Sunday, April 30, 2006

Weekend Update

Sitting around all weekend is dull. I was allowed out for lunch yesterday, followed by a trip to the bookstore to get some books for my period of house arrest. Plans for grocery shopping after the bookstore were scuttled when I didn't want to browse the bookstore due to being winded.

Today was much better; we accomplished grocery shopping and J&T came over for dinner and a game, which was much better than more TV viewing, even if it is TiVo. We are now caught up on our TiVo backlog and my breathing has improved significantly.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Calls from the ER

The doctor who saw me in the ER Wednesday called to ask how I was doing. I can count on one hand the number of times a doctor has ever called me at home to follow up, let alone an ER doctor.

I told him that I'd gone in for my follow up at the birth center and what my midwife said (which he laughed and said was good advice) and that the inhaler seemed to be helping the most so far. He told me to watch for excessive heart palpitations (110-120 bpm) since sometimes an inflammation of tissues around the heart can develop during pregnancy, but he said he would expect me to be short of breath more than wheezing if that was happening. But that I should be aware and if that happened to come back to the ER.

But I was just amazed that he called to follow up. How's that for an ER experience?

Friday, April 28, 2006

"You're not working today, are you?"

I met with the lovely Sarah this afternoon, and told her the story of the urgent care center that made me cry (which will just have to wait until I get my complaint letter together). She checked me over and said, "You are wheezing just talking to me, do you hear that?" I said yes.

"You're not working today, are you?" she asked.

"Well, just from home," I said. I don't think she was buying it.

Sarah then instructed me to take it easy, be aware of my breathing, stay home this weekend instead of running all over, don't clean, don't shop, and to basically sit on the couch and watch movies.

This is not my typical weekend but I called the Boy to update him on Sarah's advice. Then I did good by not stopping by the Whole Foods on the way home as I had previously planned to pick up a couple things. So now I just need to be a coach potato.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Scenes from the ER

I spent most of yesterday in the ER on the advice of my midwife after I finally called her and told her about my wheezing. My wonderful friend Miss J picked me up and sat with me for 6+ hours in the waiting room, which was greatly appreciated since there were many interesting people in the ER yesterday and she's great at talking to everyone. I checked in at 2:30 PM and was discharged at 10:15 PM.

My vitals showed slightly low O2 levels and slightly elevated blood pressure and pulse rates. I was diagnosed with acute bronchitis and possible but unlikely asthma and sent home with an inhaler and antibiotics. I have a follow-up appointment at the birth center tomorrow at 11:45 AM.

There was just too much to describe, but I thought I'd attempt to give some idea of the flavor of this epic. I was in a locked room for the most exciting thing that happened, a guy going into a seizure and his girlfriend going wacko-screaming-crazy in the waiting room, so you'll have to settle for my boring first-hand experiences.

Vignette #1: Kim and Julie's Coat Check Service
Miss J and I became the coat check service for the ER waiting room yesterday.
  • A large disheveled man who smelled of stale alcohol sweat handed me a large clear plastic bag that wrapped a package of grocery store cornbread. "Can you watch that for me? I have to go out for ten minutes. Don't let anyone take that. I need that to eat after my surgery." I place the cornbread gingerly on the seat next to me. He did return later to retrieve his cornbread. "Someone just gave that to me!" he said. He was thrilled.
  • The woman next to us who heard voices rolled a cigarette (have you ever seen someone roll a cigarette in the ER?) and then said, "If you hear them call me, then tell them I'm outside smoking. Pauline D."
  • Coleman C., the nice 57-year-old former Marine with a bullet in his back from a drive-by shooting last week and a daughter at Penn State, also asked us periodically to watch his stuff and listen for his name.
Nobody's name was called while they were out.

Vignette #2: The Return of Cornbread Man
Mistah C arrived at the ER after work (7:30-8PM-ish) and he brought food. We still had not seen a doctor. Not long after his arrival, we were ushered from the waiting room to a second waiting room which would apparently fast-track us for treatment (since we'd been there for at least six hours at that point, fast is relative). Julie and I regaled Mistah C with stories of the people we'd met, including Cornbread Man. Every time we heard a man speaking too loudly in the hallway, we peeked to see if it was him, but it was not. When Mistah C and I went to the 24-hour pharmacy across from the hospital to get my scrips filled, who was waiting in line before me but Cornbread Man. He waved at me. I waved back at him and said, "Where's your cornbread?" They were keeping it at the front desk so it didn't look like he was shoplifting. No word on his surgery.

Vignette #3: Billy the EMT-in-Training
Billy was probably the funniest thing that happened all evening and bless your heart if you find this, Billy, but it looked like your first day. Once I had finally been taken to a bed in a room with only one other patient, a nurse came in and took my vitals with one of those automated machines. My blood pressure and pulse were back down and my O2 levels were up to 99-98% (probably as a result of the albuterol they gave me in the waiting room). She left and not long after an EMT came in and introduced Billy, an intern EMT who is doing his rounds in ER. He was going to do take my vitals, a history, and listen to my lungs. I had a moment of slight panic where I wasn't about to allow Billy to diagnose me, but that was beyond Billy. The EMT told C and J to give Billy a hard time.

Billy gave himself a hard enough time. He started the standard questionnaire. I told him I was 26 weeks pregnant and he was both surprised and not sure where to write that on the form. At one point, he asked me to rate the pain and I said there wasn't any real pain but just a tightness in my chest when I took a breath. He gave me a 1-10 scale and I picked 1. Then he showed me the form and asked me to pick one of the series of smiley faces to express how I felt, from very smiley to very frowny with tears. This made us all laugh. I picked not super smiley but still smiling.

Then Billy said he'd take my pulse, and I noticed he was kneeling on the floor instead of using the rolling doctor stool. "Would you like to sit down?" I asked, and yeah, he would. He had to find the stopwatch function on his cell phone to get a timer since there were no clocks. Then he had to find my pulse. This took a really long time. Billy then tried to take my blood pressure but couldn't get the cuff to work. "Are they hazing you?" I asked, wondering at this point if they were hazing me. He went and found another cuff. He was reluctant to tighten it up and rated my blood pressure as 130 over 90, which is just off-the-chart high for me. I can't remember what happened, but he did something halfway through that was just ridiculous and we all burst out laughing, so maybe laughing skews your BP.

Back to the questionnaire: What was my complaint? Did I walk in here myself? All the standard questions. Then Billy started asking me the questions I don't think the medical personnel are supposed to ask in their outside voices. "Are you cooperative? Confused? Aware? Will you hurt yourself or try to take your life if left alone? Are you frustrated or angry enough to injure yourself or others while waiting to see a doctor?"

You all think I am making that last question up but poor earnest Billy asked that and my two friends were there as witnesses.

"Well, let me put it this way," I said to dear, sweet Billy, who is learning a profession that is very necessary for society and I would never want to do, "I have been in that waiting room for at least six hours so far, and if I haven't hurt or killed anyone so far, odds are pretty good I can hold out a little longer."

Billy asked at the end of all this, "Is there anything else you would like to tell me about?" This is when Mister C said, "Well, if you were Cameron, you would ask if she had a dog or had just traveled out of the country or something." The poor EMT-trainee had never seen House, which is probably good. But this threw him off. He was relieved that C was talking about imaginary people on TV.

Billy's opinions had no bearing on my diagnosis or treatment, so it was just a charming diversion while we waited. Good luck with the rest of the residency, Billy - you will be a great EMT someday!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Slightly wheezy

Between seeing the ILs off and catching up on work, I did not call the midwives today. I will be calling them tomorrow. I'm going to bed now before 10PM which is super and feels like the first time in a week I've done that.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Wheezy like the Jeffersons Again

Today I worked while my husband and his ILs went out to tour the world. It's almost 6 now and they're not back yet, so I'm starting to wonder where they are. (They have since arrived. They spent the whole day at the Midway, apparently.)

I worked today and went to the eye doctor. The eye doctor was much better than the regular doctor. The eye doctor treated me like an intelligent person, talked charmingly about her four children, and is allowing me to bring a friend back to their office to check out new frames for my glasses. (If anyone has suggestions for frame size/shape/color, I'd love to hear them. I hate picking out frames.)

I got chastized by Miss Julie for wheezing, which I really hadn't noticed but it is true that I am wheezing. Part of it is that I pace around the house like a madwoman on the phone, part of it might be allergies, and part of it might be pregnancy. I'm going to call the midwives tomorrow if I'm still wheezing to see if there's such a thing as pregnancy-induced asthma.

For most of the walking we've done this weekend, the kid kicks and thrashes with a vengeance once the walking stops. Today has been a settling-down day for the kid where three minutes of sitting does not equal an immediate thrashing. I realized this weekend that I can tell the difference between a turning or somersaulting and kicking/punching. Weird.

Other than that, not much news. I am tired.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

We have a car seat!

My ILs are in town, which means no time for blogging, but since my husband is now taking my FIL on a tour of San Diego's sources for tar removal solvents since his walk on the beaches of La Jolla this afternoon turned sticky, I have time to update the blog to say that yes, we did buy a car seat.

We bought a Graco Safe Seat in Fusion. We were in hot debate over the Safe Seat (which has greater height/weight limits but no Consumer Reports crash test results) or the Graco SnugRide (which has lower H/W limits but excellent Consumer Reports test results). The Safe Seat won out over the SnugRide because Mistah C is a ginormous person who was 30 pounds at one year of age and as such we're expecting this kid to be on the bigger end of the scale. We had a choice of black/red/gray and gray/blue and we picked gray/blue.

Anyway, we are officially baby product consumers now. Thanks go to my ILs, whose great and recent experience with car seats which made the shopping experience more balanced.

Also, if you can get to a baby store that offers a faux car back seat in the store to try and install the demo seats on, it is worth it, even if you have to tell people to stop touching the seat and helping you so you can actually try it yourself. Plus you might run into someone in the store with a baby in the same exact seat and you can ask them about it.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Bradley Class #4: The Coach's Role

Last night's class, friends, was a disappointment. It was a mild train wreck of a lack of linear thought meeting the indefatigable power of a pair of three-year-olds.

We were having a "show and tell" class on top of the regular class: mom with a month old brand new baby, plus her coach (her mom), plus her three-year-old son. Then we had another new couple who were there not for class but to meet other parents because they were new to this area. They also had a three-year-old son. Two three-year-old boys playing together have a lot of energy, and these were extremely verbal three-year-old boys.

Add to this our instructor who is not the most linear thinker in the world, as sweet as she may be and as much as she may know, and you had an hour that was pretty darn incomprehensible, at least to me. I know it was an hour because this is the first time I've turned to Mistah C during class and asked, "What time is it?" That's generally my barometer of whether or not I'm having a good time (waiting for appointments while chatting with friends notwithstanding).

The mother talked about her births. Our instructor prompted her to start with the first one, but she got a little into that and realized that she couldn't remember all the details, at which point her own mother said, "Talk about New Baby; he's newer." While this is going on, the three-year-olds have discovered that they can bang the toys in the doctor's office against the toys, the walls, and the floor. The parents of the second boy are trying to shush them; Grandma of the speaker's son is trying to convince him to come over and tell his part of the story. He doesn't want to. He's got toys and another boy. At some point, the kids began throwing the toys, and that's when our instructor decided to try and occupy them, but there's honestly only so much muzzling you can do to a three-year-old. We watched a birth movie while the kids were still there, one with a woman with a large supportive family there for everything; more on that later.

I know it's a birth class. I know I'm getting one. I just don't know that it was worth my time to witness that.

When the new mom finished speaking, she asked if we had any questions. The woman of the other new couple spoke up with a comment on her own personal birth. The only question I could think of was, "Where is your babies' daddy?" but since that is so obviously rude and was for my own personal curiosity more than any educational purpose, I didn't ask it. Nobody had questions. I had a hard time following her narrative over the din, so I didn't have enough details to work with.

Then we got to actual class material. The birth movie was hard to follow because of the talking of the three-year-olds, but the plot of these things is always the same, thank God. The woman had an entourage of people - sisters, two kids, sisters-in-law, and her mom and dad, plus hubby all rubbing her and talking in soothing voices to her. In the car on the way home, I said to Mistah C, "I would be looking for a bat with all those people talking to me and touching me while I was in labor." He told me I wouldn't be putting up with lots of people talking at the same time now.

Grandpa in the movie was distinctly there against his will. They had a quote of him after the birth saying: "I've never seen a birth before. I will never forget it." This is a smart guy. He didn't want to say, ew ew ew I didn't ever want to see my daughter's hootch ever again, particularly with a baby's head sticking out of it, but he managed to come up with a line that his daughter could get teary-eyed and nostalgic about when the movie is played but that his friends at the bar will never be able to fault him for saying if they ever hear about it. The birthing mom admitted during the post-birth debrief that she had manipulated her parents into staying, and I thought that was pretty crappy. It's like Bridezillas who force their bridesmaids into blush and bashful dresses because that's what they've always dreamed of, and it's my my my my day. Are there Laborzillas? Momzillas?

Anyway, after the kids had left, we started going through the questions in the workbook. I know I was already annoyed. I'd been up since dawn loading stuff, work is sucking wind again this week, my teeth were adjusted which always gives me some residual pain, and my in-laws were (are) about to arrive which put me in a position of last minute picker-upper and toilet-cleaner with the way our day turned out.

But the questions annoyed me. Questions like, "What strengths do you bring to pregnancy and labor?" Then we're going to go around the room and state strengths. You know what? If you're stupid enough to have gotten this far throughout your life and embarked on bringing up a human being without figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses are and what your spouse's strengths and weaknesses are, I don't want to know about it because you scare the living crap out of me. I don't think you're going to get it from the "suggested answers" in the workbook.

The other part of this that annoyed me is that this is not something I think should be asked in a class after "What are some drugs given in labor that can cut off feeling?" That's heavy stuff. I love my dear husband; I really do. He's the air I breathe and my sanity and my sense of humor. I can't imagine life without him; I can't imagine being sane during this pregnancy - as easy going as it has been - without him. I can tell when I haven't spent as much time with him as I should because my temper gets short and my sense of humor vanishes into thin air. I can only imagine that labor without him would be twice as difficult.

There is absolutely no way to distill that into a ten-word "Strength" answer for birth class.

This was the contrary class for me. The one person who has given birth before said she got "very vocal" during pushing and wanted to know why none of the women in the video had been verbal. Jan said they just weren't. I asked, "Why not?" Jan didn't know and didn't speculate.

Jan also mentioned that some women get PTSD from a bad birth experience. PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, although I don't know if it's a disorder or a syndrome right now according to the DSM) is something I know a lot about, and I have read that some women who have had C-sections largely against their consent have had PTSD. It was introduced pretty lightly for how serious PTSD is. "How traumatic would a birth have to be for you to get PTSD?" I asked. Jan went into a segue about prior sexual abuse and the issues that birth may bring up for some women, which was muted and not very informative. I realize this is a hot button of mine, but it drives me nuts when people with limited knowledge of mental disorders start talking about them in an educational way. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and, in my case, an infuriating thing.

My in-laws are officially on the ground; my workplace is officially running behind, and as such I think lunch will be happening soon.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Moving, Part Deux

The Boy and I left our cozy little place at dawn this morning to pick up a Penske truck to drive to Chula Vista and pick up all the stuff from our storage container. (I must be more pregnant looking because a woman in the office made a point of telling me where their bathroom was. No, I did not ask or do the pee-pee dance to prompt the advice.) Everything went smoothly; the contents were undamaged in transit and our notoriously irksome neighbor did not show his loathsome mug for the 15 minutes the truck was parked in our outrageously difficult driveway. (His car was parked on the street in the cul-de-sac anyway, we knew.)

We dropped off the truck and the nice manager of the local Penske not only added my AAA discount after we'd signed the contract, but he gave us half off the daily rate since we'd only had the truck out for a couple hours. It was the fastest move ever, and the people at Penske are super, so if you need a truck rental, go with them.

We dragged the box spring upstairs and put it on our IKEA bedframe, at which point we laughed and laughed because the bed is now ridiculously high. Then I drove like a maniac to my orthodontist, who told me I'm two visits away from being braces-free, glory be. Now I'm home and all I have to do is work and clean and figure out when to go shopping before we go to birth class tonight (#4, the Coach's role) so that we can get to sleep at a decent hour before my in-laws show up tomorrow morning.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Maternity Clothes

We had a huge meal for Easter, most of which I did nothing to cook and nothing to clean up from afterwards. I must say, if you can get your friends to show up with delicious food in tow, it's a coup. We had ham and pierogies and Parker House rolls, which were notable in that they were the correct size and not the tiny 1-inch kind we had at Thanksgiving.

Saturday we went to the outlets in Carlsbad in search of yoga pants. We ended up in a maternity clothing outlet that I don't want to give any press to, largely because I suspect they're going to put me on a mailing list even when I specifically stated that I did not want to be on any mailing lists (I gave them an incorrect name to see). Also, their return policy (store credit only, no exchanges on sales items) sucks but I was so desperate for pants that fit that I didn't care.

I did find two pairs of yoga pants, one slightly too long and one just right (probably meant to be crops or capris on a normal person), so we'll see if they survive the washing machine. I also got a wrap-style tank top to wear to class, so hopefully I won't feel quite so much like an ogre next yoga class.

Cute petite maternity clothes are hard to find. I am not a pastel person. I am not a flowery-lacey person. I love dresses, but not ones that look like an English sofa threw up on me. I think I'm going to have to scout more consignment stores around here for cute, sexy tops. Otherwise, it'll be me in my Old Navy tees from here until B-day.

Friday, April 14, 2006

It's raining. Maybe that's why I'm down on shopping.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm having a hard time finding non-ugly petite maternity clothes.

We are currently underwhelmed by the prospect of shopping for the kid. It's come up now because we're in month six and month six was the mythical line in the sand we'd set for ourselves to start the process of acquiring all the things we need to have a baby. Now that it's here, I'm still not excited.

Going to a baby superstore just makes me feel icky. At some point after the confirmation, we went to a certain very well known superstore to check things out. The sheer volume of things for sale was astounding. We ran. We ignored shopping until month six, and now, here we are.

I don't know why I thought the passage of time would make me feel more cheerful about the outbreak of consumerism in this country.

We've been asked about registering for stuff, and it just seems like registering for paper towels or milk. I would rather be surprised by the kindness and ingenuity of people.

The most extensively detailed list I have right now is the list of books that our child must be exposed to, and past that, I'm just not attached to the stuff. Stuff doesn't make good parents. Once the kid is here and has interests and I can find stuff that meets those interests, then I'll be excited (as I am now when I find the perfect gift for someone), but for right now, it's just stuff.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Maybe you should wear something larger, like Wyoming.

My friend Miss J has possibly hit upon the source of my belly envy. She claims that after checking out the other women in our birth class, she realized why I look small-bellied: it's the breasts. Yes, the same breasts that are muddying my cute yoga cami shopping waters are apparently minimizing my belly size. I am reminded of Steve Martin in Roxanne saying, "You could always accessorize with something larger to de-emphasize your nose, like Wyoming." She has urged me to look at the hip-to-belly size ratio next class, so I will do that. It's all very What Not to Wear.

Everything's A-OK

This is pretty dull, but our prenatal visit this morning went well. They had the extended dance mix urine test strips in the bathroom this morning, so I found out I have normal urine across some 18 categories instead of the normal two glucose and protein tests (and the pH of my urine was 7). I've gained a couple pounds in the last month and my fundal height is dead-on exact for 25 weeks. The midwife says (again) not to worry about not gaining 18-25 pounds since I'm not vomiting or unable to eat.

They gave me a bottle of glucola to take for my glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes four weeks from now. It's orange-colored and I don't have to drink the whole 100 mL bottle, just half. If that test spikes, I have to have another test. I will be taking a protein-heavy snack to eat right after they take my blood.

After the next visit, I'll be on the two-week appointment schedule instead of four weeks, wow! That's come up faster than I thought it would.

General Tao's Chicken

The Canton Palace in Loveland, CO, makes the best General Tao's Chicken ever. I met The Boy at the airport with a cooler to put his precious cargo into. We ate it for dinner last night with sticky rice. I was just happy, the Boy's back and I'm eating chicken.

The proprietess called to congratulate me on the pregnancy and give me parenting advice, the best of which was don't let the kid have a choice of food. Never ask a little kid, "What do you want, honey?" You're the boss and you tell them they're eating what you're eating. She has great kids and this makes sense to me, so I'm inclined to try and remember that.

There's enough left for me to have General Tao's Chicken today for lunch and maybe tonight for dinner. I'm so thrilled.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Birth Class #3: What Does Pregnancy Do (Besides Producing Babies)?

Yesterday was just an odd day. Mistah C headed to Colorado as previously announced, so I ended up getting my lovely friend Miss J to go to birth class with me so I wouldn't look like an abandoned wife. Miss J is usually up for most things and she offered to take scrupulous notes for The Boy so he would not be behind in classwork (I will use these notes to recount the class).

First of all, we got our diet tracking sheets back. I was expecting a lecture on the evils of Pop Tarts and Cadbury cream eggs, but instead Jan wrote a lovely card thanking us for tracking our foods (us nothing, snort), listing all the good foods she saw that we were eating to help the baby and make the uterus strong. Since I was expecting a little bit of a scolding, it was a sweet surprise.

We met Latia, who is a doula-in-training. She told us the story of her home birth, which was very quick and sounded great. She was a L&D (that's labor and delivery) nurse in a hospital which is when she decided she didn't want to give birth in a hospital. I found her story reassuring and normal-sounding (well, not normal in how fast she gave birth, but normal in how normal the process of birth is). I would have liked a Q&A session here, but I thought it would be rude to ask questions about something personal like birth when questions were not invited, even in a birth class, even with a doula-in-training.

We went over pregnancy vocabulary, including hyperventilation and fetoscope. They talked about babies being born with the "bag of waters" still intact, which is what I believe I would call a caul. Babies born with a caul are supposed to be gifted, either just plain lucky or have second sight. If we have a kid with a caul, I will spend time periodically thinking, "Can you hear me? HEY!" to see if the kid jumps. Maybe teaching the kid to buy lottery tickets and gamble if s/he never responds to telepathic thoughts or sees dead people.

There was a section on "issues with pregnancy" which nobody seemed to be having. Everyone else seems to be having Braxton-Hicks contractions, but I haven't had any yet. Now I can have contraction envy in addition to belly envy.

The doula in training said the C-section rate in San Diego is currently 31%. Nationwide last year, it was 29%, according to Jan. Those are scary numbers.

We watched two movies: Gestation: the First Days of Life and Natural Squatting Birth. The second one was a birth movie where the five-year-old sister of the baby being born attended, which was highly amusing because she made comments like, "Gross!" and "Why is he all bloody?" and "Can Mommy feel anything?" while the baby's head was crowning. "Yes, she can feel that," Daddy says while Mom grimaces her way through crowning.

In between the movies, we did a relaxation exercise in which Miss J rubbed my back like nobody's business (note: if it's relaxation time, the horror porn can't be too far behind). At some point (after the second movie, I'm guessing by the notes), we also did some ice breaker type things where we all lined up by name, zip code, due date, etc. Miss J took notes which I will find so helpful when I try to remember the names of the new people in class.

Miss J said she really enjoyed the class. The people in our class are really great, which helps. I was worried that it would be horribly dull to someone not currently gestating, but I was really glad she went. I see by the notes that next week we are having a show and tell, otherwise known as a baby and birth story from previous Bradley Class students. Next week's also about the coach's role, so that should be interesting.

When we got home, the Boy called to say that all tasks in Colorado had been accomplished and things were going well, so that made it a lot easier to deal with the fact that he wasn't here.

It's good that I didn't get a lecture on Pop Tarts, because I woke up this morning to make my own breakfast (usually the Boy makes us breakfast in the morning) and there was no bread for toast and no milk, so I had Pop Tarts and a yogurt smoothie with one of my horse-size vitamin pills and felt just fine about that, thank you. Otherwise, I would have been eating leftover penne with vodka sauce or leftover sirloin stirfry.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

20 Hours in Colorado

Wrists are getting significantly better, due to the fact that our website sucks more than a vacuum cleaner factory so I can't be mousing all day loading pages into it. I don't know what's going to happen when the go-live date happens, but I'm guessing that'll just suck too.

The Mistah is experiencing 20 hours in Colorado, packing up the last of our belongings there and with Mr. "Saves Our Bacon Yet Again" Bump, having them shipped to sunny San Diego. Sniff. I've tasked him with bringing home my favorite Chinese food (see, the kid just whacked me, as if to say, "Don't think about Chinese food when I know we're having mac and cheese for lunch").

I got up at 5am this morning (well, woke at 4:30) to get him to the airport on time, and now I'm tired. I can't even take caffeine since I went to my maximum limit of two cups of tea (and there's something odd about caffeinating myself to stay awake for birth class). I can't complain since I'm not the person who has to lift a box spring this afternoon.

While I'm thinking about it, I'm going to go move the alarm to a more reasonable time than 5am.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Yoga kicked my butt

My butt is sore today. That means I did yoga. I'm sore in different places than when I do the prenatal yoga DVD, so that's good.

Yesterday morning I went to prenatal yoga. This was sadly my first class although I've had the gift certificate for months (sickness, then cleaning, then visitors, then lack of parking...). I'm at 24 weeks and I've got 8 weeks of class, so I think that should work out very well.

The instructor was friendly and took note of my bad wrists by offering me alternate positions throughout class as well as coming over and showing me how to take weight off my hands in certain postures. I came with my own blocks and strap and mat, but all those things and thick blankets were provided. I found her instructions relatively easy to follow and the series of positions themselves good. [The other people in class were quite jealous of my gift certificate.] I still have extremely open (that's flexible and without tension for non-yoga types) hips, which is good from a yoga point of view (and a birth point of view).

I can't do a tree pose. This is where you stand on one foot, hold the other foot high against the inside of your thigh, and put your arms either folded over your heart or spread out. I was the only one who couldn't do it and it made me feel like an inept little fat girl, but I calmly just put my hands over my heart in mountain pose (standing with two feet on the ground) and breathed. The instructor was savvy enough to tell me I could lean against the wall for balance, but there was still an element of "I want to crawl away and hide," fighting against my yoga-centered, "I am embracing me with all my flaws and getting embarrassed over a thirty-second pose is anti-yoga."

Besides, if I could do tree pose and didn't have open hips, I'd probably be worse off for birth than having open hips and not being able to do tree pose. Everyone uses their hips to give birth, but even with all the reading I've been doing, I've never heard of someone delivering a baby standing on one foot. I'll have to ask my midwife this week.

Other problem: fashion. [Boys, this is probably a little too much information for you, even if it is about breasts.] The other people in class have these cute little maternity yoga camis and yoga pants, and I have huge breasts right now that will not be tamed by the cute maternity cami shelf bra. I can't wear a shelf bra normally. Pregnancy has added two (and I'm suspecting recently three) cup sizes to my already ample charms. When your cup size runs beyond letters used in passing report cards, it makes the cute maternity cami impossible and bra shopping in general quite difficult. I have workout maternity clothing angst.

The kid slept through most of yoga and woke up distinctly when a fire engine with sirens wailing went down the street outside: nothing, kick kick kick kick KICK. I put my hand on the kid and thought, "Calm down, it's just a fire truck, you're fine," (which is exactly what I would tell one of our cats who was similarly agitated) and the kicking subsided. Coincidence or mother-baby mind link? I've been reading about babies in the womb who seem to react to their mother's thoughts, the most clear example being babies of smoking moms who get agitated when their moms think about having a cigarette, so it's possible the kid understood me. The kid doesn't always stop kicking now when I put a hand on it, so there's something going on there.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Musing on mousing

Last night I woke up with intense pain in my right arm. This happens when I've been mousing for long periods of time, and I pretty much just used the mouse for 9 hours yesterday with the stupid website file loading debacle. I took a Tylenol, that's how bad it was, and I hate taking anything when I'm pregnant. I really do. I've been trying to give it a rest but I'm right-handed. Estimated pillow count for sleeping this evening: six.

After errands this morning, we ended up at home, me quilting (what a bad aunt) and the Mistah doing taxes. The fluffernutter came and sat in my folded-up, tailor-seated lap at some point and began purring. The kidlet began kicking at the cat, pretty darn hard.

Today's also the day where the Mistah asked me why I was holding my belly as we drove around. "I can feel the kid hitting my sides on the curves," I told him. "It's like sloshing pickles around in a jar." This is the first time the kid's been big enough to do that, so that's why it gets blogged. (The bridge to Coronado was beautiful today: clear, blue, breathtaking view.)

Friday, April 07, 2006

Please let's all remember that it's Friday.

It's been a week here. Work this week sucked - there was just nothing enjoyable about the week at all. Usually I have one little thing that I can say, "Whee, I did this," or "We figured out this," but since I am currently only halfway through uploading the 250 files to the work website that I am reloading because none of the files saved before when I uploaded them, I really have nothing to show for this week but higher blood pressure (which we all know is bad for pregnant ladies).

This has been the first week in a very long time (at least since we moved) that I can remember thinking that I needed to have an honest-to-God drink. And I'm pregnant, darnit. Plus I only drink hard liquor anyway. The most forgiving medical professionals will allow a glass of wine or so for celebration, but I'm sure a nice shot of Southern Comfort is completely out on the Brewer diet.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Toreador! Please don't grope me at the opera.

We went to see Carmen last night, since we were given tickets by friends who could not go due to a scheduling issue. They were really good seats, right on the edge of the upper loge. I haven't been to the opera since I was a teenager, and C had never been. It was just the thing to top off a day of high melodrama. [Thanks to J&T for the tickets and the advice that C not read the synopsis - I think he felt just the supertitling alone was too intrusive.]

The kid maintained a moderate level of activity throughout the performance, in decreasing order of activity: Act I, Act III, Act IV, Act II. [Act II was my least favorite too. The Gypsy dance should make you want to get up out of your chair; nothing really perked up until "Toreador" and that was because a wave of recognition went over the auditorium.] The movements were not quite as violent as they were during the last (bad) musical theater we saw, so hopefully that was approval.

I would also like to note my first "Oh my, you're pregnant," moment with a stranger. At the end of the second intermission, I needed to use the facilities and walk around a bit. As I was making my way down the stairs (which were not super steep but my balance has started to be a bit wonky so I was being cautious), there was an older woman who was leaning against the wall on the stairs. To be fair, throughout the night she seemed to be taking care of a much older woman and she looked at this moment like she was having a breather.

Mistah C (who had been walking on my left) steps ahead of me and down since there wasn't enough room for us to walk two abreast on the stairs with this woman leaning on the railing. I take my right hand off the railing, stepped to the left around the woman (which was not the most graceful movement with the balance issues in heels), and stepped carefully back towards the wall to my right. Once I pass in front of her, she has this panicked look of, "Oh, you're pregnant - and you're wobbly,"and makes a grab at my hand to steady me. Unfortunately, I am just stepping onto the next step down and she grabs my right breast instead.

"Oh, no thank you, that's very kind, I've got it," I say while she's grabbing at me, slip out of grasp and plod down the stairs. While on line for the restroom, the woman sees me and shrinks away, embarrassed. I tried to give her a benevolent smile, but my face might have been frozen into its "Will you be QUIET?" glare. (I do have a good look of death. Itchy woman with the loud pants behind me began a conversation with her neighbor during the start of the third act, and I turned around and glared so hard he stopped mid-sentence.) Honestly, she did mean well so I hope I did manage a forgiving smile at her.

So I apparently looked pregnant or klutzy or both. The poor woman.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Bradley Class #2: Are You Poisoning Your Baby with Pop Tarts?

I will have the verdict on my diet next week, although Jan said, "Not much green veggies, which is pretty normal." There two other women there last week are health food people; one of them told Jan that she only ate organic, free grazing, hormone-free beef and one of them asked for forgiveness for her slice of chocolate cake because "it was from Whole Foods." I fear my Pop Tart is going to come up pretty poorly in comparison, not to mention my Cadbury cream egg.

There was no horror porn in yesterday's class. We talked about nutrition; aside from the protein fixation, you know all this already: green and yellow veggies, fruit, milk, no junk, yadda yadda. I found the movie a little condescending and the characterization of soda, chips and candy as "death and disease" slightly over the top. But I also had a Cadbury cream egg, so I'm reckless. I might even serve this child a cookie someday.

One of the other women in class has been referred to a dietician due to her weight gain. She's due two weeks after me (I'm just about to roll 24 weeks) and she's gained 25 pounds, which the dietician claims might be too much. (She's the one who had one slice of chocolate cake.) She's just a tiny slip of a thing and she loves spinach - Jan was happy about her green veggie intake. (My God, is this how I'm-a-better-Mommy-than-you starts? With the veggies?) She looks fine. But even though her midwife said she was fine, she was looking for some assurance. As outspoken as I am, I just couldn't say, "Hey, I wish I had gained some weight." But she looks great, and as my midwife said, "Everything is normal." I hope she doesn't go to the dietician; he sounds like a fascist.

The portion of class normally reserved for horror porn was used to show us a placenta, an actual, honest-to-God placenta that came out of someone's womb a couple days ago. It was about the size of a dinner plate and a couple inches thick at the most with the umbilical cord still attached, slimy smooth and veiny on the kid side and rather like a chopped beef steak on the mother's. It was still bright red. The instructor gardens (which is one of the reasons why she had a placenta), but Jan thought we should see a placenta since we may be preoccupied with our babies at birth and less interested in the placenta. It was a little much for me, but I'm the one who looks away when Chase, Cameron, and Foreman are doing all the nasty procedures on House. Nobody wanted to touch it.

Tonight we are going to the opera. We'll see if the kid likes high culture more than bad musical theater.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Protein tracking

The Bradley Method is big on nutrition. This means eating enough amounts of the nutrients a growing baby needs, specifically protein (80-100g per week) without regard to weight gain or salt intake. This is based on the work of Dr. Brewer, who found that high protein diets for pregnant woman prevented pre-eclampsia and other nasties. I've had to track my diet for the last week as homework. I am not eating enough veggies (but I knew that), but I have protein covered in spades. Counts for the week are:

Wednesday: 110 g
Thursday: 93 g
Friday: 129 g
Saturday: 70.7 g
Sunday: 85 g
Monday: 101.5 g
Tuesday: (early estimate) 93 g

I'll let you know what my teacher thinks. This made me feel better about my lack of massive weight gain. I already had an unhealthy dose of padding due to my new job of sitting on my butt and not having to go anywhere. First month, I lost five pounds, most probably from my concerted efforts to "eat right" and my sudden aversion to fried food (after all, my first hint that I might be pregnant was eating In-n-Out and feeling sick). I didn't really make it back to my starting weight until the second trimester.

The last couple visits have been up a pound, down a pound. My midwife is not concerned by any of this (if I was vomiting or not eating, she would be). Most of the books say I should be packing on the pounds by now. I have read this week that some overweight women don't gain much due to the changes in diet and exercise, so I'm satisfied with that for right now. I haven't been consciously trying to gain or lose weight; keeping sushi and Brie out of my diet is enough trauma without eating rabbit food and ignoring chocolate.

Tired. Tired. Tired.

Not sleeping is bad. That's what I'm going to say right now. Discovering your antivirus software is out of date and taking three hours to troubleshoot all the spyware on your machine is also bad.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Statistics and weekend updates

The kid has gotten to the constantly active stage. No, that's inaccurate. The kid sleeps when I walk (or I can't tell if it is moving when I walk) but if I'm sitting for any period of time (drive in the car, eating breakfast, resting for a moment on the docent tour of the art museum) the kid bounces around. It actually got a little tiring Saturday morning when we were catching up on our TiVo from being constantly poked and jabbed.

It's gotten a little easier for Mistah Hoovah to feel the baby, but he still has to put his hands so low on me to feel it that I'm not comfortable inviting others to feel it yet. Once the kid's kicking somewhere higher than a bikini line, it'll be fine.

Other news: There's an article in the NY Times I read this morning about the prosecution of midwives in Indiana for attending home births, which had this interesting factoid: 99 percent of all births in this country are in hospitals. That's 99 freaking percent. Of those who deliver in hospitals, 8% are attended by midwives. What about the other 1%? Quoting the Times now: "Two-thirds of the remaining births are in homes, and the last third in freestanding birthing centers."

I feel as stunned as I felt when I heard that only 7% of people in this country with TV have TiVo or DVRs or the like. [This also came from the Times, and I don't know if it includes non-commercial solutions like D&L have or just subscribers to DVR/TiVo services.] It seems like most of the people I know have some form of DVR/TiVo, and it just boggles my mind that more people don't have a DVR. But then maybe we're moving in privileged circles.

3 of 4 couples in our birth class are giving birth at our freestanding birth center, and those are all the pregnant people we know right now. I know that from my research when we were still in Colorado, the nearest freestanding birth center was in Boulder, which was a good 45-minute drive from our house (and caused some minor speculative discussions about what driving to Boulder in labor would be like and what delivering in Hygiene, CO would be like since that is where our damn cars always broke down on the Boulder-Loveland drive). So maybe it's a question of access/availability of birth centers.

But maybe it's just the fear - all the 'what ifs' that Silverstein sung the praises of. Someone in a white coat says, "But you wouldn't want anything to happen to The Baby, would you?" and off you go. I'm not discounting hospitals for people who really need them - if you are high-risk and you need a neo-natal unit there ready to go, then get yourself to the hospital. But until someone tells me I'm high-risk, I'll be in the birth center with the people who just birth babies and will let me stay in one room from the time I check in until the time I go home, aren't interested quite so much in throughput/yield/scheduling, and don't have an OR in the next room.

One of my midwives told me at the last visit to enjoy pregnancy, and I've been thinking on that a lot. Early on, I thought there was something wrong because there was nothing wrong: a little nausea, but no puking; the work-then-nap-then-dinner-then-nap pattern of late November-December; no cravings; no gargantuan belly at this point. There's something messed up when I'm thinking there's something wrong because there's nothing wrong. It's been fun recently to have a little jostling presence to remind me, I'm here and boy, I am a mover and a shaker. Hopefully it'll continue to be fun.