Body Issues

I feel chatty today. Just a warning. I'm all over the place here.

Yesterday I went into a certain cheap clothing store to get some yoga pants. Not because I do yoga or anything, but because I like to wear sweatpants around the house. M thinks that sweatpants are gross and make me look like I’m letting myself go. We had a “rule” at our house that sweatpants could not be worn before 8 pm. That “rule” kind of faded with all of my exceptions (rain, dark, snow, pregnancy, post-pregnancy, periods, bad day, hungry, cold, etc). Now it is a joke because I come home from work and sometimes find him already in sweatpants. The yoga pants are a great compromise. My butt looks good and I’m comfy. We’re both happy!

While I was browsing, I saw that the jeans were only $19! Hooray! I spent a long time standing and deciding what shape and what size and what everything. It requires some real analysis of your own body right there in the front of the store. I thought critically about myself and my needs and then picked out two styles and headed back to try on. The fitting room lady told me that someone in the store could asses my jeans needs and tell me which type I need. I’m not cool with that. I picked my own, thanks.

This is where the post gets appropriate for a pregnancy blog.

I’m not really into diets or weight loss. I don’t usually obsess over my body shape. I’m pretty comfortable. But this weird no-woman’s land is getting me down. I don’t fit into any of my pants. I could do something about it, but I want to get pregnant soon (trying again this summer… we decided we didn’t want a winter baby). There’s no reason for me to bust my ass just to get fat all over again. I could buy new pants, but they would just be good for a few months before they (hopefully) wouldn’t fit right again. All of my work pants are too tight or too loose. I bought some jeans in January, but I was having a fat, grumpy day. You can imagine how well those fit when I’m trying to go out to a fancy bar in NYC with some friends! Ha!

SAGGY BUTT!!!

So I picked two pairs out of the four. One in each style. One that does not have saggy butt and one that does not produce muffin top. Nowhere in the world will I ever find $19 jeans that eliminate saggy butt and muffin top. The muffin top pants are not REALLY bad. And the saggy butt pants are also not REALLY bad. They will do for now. And they will each meet some needs.

I deserve it. I’m good enough for $19 jeans!

In other news: I’m doing very well. Having a real plan helps me move on. I’m also pretty good at Not Thinking About It. When my mind starts wandering down the …how far along would I be… road, I need to stop and take a breath. I can’t tell you right now how far along I would be. Now I really want to check, but I won’t let myself. That helps. Denial is awesome.

We’re going to try again in June or July. M wants June… I’m leaning towards July. We’ll see if I keep that resolve when June actually arrives. I have a pretty busy March followed by an insanely busy April and then a sort of busy May. Hopefully the time will fly. I’m thinking a lot about what happens next time and the thoughts aren’t all sunshine and unicorns. I mean, who seriously debates morning vs. afternoon appointments because of the availability of surgery the next day?

Now that I’ve brought everyone down… some cheery W stuff!

W still astonishes me every day. He’s been slow to talk, but now it seems like he has a new word every day. Ernie! Hug! Apple! He’s in a toddler bed now and makes me lay down with him each night for some cuddles. I’m a softie. I love it. I spent a weekend away and was terrified that M would have trouble getting him to sleep. But he did just fine without me, proving that I am the problem when it comes to too many cuddles. But really, how could I not cuddle that kid? Every second I have with him seems like a miracle. I’m amazed every day that he exists, that he is mine. I tell myself every night that I’m so lucky that I get to rock him to sleep. The poor kid, I’ll still be rocking him to sleep when he’s 10.

Here and there... we were sick, now we're better.

So I’ve been so happy to tell everyone that I’m the luckiest mommy alive. My baby sleeps through the night! My baby doesn’t care if he has formula or breast milk. He’ll switch from breast to bottle without a blink. He gives me kisses. He likes to eat food. He stopped peeing when the diaper comes off.

My luck ran out over the holidays. I woke up sick on Christmas morning and it’s been one thing after another since then. I was on two antibiotics for eye and ear infections. WTF? It was so gross. And I was exhausted. Limbs feeling weak, nodding off at the desk exhausted.

W started running a fever on New Year’s eve and completely stopped sleeping through the night. I know lots of parents are laughing at me. Finally!!! Hahaha! See what we all deal with?? But I’m siiiiiiiick. Uuuuuuuuggggghhhh. Waking up every 45 minutes every night was killing me. M and I generally try to alternate picking up W when he cries. That wasn’t working. M just doesn’t have the mommy touch. W would fall back to sleep, but then he’d wake up 2 minutes later (usually while M is in the bathroom), so I have to go in there anyway. We tried a few nights of winging it. We’d look at each other at the first cries and hope he’d go back to sleep. That meant he just escalated to wails and screams by the time one of us was in there. So the rocking would be 10-20 minutes at a time. Then we would give up and bring him into bed with us. That wasn’t working. Then we tried the no cry sleep solution. We would go in the second we heard the whimpering and pick him up and generally we could put him back down in a few minutes. We also set a cut off time – if (when!) he cried after 3 am, he just came to bed with us. So we got at least a few hours of light sleep. That worked well the first night. Then he started getting stuffed up and just could not sleep unless he was kind of sitting up. So after lots of tears, we went to the guest bedroom with lots of pillows and we both tried to sleep there. M and I alternated days for this. M tried to take more than every other night and would tell me, “Tonight I will take care of W. I’m not tired.” Then he would roll over and push me out of bed at the first cries. I was not mad at him, it was kind of funny. He has no recollection of the pushing.

At one point, I took W to the doctor to rule out any ear infections for him, but he was perfectly fine. I love my pediatrician even more because he took me seriously when I said that my reason for coming in was that W was just not himself.

So that was my life for 2 weeks. Bad sleep, stuffy baby, sick mommy, yuckiness. We started putting some cereal in his bottle at night and we set up a vaporizer and we are squirting saline in his nose (by the way – bad mommy moment – the face he makes when I spray it is hysterical). Something in this combination is working. We’ve had 2 nights of bliss. He’s been waking up, but he wiggles his way up so his head is pressed up against the crib and his butt is in the air and he goes back to sleep. He’s a little piece of heaven. We’re happy again!

I was getting pretty upset during that no sleep time. I would just sit there and rock him and he’d be crying and trying to sit up when all I want him to do is sleep. I was almost in tears from frustration, but then I would stop. I thought to myself about all the times I cried because I didn’t think I would have nights like that. It was strange, and calming, to sit in the middle of the night with a screaming baby and think about how thankful I am. Because that’s what matters the most. Not sleep, I’d trade sleep for him any time.

So back to the cereal in the bottle thing – W is breastfeeding less and less. He used to go to bed around 8 or 8:30 and I’d do a little dreamfeed around 10 when I went to bed. This got all confused when I was sick. I was going to bed right after W went down and when he woke up around 12 or whatever I would try to feed him. Sometimes he didn’t want anything. Sometimes that seemed to make things worse. So I started giving him a bottle right at bed time with a small amount of cereal. That is keeping him asleep and he isn’t even really demanding food right when he wakes up at 6:30. So the night nursing is gone. I’m left with just once per day, first thing in the morning. I’m going to keep it up until next week. He’ll be 8 months on the 19th… I’ll give him a birthday bottle that morning.

How do I feel about this? Not like I thought I would. I’m sad. But not upset sad, we’re weaning on my terms and I’m completely comfortable with it. I want to stop. I want to take strong cold medicines and drink lots of wine. But I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss the little face he makes when I put him on the boppy (um, he might think Milk comes out of the boppy) and the rooting. I’ll miss his little hands scratching me. I’ll miss the face he makes when I start talking while he’s eating. He pulls off and pushes himself off and gives me a LOOK. Like, lady, I’m trying to eat here. Can you please have your conversations at another time? Really?

The formula feeding stuff is awesome and convenient and easy. Washing the bottles kind of blows, but I had to do that anyway with daycare and pumping. It’s actually less now! W can hold his own bottle so we can feed him while we have dinner or do chores. That means more time for playing. He’s eating all kinds of pureed food. We’re going to start meats soon. He is –just- getting the hang of putting a puff in his mouth to eat it. I’m hoping he’ll start eating little pieces of banana soon. I want to feed him more finger food, but the lack of teeth is making me sad. I’ll be pureeing PBJ sandwiches when he goes to kindergarten.

The not-so-exciting shower

I have a work shower coming up. Soon. Like Friday soon.

{drama removed}

For the record, I don’t have any of these fears about my real shower, where I will be surrounded by women that I really like and will be a great time.

28 Weeks

Ok, now I can really say I’m in the third trimester. I can officially be cranky and waddle a little. I was sitting on the stairs, talking to our neighbor and struggled to get up. M told me I was getting up like a pregnant lady. Ha!

The good: I’m round and waddling. I had a prenatal massage. The baby had hiccups on Sunday night. Those were cool, but pretty uncomfortable… and the fact that they happened around 3 am didn’t help with my sleeping.

The bad: I’m sick of peeing all the time. Who isn’t? It sucks. I’m sleeping like crap. BH contractions whenever I don’t drink enough water… blah.

The ugly: I’m growing out of the work pants I bought. Oh well. They are going to have to last me 12 more weeks and I don’t care if I stretch the hell out of them by then. Heartburn is not funny anymore. My belly button is getting shallower and shallower. I hate it when anything touches near it. And I hate the way it looks. I am upset about this and if it pops out I will probably pass out for the remainder of the pregnancy.

The usual: I had a great weekend with friends. I was pampered at the spa with my massage. I think I will always have a prenatal massage. I liked cuddling with the body pillow. I had the fancy manicure and pedicure because I deserve it. I loved the pedicure. My toes look awesome. I still wonder why I get manicures. I stare at my nails and I want to peel! the! polish! now! Also, the extreme nail growth means my brand new manicure already looks about a week old. But the color is pretty!!!

What else… I am really registering on Saturday and so excited to spend quality time with my mom! M is going to miss the first hour or two because he’s going to an information session for an MBA program (hooray!). He is actually kind of upset about it, but I told him not to worry. We’ll focus on thermometers and bottles while we wait for him. We are really going to order our furniture. And… I have a real baby shower scheduled. Wow. It seems crazy to be doing all this stuff. I’m nervous that my appointment on Monday won’t go well, but then I have to stop myself and hold still and wait for a little kick to tell me everything is ok.

The baby does have a pattern of activity. It is one day of insane movement followed by 2-3 days of just kicks here and there. I am in the down part right now and I hate it. I was freaking out this morning so I laid on my side after breakfast to see what would happen. I got back up after 4 minutes because the baby had already kicked 7 times. And I consider this to be “down time”… what’s my problem?

Work is nutso, but should calm down after this week (and it did calm down a lot today… I’m finally writing this and catching up with everyone else). My horoscope for March said I would have a lucky work day on the 1st. I am going to try to talk to the bosses about maternity leave that day. I’m nervous!

One last thing, my husband is so great! I left him alone on Valentine’s day to be on my girl’s weekend and he did all the chores AND left flowers for me to find when I got home on Monday morning. He is amazing!

And I thought I had a pregnancy craving...

An email exchange from yesterday:

C: How is your day? I had a breakdown this morning and went to Dunkin Donuts to get a muffin. I needed it. I got doughnuts for the rest of the office, too. Now I am not really hungry for lunch.
M: What kind of breakdown? I hope you’re OK?!
C: I was so hungry. I thought I would die. I didn’t want anything but a muffin or a cheeseburger. It was 10 am, so I decided on a muffin. It wasn’t a mental breakdown.
M: Oh. A lot of time I want either a muffin or a cheeseburger also. This is completely normal.

25 Weeks

These weekly updates are starting to get monotonous… Sorry about that! I just like keeping a record of everything.

The good: The usual, movement is great, I’m starting to show more and more and my uncontrollable hunger is starting to get controlled. I’m still warm all the time, but that’s a good thing when it is 35 degrees outside. It’s a bad thing sometimes (see below), but I was kind of looking forward to this pregnancy symptom so I would stop being cold all the frickin time.

The bad: I am not sleeping well, even with my body pillow. I bought a huge one, which I LOVE, but now I’m hot. Of the two (intense back pain or sweating), I pick sweating. I might wake up just as often, but I’m falling asleep faster. M hates the pillow, but he cuddles with the side closest to him. Last night I was having trouble sleeping (because of stuff on my mind) and I crawled out of my nest and over to him. He was sleeping, but said, “yessssssss!” when I made him spoon me.

The ugly: I have lost all patience for anyone else’s petty emotional crap problems.
{drama removed}

Normal stuff: I told a client today about the baby. I’m supposed to start going on site visits for a building and I’m not about to go picking my way through muddy, uneven construction sites. I fall down on normal days on flat floors. I don’t want to trip over some rebar or risk anything. I told him that we wanted to go out to the site, but I wouldn’t be the one doing the visit. He was fine with that. I do really like site visits. You get to meet the people that call all the time and it’s time away from the desk! Plus, I’ll be the one doing all the work from the visit, so it’s usually best to get a glimpse of the actual construction. But I’d rather not go and my bosses have said they don’t want me doing anything I’m uncomfortable with. That’s a good thing! Not everyone has that luxury!

M finished working on the nursery/office closet and now I have shelves to put things on! Tonight we’ll be putting things on shelves in the guest bedroom and the nursery. Organizing makes me happy. Parts of my house are a huge mess right now, but parts of it are so clean! Woohoo!!!

Welcome ICLW!

Hi! Nice to meet you!

Here’s a little background on me – I’m currently 24 weeks pregnant. I had two miscarriages in 2009. The first was in January at 5 weeks and the second was a missed miscarriage at 14 weeks in May. I was diagnosed with heterozygous MTHFR and I have to believe that one baby aspirin a day is keeping this kid growing.

My current struggles are keeping the hope alive that this baby will be ok (and I’m doing well with this right now), keeping my stress level low at work and dealing with some people around me that make me crazy.

I’m in a good place right now that sometimes makes me feel even sadder – I cry more about my baby boy than I did earlier in my pregnancy, but less than I did before it. I think about how I missed out on so much with him, but then realize that I wouldn’t have this baby without him. It’s a weird place to be.

This is my A-Z that I did a long time ago.

My normal rambling for today:

I discussed reaching viability with M last night. He asked me what it meant and then said that we shouldn’t think about that right now. He’s right. I told him the signs of pre-term labor and how I don’t think I have any of them and then he talked about a ping-pong tournament at work.

He’s talking about making a career change. He’s so unhappy at work and I wish I could do something to help. He had one interview, but then his contact changed jobs so that kind of fell through the cracks. We talked about him getting his MBA and what that would take. It will be a lot of work and time… but M is a born leader. He’s a classic oldest child! An MBA is the way to go for him. I know it will be hard to start this fall with our life at home changing so much. We’ll have to make some sacrifices… it will probably mean staying in our house longer than we had planned, it will mean having to eat dinners that I cook, it will mean he’ll be away a few nights a week and need study time. But it feels right. I’m proud of him.

Today I’m going to a meeting and I tried to put on clothes that would kind of hide this belly. It’s not possible. My belly sticks out past my boobs now (barely). This project will be due in the summertime and I’m not trying to advertise that fact that I (probably) won’t be the one finishing it. I just don’t want to deal with the questions. I’ve never worked with any of these people before, so I don’t know if any of them will ask. They probably won’t even notice. I keep forgetting that I work with only men.

So Much to Say

I should have posted over the weekend. I can’t believe how much stuff I need to talk about! I’ll go in reverse order.

Appointment:

I had my doctor appointment Monday at 4 pm. Only one doctor was there, so we had to wait forever. That was fine. I read a magazine and M looked at a Chesapeake Bay picture book. I’m afraid we’re going to be driving around looking for spots he found in the book. The was the first appointment for this pregnancy where I wasn’t afraid. The baby was kicking me while we were waiting, and I was so happy to be able to relax. The nurse didn’t even pause or make a face when she took my blood pressure! I gained some weight, too (although the weight might have been the gigantic pit beef sandwich I had for lunch!). The baby’s heart rate was in the 140s the entire time. We got to hear it for a while because I asked the doctor some questions and she held the Doppler on my stomach while she answered them.

My questions and answers:
Q: Can you recommend a place for infant CPR?
A: Check out the American Heart Association website. I didn’t think this was very helpful. The only thing I could find was a kit so you can learn at home. I see the good points – We could do this whenever we wanted and then pass it on to family and friends. The bad points are that you don’t have an instructor watching you to tell you if your technique is wrong. That makes me nervous. I found some classes that the county offers for free. It is a long class, 8:30 – 1:30 on a Saturday. But you learn everything CPR related. That can’t hurt. I’ll talk to M to see if he has a preference.

Q: How long do you allow a pregnancy to last before induction?
A: If all is going well, they will induce at 41 weeks. If I get dilated and stall out around 3 cm for a week or so, they will induce after 39 weeks. This is only for normal sized babies and no health problems. I just wanted to know the policy.

Q: What do I need to do for cord blood donation?
A: Information is on this website. I think this website (you have to register) is run by a cord blood bank, so they make the donation sound like a terrible idea. We are more interested in donation, so I need to research a little more. I need to talk to my mom about this, too.

Q: Now that I’m feeling movement, when should I call if I notice a decrease in activity?
A: If I go more than a day without feeling anything, I can call and they’ll take a look at the baby. I am supposed to drink juice and then lay down to check for movement before calling (I’ve heard this everywhere). Around 24 weeks, I should start paying more attention and call if I don’t feel anything for a few hours. I’ve already noticed a pattern – I’ll have one day of crazy activity followed by a day or two of just random kicking.

Movement:

Like I said to the doctor, the kicks/punches are getting more and more regular and harder. M was able to feel one over the weekend. He’s so impatient! He’ll hold his hand there for about 10 seconds and then say he can’t feel anything. This one time, the baby had good timing and got him with a good, strong punch right in the palm of his hand.

Christmas:

Christmastime was great. We went to my parent’s house on Christmas eve and had brunch with friends and then dinner with my dad’s sister’s family. My brother and his family came over for breakfast on Christmas, my other brother and his wife came over for dinner. Then we went home so we could have M’s parents over for breakfast on Saturday. We spent Saturday afternoon at M’s aunt’s house with that entire side of the family. Then I passed out from exhaustion. Sunday and Monday were pure at-home days. We organized our closets and got rid of 7 trash bags of clothes. I moved everything I can’t wear out of reach and my closet looks empty. I have some generous friends and family! So many people gave me maternity clothes for my birthday and Christmas. I have plenty to wear for the next few months! Two people gave me maternity clothes to borrow. I had a fashion show for M. My friend’s clothes were fine, but M’s aunt’s clothes were hysterical. They were pretty old and I think that elastic may not have been invented for these clothes. She had 2 jumpsuits (I don’t know what else to call them). They were pants that kind of had a tank top attached to them? And had all the room you could ever need for a baby. I almost kept those just for the story. M would not let me take a picture.

That whole coworker situation:

{Removed so I don't have to worry about this biting me in the ass one day}

Sorry for the all over the place post! I’m caught up here now. I have 66 unread blogs in my reader!!

Bump picture to come tomorrow or the day after. I completely missed week 20!

Tuesday

After all my complaining about no one congratulating us on this pregnancy, I got some Christmas cards over the weekend with little notes of excitement in them. That’s something, so I’ll take it!

One of the cards was from M’s Great Aunt J. Aunt J is a nun from Boston who is somewhere around 80 years old. If you know any nuns in their 80s, then you know that they tend to be amazing people. She sent me a prayer card for St. Gerard, the patron saint of expectant mothers. She wrote in her note how she was praying for us and all sorts of stuff that had me sobbing like a fool. She even enclosed a tissue for my tears. A few hours later, I was showing M’s mom the prayer card when a little medal fell out of the tissue. Turns out she wasn’t trying to make me cry!! I keep this with me now whenever I’m awake. If I’m wearing a low-cut shirt (which is all the time), I keep it in my pocket.

**********

{Removed some complaining}

Another coworker brought in cornbread and came over to let me know as soon as she got here. She is concerned that I’m not big enough and wants me to eat all I can. I think I’m in love with her.

**********

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I guess 30 isn’t so bad. Here are some pictures of my birthday snow!

Three-Zero

Thirty. Just look at that word for a minute. It even looks old. But for real? There’s no way I’m mature enough to be thirty.

Maybe you could share it with me

Today I am urging all you beautiful infertile or sad mommas to go out and buy a Mega Millions ticket. We all beat some great odds before, so at least one of us should be able to win something, right?

My baby died somewhere between 12 weeks 3 days and 14 weeks 3 days. We’ll go with my chance of miscarriage for that pregnancy being 5%* (I’ll ignore the fact that it was my second miscarriage). Odds of winning any prize in the Mega Millions drawing: 1 in 40 (that’s 2.5%)!

Do you see what I’m saying here? We have all been on that small side of statistics before – we should take advantage of it. Go get ‘em!

*Please avoid reading this data. I'm only linking this so I can remember the source. Going further into the stuff on this chart is downright depressing.

I'm annoying myself, too.

Just a few minor vents today. I’m still cranky about my steroids. I’m starting to think my bad mood will be permanent. I’ve also chewed all over the inside of my mouth like an e-tard.

You know what pisses me off? Tom Brady. You are a jerk, Tom Brady. I’m sick of US weekly being filled with pictures of Gisele’s baby bump. You both frown so much and I bet this baby wasn’t even planned (US weekly hinted that you are disappointed). I dislike you in a strong way.

I have a few friends (and a few parents) who send me every email forward ever. I’m getting tired of it but I will never say anything to them. Today I got one about how terrorists are going to attack airports in the next month. I assume this means I will get blown up on my fancy trip. Thanks for putting a damper on that! Don’t worry everyone: snopes.com (I love you!) told me that this latest prediction is from July 2005. I’m calm again.

In other news – I have a list next to me with the possible 4 trips that M could be sent on over the next 2 months. All of them have him at home during that oh-so-important time in October. I feel like I’m using him.

She's pretty as a daisy...

I had a good post idea, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. Today I have one thing on my mind.

ITCHING.

I have no idea what Poison Ivy looks like. Not true… I have a slight idea. It looks like every other weed living plant in my garden. I’m lucky because I don’t usually get a bad rash from it, just a few spots on my fingers for a few days and then it goes away.

Usually. This time is an exception. My neck (yes, what idiot gets poison ivy on her neck?) is bright red, bumpy and itchy. Behind my right ear, under my chin and down my throat. Uck. Ick. Gag.

I also have a spot the size of a pencil eraser on my finger and a little behind my knee.

So, dummy, maybe you should just try wearing gloves? But I hate wearing gloves! I can’t grab right and my hands get all sweaty. I only wear gloves when absolutely necessary, like mulching day and when pregnant (which I’m not… thanks, Garden, for finding a way to remind me).

I’ll just sit here today with my anti-itch cream and stare at the rain and listen to coworkers make fun of me. Perhaps next time I will have M walk around and point the stuff out instead of him telling me later that he saw the poison ivy in my weed pile.

P.S. Do not type “poison ivy” into a Google images search. What idiot does that? I think I’m going to vomit.

Update - Friday Morning.
I went to a Minute Clinic (and God bless the person who came up with that idea) and I got a prescription. I usually would have tried to suck it up and deal, but the rash has crept down between my boobs. Now I'm on the 'roids! I should probably try out for a baseball team this weekend.