looking water stains on the drywall above the washer and dryer - directly under our master bathroom. no bueno. although i hated it when we moved in, i am incredibly thankful now that we have removable ceiling tiles in the laundry room - scott got the ladder out and was able to look into the ceiling to try to figure out what the problem was. nothing conclusive, but he guessed it was probably our toilet or sink. some of the water had built up on the shelves above our dryer and then a bit had rolled out onto the dryer and accumulated under a detergent bottle i had sitting out. as i was cleaning it up later in the day, i noticed that it had a rather distinctive smell ... indicating that it was, in fact, our toilet leaking. right. gross!
this was a toilet we'd installed ourselves last summer, so we figured we must have done the installation wrong. we just had the plumber out this morning, and 30 minutes and $107 later, found that the problem was not, in fact, our installation. care to take a guess what it was? the plastic washers that came with the toilet. even though the floor in there is tiled, it's not exactly even, and that combined with the fact that i hadn't gotten around to caulking around the base evidently put extra strain on the washers, causing them to finally crack, causing our toilet to leak into the basement. lessons learned: always take the extra time to go to home depot and upgrade to metal hardware, and caulking is worth the time and effort. as a matter of fact, i will be doing some caulking this weekend! and some intense lysol-ing of our laundry room.
on to the fun side of pregnancy - despite the slightly overwhelming nature of getting ever closer to our due date (less than 10 weeks out, now!), getting closer also means that i get baby showers! my primary shower with all of our denver friends will be at the end of this month, and i'm so used to going to other friends' baby showers that i was honestly just looking forward to how fun it would be to see everyone together and hang out. then it occurred to me yesterday that i'll probably get some presents, too, and that makes it extra fun. plus, i found out last night that my parents are looking at coming in for the weekend - awesome! (although dad, be warned that i've already started brainstorming nursery projects that you and scott can work on while mom and i are at the shower, like installing closet doors in there, and setting up the crib. :)) and then my work baby shower was just scheduled at the end of february ... two weeks before i'm tentatively planning to start my maternity leave!
* - quick sidenote: rh-negative ladies, just a heads up that if your doctor operates like mine, you have to get a shot of rhogam during pregnancy, and potentially another after birth if your baby is rh-positive. they give it to you in your tush, and it stings hardcore and at least for me left a bruise for approximately a week. you also get to give an extra vial of blood when they do your blood tests to make sure your body's not rejecting your baby. all in all, not a big deal, but they do not seem to tell you these things up front and i'm all about expectations, so i kind of like to know going in that there are things like extra shots and blood draws in my future. also, all pregnant ladies: get your flu shot! flu season runs through april, and getting the flu can potentially lead to pre-term labor and bad things like that, so it's worth doing. i'd been putting it off and finally asked the doctor yesterday if i should still get one - she said yes emphatically, sent in a nurse with the shot, and i was all done in approximately 2 minutes.
on the pregnancy front, last tuesday, i had to do my 1-hour glucose screening (which tests for gestational diabetes), and at the same time they do a few other blood draws to test for things like iron and antibodies, the latter having something to do with the fact that i'm rh-negative*. turned out that i have low iron and failed the glucose test. bummer. i wasn't entirely surprised by the iron thing and am now faithfully taking my iron supplement. i was a little more bummed about the glucose thing because i really didn't want to have gestational diabetes. (according to my internet research, in addition to having higher risk of type 2 diabetes later in life for both mom and baby, there's also a correlation with higher rates of adhd for babies of gestational diabetes moms?!) i went in for the followup 3-hour glucose test on monday morning, though, and evidently passed that one with flying colors - hooray!
unrelated to pregnancy, we went into the laundry room on saturday morning and i thought it smelled really musty. since we live in denver where there's super low humidity (it's standard here to actually have a whole-house humidifier on your furnace to keep things a little moist), musty is not a normal basement smell and thus indicated a water leak. and, alright, confession, i'd actually thought it smelled a little musty when i was doing laundry after our christmas trip and just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. so when i smelled it again, and stronger, i knew we should look into it.
i noticed some dark (ie, fresh) looking water stains on the drywall above the washer and dryer - directly under our master bathroom. no bueno. although i hated it when we moved in, i am incredibly thankful now that we have removable ceiling tiles in the laundry room - scott got the ladder out and was able to look into the ceiling to try to figure out what the problem was. nothing conclusive, but he guessed it was probably our toilet or sink. some of the water had built up on the shelves above our dryer and then a bit had rolled out onto the dryer and accumulated under a detergent bottle i had sitting out. as i was cleaning it up later in the day, i noticed that it had a rather distinctive smell ... indicating that it was, in fact, our toilet leaking. right. gross!
this was a toilet we'd installed ourselves last summer, so we figured we must have done the installation wrong. we just had the plumber out this morning, and 30 minutes and $107 later, found that the problem was not, in fact, our installation. care to take a guess what it was? the plastic washers that came with the toilet. even though the floor in there is tiled, it's not exactly even, and that combined with the fact that i hadn't gotten around to caulking around the base evidently put extra strain on the washers, causing them to finally crack, causing our toilet to leak into the basement. lessons learned: always take the extra time to go to home depot and upgrade to metal hardware, and caulking is worth the time and effort. as a matter of fact, i will be doing some caulking this weekend! and some intense lysol-ing of our laundry room.
on to the fun side of pregnancy - despite the slightly overwhelming nature of getting ever closer to our due date (less than 10 weeks out, now!), getting closer also means that i get baby showers! my primary shower with all of our denver friends will be at the end of this month, and i'm so used to going to other friends' baby showers that i was honestly just looking forward to how fun it would be to see everyone together and hang out. then it occurred to me yesterday that i'll probably get some presents, too, and that makes it extra fun. plus, i found out last night that my parents are looking at coming in for the weekend - awesome! (although dad, be warned that i've already started brainstorming nursery projects that you and scott can work on while mom and i are at the shower, like installing closet doors in there, and setting up the crib. :)) and then my work baby shower was just scheduled at the end of february ... two weeks before i'm tentatively planning to start my maternity leave!
* - quick sidenote: rh-negative ladies, just a heads up that if your doctor operates like mine, you have to get a shot of rhogam during pregnancy, and potentially another after birth if your baby is rh-positive. they give it to you in your tush, and it stings hardcore and at least for me left a bruise for approximately a week. you also get to give an extra vial of blood when they do your blood tests to make sure your body's not rejecting your baby. all in all, not a big deal, but they do not seem to tell you these things up front and i'm all about expectations, so i kind of like to know going in that there are things like extra shots and blood draws in my future. also, all pregnant ladies: get your flu shot! flu season runs through april, and getting the flu can potentially lead to pre-term labor and bad things like that, so it's worth doing. i'd been putting it off and finally asked the doctor yesterday if i should still get one - she said yes emphatically, sent in a nurse with the shot, and i was all done in approximately 2 minutes.
11 weeks to go
i can't believe it's 2011 already! the change in year is really making this whole pregnancy/impending parenthood thing more real. it's no longer, "next year when we have matson", it's "in 11 weeks when we have matson." yikes!
as i was surfing babycenter.com this morning, i saw that a woman who's actually due about a week after me posted a picture of her almost complete nursery ... umm, wow. we have a bookcase (actually my first nursery purchase for mats, via craigslist - literacy and frugality are both important!), a changing table, a cute city play mat from ikea, a stroller, and after checking out ikea while in phoenix and dismissing their cribs, we finally ordered a crib last week which should arrive today. (no crib mattress yet, though.) none of it's actually put into place, though. not to mention, i did a bit of organizing/cleaning out of matson's room back at thanksgiving, but when we hosted our sunday school class's christmas party a few weeks ago, everything got put back in there - whoops! so we're back to square one with nursery organization. and haven't done any of the touch up painting or working on obtaining closet doors. now that college football season is over, though, i'm a little bit more optimistic about being able to talk scott into setting aside a full saturday for us to work together on getting the room in order.
also on babycenter, i've been seeing postings by women who already have their hospital bags ready. on the one hand, i think that's utterly absurd since we still have almost 3 months til that'll be an issue - if you go into labor at 29 weeks, i think you'll have more on your mind than, "did i bring my extra chapstick and my comfy slippers?" on the other had ... the planner in me really feels like i should at least have a list going of what i will be packing. maybe that'll be one of my goals for the week?
funny story of the weekend: scott has a myriad of ever-changing nicknames for me - his latest standard is "potamus". yes, as in short for "hippopotamus", but i think completely unrelated to my expanding girth and more related to the flight of the conchords song "hiphopopotamus vs rhymenoceros" and my personal favorite lyric, "i am the hiphopopotamus, my lyrics are bottomless" (followed by an awkward pause). anyway, we've been reading the book "natural childbirth the bradley way" in preparation for labor, and the author has lots of tips and exercises for the "coach" (husband) and mom-to-be. last night, we were reading a section about early labor and how the woman in labor should be careful to not lie on her back, but may need gentle reminding by her husband ... to which my own dear husband responded, "roll over, potamus!" it was hilarious, and almost made me roll off the bed with laughing so hard.
and, unrelated to pregnancy, we played the game carcassonne this weekend (on new year's eve, actually) and i am obsessed! you pull tiles at random, and each one has a bit of map on it - you place it on the existing map/gameboard wherever it's strategic for you, matching up city, pasture, or road, and get points by making claims on any of those three items as the map grows. we have played settlers of catan a fair bit, and the two games are similar in style, but i think what clicks with me about carcassonne that doesn't about settlers is that with carcassonne, you get to watch and be a part of the map growing, rather than having a pre-set map on top of which you put roads and buildings. i thought it was super fun. scott didn't love it quite as much as i did off hand, but i think if he figures out more of the strategy part of it, i can get him hooked.
as i was surfing babycenter.com this morning, i saw that a woman who's actually due about a week after me posted a picture of her almost complete nursery ... umm, wow. we have a bookcase (actually my first nursery purchase for mats, via craigslist - literacy and frugality are both important!), a changing table, a cute city play mat from ikea, a stroller, and after checking out ikea while in phoenix and dismissing their cribs, we finally ordered a crib last week which should arrive today. (no crib mattress yet, though.) none of it's actually put into place, though. not to mention, i did a bit of organizing/cleaning out of matson's room back at thanksgiving, but when we hosted our sunday school class's christmas party a few weeks ago, everything got put back in there - whoops! so we're back to square one with nursery organization. and haven't done any of the touch up painting or working on obtaining closet doors. now that college football season is over, though, i'm a little bit more optimistic about being able to talk scott into setting aside a full saturday for us to work together on getting the room in order.
also on babycenter, i've been seeing postings by women who already have their hospital bags ready. on the one hand, i think that's utterly absurd since we still have almost 3 months til that'll be an issue - if you go into labor at 29 weeks, i think you'll have more on your mind than, "did i bring my extra chapstick and my comfy slippers?" on the other had ... the planner in me really feels like i should at least have a list going of what i will be packing. maybe that'll be one of my goals for the week?
funny story of the weekend: scott has a myriad of ever-changing nicknames for me - his latest standard is "potamus". yes, as in short for "hippopotamus", but i think completely unrelated to my expanding girth and more related to the flight of the conchords song "hiphopopotamus vs rhymenoceros" and my personal favorite lyric, "i am the hiphopopotamus, my lyrics are bottomless" (followed by an awkward pause). anyway, we've been reading the book "natural childbirth the bradley way" in preparation for labor, and the author has lots of tips and exercises for the "coach" (husband) and mom-to-be. last night, we were reading a section about early labor and how the woman in labor should be careful to not lie on her back, but may need gentle reminding by her husband ... to which my own dear husband responded, "roll over, potamus!" it was hilarious, and almost made me roll off the bed with laughing so hard.
and, unrelated to pregnancy, we played the game carcassonne this weekend (on new year's eve, actually) and i am obsessed! you pull tiles at random, and each one has a bit of map on it - you place it on the existing map/gameboard wherever it's strategic for you, matching up city, pasture, or road, and get points by making claims on any of those three items as the map grows. we have played settlers of catan a fair bit, and the two games are similar in style, but i think what clicks with me about carcassonne that doesn't about settlers is that with carcassonne, you get to watch and be a part of the map growing, rather than having a pre-set map on top of which you put roads and buildings. i thought it was super fun. scott didn't love it quite as much as i did off hand, but i think if he figures out more of the strategy part of it, i can get him hooked.
i love being pregnant
at about 8-9 weeks, i thoroughly despised pregnancy. i was tired, so nauseous (thankfully i never actually threw up), and simultaneously needed food in order to be less nauseous yet the smell of cooking food, particularly cooking meat inspired nausea ... blech. vicious circle. i told scott at one point that i was quite content never being pregnant again - and honestly, having friends who have lost a first pregnancy in the first trimester, i have absolutely no idea how they decided to try again, because if we had been put in that situation, i probably would have said that's it, we're done, we're adopting. (which we'd like to do at some point anyway.)
anyway, now that i'm at 25 weeks, though? love it! everything about it. nausea died down by around 11 weeks, tiny belly bump started to appear around 15 weeks, energy started coming back around 17 weeks, started feeling baby boy move around 18ish weeks - i've heard the 2nd trimester referred to as the "golden age of pregnancy", and i fully believe it. i love having a distinguishably pregnant belly, yet not looking like a whale; i love feeling matson thump around in there and trying to figure out what he's doing (summersaults? kickboxing?) and what limb i'm feeling; getting to plan and anticipate the delivery and the nursery and what he's going to be like without feeling like it's right on top of me. it's awesome.
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unrelated to pregnancy is my my love for the christmas season. i've been listening to christmas music off and on since the day before thanksgiving, and was thrilled when we got to put up our tree last weekend. i even bought garland to decorate the banister between our main level living room and the upstairs bedroom hallway (along with a set of icicle lights i bought a few years ago in an after christmas sale to use outside, but forgot about the following year when we went to decorate, so we bought big colorful bulb lights instead) - it's cute. our plans for the weekend include a date night tonight of going to goodwill to look for tacky christmas sweaters and stopping at a giant christmas superstore in town to look at ornaments (along with going out for burgers), and on sunday night hosting an ugly-sweater christmas party for our sunday school class!
anyway, now that i'm at 25 weeks, though? love it! everything about it. nausea died down by around 11 weeks, tiny belly bump started to appear around 15 weeks, energy started coming back around 17 weeks, started feeling baby boy move around 18ish weeks - i've heard the 2nd trimester referred to as the "golden age of pregnancy", and i fully believe it. i love having a distinguishably pregnant belly, yet not looking like a whale; i love feeling matson thump around in there and trying to figure out what he's doing (summersaults? kickboxing?) and what limb i'm feeling; getting to plan and anticipate the delivery and the nursery and what he's going to be like without feeling like it's right on top of me. it's awesome.
____
unrelated to pregnancy is my my love for the christmas season. i've been listening to christmas music off and on since the day before thanksgiving, and was thrilled when we got to put up our tree last weekend. i even bought garland to decorate the banister between our main level living room and the upstairs bedroom hallway (along with a set of icicle lights i bought a few years ago in an after christmas sale to use outside, but forgot about the following year when we went to decorate, so we bought big colorful bulb lights instead) - it's cute. our plans for the weekend include a date night tonight of going to goodwill to look for tacky christmas sweaters and stopping at a giant christmas superstore in town to look at ornaments (along with going out for burgers), and on sunday night hosting an ugly-sweater christmas party for our sunday school class!
odds and ends
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labels:
house,
personal finance,
pregnancy
so two days after my last post (don't know why i didn't write about this then!), we went in for our 20 week ultrasound ... and found out we're having a boy! you probably already know that as i think everyone who still reads this also follows my life in other contexts, but hey, has to be written. and is exciting! i kind of sort of was leaning toward wanting a girl, but if i had had to guess, i would have said that pinto is a boy ... it's fun to know for sure! his name is matson, which is scott's middle name and his grandma's maiden name - so yes, it's technically not a first name, but whatever, this is 2010 and you can name your kid banjo if you want, i think matson is a perfectly cute and acceptable name. we're still working on a middle name for him. on to odds and ends:
1. no, we haven't started any work on the nursery yet, but it's all decor related, so it won't be too bad. we painted that room yellow when we moved in so that it'd be ready to go whether we had a boy or a girl and can be used as a nursery again without repainting if we have other other gender next time, so that's staying. i was planning to get a white crib and changing table so that i don't have to worry about matching wood stain colors and can buy a changing table via craigslist, and my mom and i covered the glider in dark brown fabric (no i haven't finished the ottoman yet, mom!) so we're good to go on that front.
the room already has nice white wood shelves on either side of the window, so we just need to touch those up and put the actual shelves back on (just the brackets are left on the wall, from when we painted over two years ago - whoops). so other than that, it's just getting the furniture, finding a few cute boy accents (which i already have visualized), and we're good to go! oh, and cleaning things like spare sheets, broken sewing machines, and christmas wrapping paper out of there. i think i might start working on that over our long thanksgiving weekend.
2. as regards our mouse travails ... well, we're still in progress with that. we've been setting up traps and poison like crazy and were getting ready to declare victory over the mice when scott saw one scamper under the dishwasher last week. bummer. i googled mice and dishwashers and found this blog detailing mice coming in from a sewer pipe behind the dishwasher, eating plastic piping, water leaking, and ultimately having to replace the dishwasher ... aaah! i had this image in my mind every time we ran the dishwasher last week, but come saturday, we decided it was full on cleaning and war-against-the-mice day. we can't pull out our dishwasher because we had our wood flooring installed in front of it, but thankfully scott put his engineering degree to work and figured out how to remove the bottom faceplate from the thing so we could see what was going on ... and breathed a sigh of relief. no mouse droppings or nests, no chewed pipes, no mouse-holes gnawed into the cabinets back there.
we did find mouse holes on the cabinets behind the stove, so we threw some poison packs back there and jammed up the holes with steel wool (which they allegedly won't chew through). scott put steel wool under all of the floating walls in our laundry room downstairs, we sterilized our whole kitchen, and now we're just waiting to see if any mice continue to creep through. i think we've killed maybe 10 or so mice over the past two months, but i'm semi-optimistic that we're nearing the end. fingers crossed.
3. scott was finally able to feel matson move the other night! admittedly, i had had both soda and ice cream with dinner, so the kid was quite literally bouncing off the walls, but it was really fun getting to share that. i've been able to feel matson move for the past probably 4-5 weeks, and it's neat to feel him getting stronger and more active (or maybe just bigger so there isn't as much space to absorb his movements!) - at first i would maybe feel him move once a day at the most, but now it's pretty frequently throughout each day. also fun is when matson curls up on one side toward the front of my stomach - i'll poke my belly and one side is rock hard, the other is soft and normal.
4. i had a craving for corn dogs yesterday, but couldn't justify having corn dogs for dinner. (maybe this weekend. :)) in trying to talk myself out of it, i decided that rice sounded really really good ... so i went back to my midwestern roots and made my dad's classic chicken breast in cream of mushroom sauce over rice. and it was amazing.
5. a few months ago maura asked how much we paid for our trash service because she wanted to know that she got a good deal on her company (one of their neighbors had recommended it when they moved in). her company charges $45/quarter for trash + $5/quarter for recycling, whereas we pay $45/quarter for trash and $12/quarter for recycling. turns out, though, that her company doesn't charge any extra service fees, fuel surcharges, or taxes on top of that rate whereas mine does. in the end, we were paying $77/month (they just increased the rate this summer) while they were paying $50/month for the same thing from a locally owned company. switching's been on my to-do list for the past few weeks, and i finally got around to it this week. $108/year savings, here we come!
1. no, we haven't started any work on the nursery yet, but it's all decor related, so it won't be too bad. we painted that room yellow when we moved in so that it'd be ready to go whether we had a boy or a girl and can be used as a nursery again without repainting if we have other other gender next time, so that's staying. i was planning to get a white crib and changing table so that i don't have to worry about matching wood stain colors and can buy a changing table via craigslist, and my mom and i covered the glider in dark brown fabric (no i haven't finished the ottoman yet, mom!) so we're good to go on that front.
the room already has nice white wood shelves on either side of the window, so we just need to touch those up and put the actual shelves back on (just the brackets are left on the wall, from when we painted over two years ago - whoops). so other than that, it's just getting the furniture, finding a few cute boy accents (which i already have visualized), and we're good to go! oh, and cleaning things like spare sheets, broken sewing machines, and christmas wrapping paper out of there. i think i might start working on that over our long thanksgiving weekend.
2. as regards our mouse travails ... well, we're still in progress with that. we've been setting up traps and poison like crazy and were getting ready to declare victory over the mice when scott saw one scamper under the dishwasher last week. bummer. i googled mice and dishwashers and found this blog detailing mice coming in from a sewer pipe behind the dishwasher, eating plastic piping, water leaking, and ultimately having to replace the dishwasher ... aaah! i had this image in my mind every time we ran the dishwasher last week, but come saturday, we decided it was full on cleaning and war-against-the-mice day. we can't pull out our dishwasher because we had our wood flooring installed in front of it, but thankfully scott put his engineering degree to work and figured out how to remove the bottom faceplate from the thing so we could see what was going on ... and breathed a sigh of relief. no mouse droppings or nests, no chewed pipes, no mouse-holes gnawed into the cabinets back there.
we did find mouse holes on the cabinets behind the stove, so we threw some poison packs back there and jammed up the holes with steel wool (which they allegedly won't chew through). scott put steel wool under all of the floating walls in our laundry room downstairs, we sterilized our whole kitchen, and now we're just waiting to see if any mice continue to creep through. i think we've killed maybe 10 or so mice over the past two months, but i'm semi-optimistic that we're nearing the end. fingers crossed.
3. scott was finally able to feel matson move the other night! admittedly, i had had both soda and ice cream with dinner, so the kid was quite literally bouncing off the walls, but it was really fun getting to share that. i've been able to feel matson move for the past probably 4-5 weeks, and it's neat to feel him getting stronger and more active (or maybe just bigger so there isn't as much space to absorb his movements!) - at first i would maybe feel him move once a day at the most, but now it's pretty frequently throughout each day. also fun is when matson curls up on one side toward the front of my stomach - i'll poke my belly and one side is rock hard, the other is soft and normal.
4. i had a craving for corn dogs yesterday, but couldn't justify having corn dogs for dinner. (maybe this weekend. :)) in trying to talk myself out of it, i decided that rice sounded really really good ... so i went back to my midwestern roots and made my dad's classic chicken breast in cream of mushroom sauce over rice. and it was amazing.
5. a few months ago maura asked how much we paid for our trash service because she wanted to know that she got a good deal on her company (one of their neighbors had recommended it when they moved in). her company charges $45/quarter for trash + $5/quarter for recycling, whereas we pay $45/quarter for trash and $12/quarter for recycling. turns out, though, that her company doesn't charge any extra service fees, fuel surcharges, or taxes on top of that rate whereas mine does. in the end, we were paying $77/month (they just increased the rate this summer) while they were paying $50/month for the same thing from a locally owned company. switching's been on my to-do list for the past few weeks, and i finally got around to it this week. $108/year savings, here we come!
food
i cooked dinner tonight! a real dinner! considering my history of loving to cook, you may be asking why this is so exciting? because i've been an awful cook since i got pregnant. (awful in the sense of having the energy and making the effort to cook, not as in making awful food.) most of the stuff i've made has been things like pasta or chicken legs, and i've probably cooked fewer than 20 times in the last three and a half months. yikes. (we've filled in with a lot of cheesy crisp, eggs, and frozen chicken nuggets in there.)
once you get out of the habit of cooking, it's so easy to stay out of the habit. i don't think about cooking, so i don't think about menu planning or grocery shopping, so i don't grocery shop, and then even if i want to cook something real, i have to go to the grocery before i can make anything, which means that it's easier just to heat up some chicken nuggets for dinner. if i take the time to think about what i'll want to cook and what nights we'll need to cook, though, and make sure that i have cookable real food in the house, i get to cook and remember that i enjoy cooking!
not to mention, tonight's meal does double duty, which is awesome. i made spicy honey brushed chicken thighs (which is one of my fallback easy, quick, tasty healthy-ish foods), steamed broccoli, blueberry muffins, and fresh pineapple and strawberries. all quite yummy. and then for tomorrow night, we'd signed up to bring dinner to some friends with a new baby, so i'll chop up the leftover chicken thighs, layer with rice, black beans, avocado, and chopped tomato and lettuce, and voila - burrito bowls! speaking of, i need to go get my rice going.
once you get out of the habit of cooking, it's so easy to stay out of the habit. i don't think about cooking, so i don't think about menu planning or grocery shopping, so i don't grocery shop, and then even if i want to cook something real, i have to go to the grocery before i can make anything, which means that it's easier just to heat up some chicken nuggets for dinner. if i take the time to think about what i'll want to cook and what nights we'll need to cook, though, and make sure that i have cookable real food in the house, i get to cook and remember that i enjoy cooking!
not to mention, tonight's meal does double duty, which is awesome. i made spicy honey brushed chicken thighs (which is one of my fallback easy, quick, tasty healthy-ish foods), steamed broccoli, blueberry muffins, and fresh pineapple and strawberries. all quite yummy. and then for tomorrow night, we'd signed up to bring dinner to some friends with a new baby, so i'll chop up the leftover chicken thighs, layer with rice, black beans, avocado, and chopped tomato and lettuce, and voila - burrito bowls! speaking of, i need to go get my rice going.
baby on board
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labels:
pregnancy
so by now clearly everyone who reads this realizes that i am pregnant - yay! i think i scaled back on the blogging after i found out we were expecting because we didn't want the whole world to know yet, but that's what was primarily on my mind ... in the process, i got out of the habit of writing. anyway, fun facts for faithful blog readers:
- i am due march 22 according to my doctor (march 28 according to me ... i know due dates don't really mean much, but i like to have appropriate expectations), which puts me at 16 weeks 2 days according to dr and 15 weeks 3 days according to me.
- i am kind-of-sort-of starting to show. when i wear jeans, it's currently at the point where i look like i need to work out and/or like i just had thanksgiving dinner, which i find annoying. if i wear a tshirt and yoga pants (ie, more fitted clothes), you can see my bump more clearly. it's still not huge, though, and i don't think anyone would guess i'm pregnant just by looking at me.
- yes, i really am feeling good, i promise. i was fairly nauseous from maybe weeks 5/6 to 10/11, but by the end of week 10, it started fading away (pretty abruptly, actually). i am also perhaps more tired than usual, but that's harder to gauge since i've always enjoyed a good nap. i'm trying very hard to not get too hooked on a daily dose of caffeine, less because i'm pregnant (you're still allowed up to two cups of coffee a day, i think, or a few sodas?), more because i have never really done daily caffeine and don't like the idea of being reliant on it to get through the day.
- in the last few weeks, i've gotten super excited about the whole pregnancy experience. we were trying to get pregnant, so this was very much a wanted thing, but feeling sicky and not many people knowing that we were pregnant kind of put a crimp in the fun of it. now that i'm feeling good and everyone's in this with us, though, it's awesome! i'm having a great time researching things like cribs and strollers and enjoying poking my belly to feel where pinto's hanging out.
- baby's pre-name is pinto. we felt like we wanted a name to call him/her before we know the gender so that we're not walking around calling our child "it" all the time - i suggested "bean", since babies kind of look like a bean at first, but scott thought that was too generic. he said we should specify the type of bean, and we landed on "pinto".
- yes, we will be finding out the gender. i love planning way too much to not find out! plus, as i said, i am all about expectations. scott's discovered that even if he wants to surprise me with something, i'd much rather know to expect a surprise on say, friday afternoon, than to just have it come out of the blue. with finding out at 20 weeks, i can have 20 more weeks of excitedness that i'll can look forward to having a son or a daughter ... and plan appropriately. :)
- i really like my doctor. i just had my 16 week checkup with her this morning and think she's fabulous. we've been leaning toward doing a natural labor/delivery (by which i primarily mean no epidural) and i wanted to get her input on that. apparently she did both of her own labors without pain meds and said that she and the rest of the practice fully supports women who choose that route, and also highly recommended getting a doula (which was another question i had) and said that she thinks very highly of the hospital's doula staff. she also said that they are the most midwifey practice of doctors you could find, which i think is awesome.
- friends have given us a few baby things here and there - scott's aunt sent us a baby sweatshirt from our alma mater, another friend gave us a cute onesie set, and some friends last weekend gave us a super cute elephant toy that clips onto the carseat. my first official baby project is coming up this weekend, though, when my parents will be out here - my mom's going to help me recover the cushions on the glider rocker that i got on craigslist last year! i'm excited. i've been wanting to do it ever since i bought the thing, but just can't commit to a fabric on my own or conceptualize what the process will look like, so i'm glad that she'll be here to help.
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