It's a boy!!

Our little man is here. Absolutely perfect. The surgery went smoothly and he's sleeping on my chest now. He's not too into breast feeding, but we'll keep trying. No worries yet. 

7 lb, 14 oz

19.5 in long

And a fuzzy little head. 

One more wake up

I will be at the hospital in 11 hours. I don't really know what to think! I've cried several times today as the idea has sunk in. It's so surreal. In just a few hours I will meet someone that I will love forever. 

I'm pretty speechless. 

I finished all of my cleaning and then found more to clean. Then I got a pedicure and took a nap. Today was a great day. 

We still haven't packed the hospital bag, but the list is sitting next to it along with my cord blood donation kit. 

I'll update tomorrow as soon as I can! 

39 Weeks and 2 days left

I'm home today! Maternity leave is awesome. I finished up everything at work on Friday and passed off everything I had. Then I walked out of the door and felt like dancing. I might have danced a little. I feel weird not being at work right now and I feel weird because I dropped W off at daycare at 8:45 and now I'm spending a few hours just uploading pictures from the camera and making sure everything is backed up to our online photo storage. But these are VERY important things. I never get to sit and just do this. 

I still have 5 rooms to clean until the house is 100% ready (and when I say 5 rooms, I'm including things like hallways and the laundry room - I like to check things off lists!). 

Last night around 8 pm I was settled on the couch when I had a contraction. No big deal. Then 15 minutes later, I had another one. So I decided to download a timer app and see how things went. After the 4th one, I told M what was happening. We decided if they were still going around 9:45, we would call his mom and let her know. I had several good long contractions, about 8 minutes apart, until I decided to go pee around 9. And they stopped completely. I felt a little let down. But not too let down... I still have to clean those rooms! And I had been looking forward to my 2 days to myself at home. 

M decided to sleep in a little today. We usually wake up at 5:20, so we slept in to 6:30. He wants to make sure we are well rested in case we have to go to the hospital. I like this plan, too! When M went to work this morning, he left me every phone number of every person in his office just in case he steps away from his desk. I think I'll be fine. 

Here's something I've been wanting to show off for a while: 

Check these suckers out!! They are awesome. Laura sent these burp cloths to me a while ago and I love them. They are at the top of the pile - a few upstairs and a few downstairs. I love the colors and everything about them. Thank you Laura!!!

The last appointment.

I was awake for three hours Tuesday night and spent a lot of that time enjoying the baby moving and reading. I also spent a lot of time wishing I could go back to sleep. During the awake time, I had several contractions. Most of them were BH contractions, I'm sure. But a few actually hurt a little. Like period cramps, but not as bad (and my cramps are never anything bad). 

I figured I'd have a little more progress at my appointment yesterday. Mainly I was hoping the cervical check wouldn't hurt as bad. 

Well, it still hurt. My cervix is still behind the baby. But now I am 3.5 cm, 60% effaced and the baby is at a -2 station. M is totally freaked out and thinks we could have the baby at any minute. I am less sure. But maybe we will go into labor on our own... It seems a little more possible now. 

38 weeks and the grossest ever

I thought I was gross a few weeks ago when I posted about the tiny fungal infection I had on my underbelly. But now I am infinitely grosser. I now have a raging itchy rash on each of my boobs. It is only soothed with the anti fungal creme. I just can't stop the sweating in there. I use gold bond powder and I've even been putting paper towels in between. I'm so happy the weather is getting better. I stopped wearing my comfortable bras and now I'm back to wearing the ones that separate the girls a little more. I'm trying to ignore the reason I stopped wearing these... Too small. Oh well. 

We are pretty much ready. Everything is set up. My bag is sort of packed. Car seats are in. I bought an enema today so I'll be ready when we come home. 

Super embarrassing. 

My appointment on Wednesday was 

uneventful, which means it was great. I'm at 2 cm, still very high and still posterior. The doctor is pretty sure they'll see me this Wednesday. I think we've made some more progress this week. I can feel the baby lower than before and I think I might have had a real contraction over the weekend. 

I've been dealing with lots of feelings the past week and normally I'd let them all out here. However, my office is starting an Internet policy and I need to be careful about what I do there now. That limits my blogging time! Now I have to do it all from my phone! 

The feelings are the normal ones that we start to feel now. The baby was pretty quiet on Sunday and I got a little scared. It was plenty crazy today so I'm calmer now. I'm worried about my relationship with W immediately after the baby. I want to just hold him and snuggle as much as I can before the surgery. It doesn't work well with a three year old, though. I'm trying to do as much as I can with him (mostly reading) and trying to explain that the baby is coming soon. We are making a countdown calendar tonight. 

4 more days of work. 

9 more wake ups until the baby is here. 

37 weeks and AWAKE

37 weeks down. Clearly, I'm ready for this to be over.  It's so bittersweet, though. I want to be done with pregnancy, but I'm trying to squeeze every last bit out of it. I hope this is my last pregnancy. I'll never have these little tiny elbows poking from the inside again. I'll never again get to sit with a giant laugh and hold my belly while it shakes like a bowl full of jelly. I'll never again have random strangers smile at me and hold doors open or let me go ahead of them. I'll never again have the excuse to let my thoughts come out of my mouth completely unfiltered. 

But I will be sleeping better. I swear I'm the only person who looks forward to the baby because I'll be sleeping better. I know it could get worse ... But I've been wide awake at 4:30 every morning and my body will not let me sleep before 10:30 at night. And there's all the long hours of laying awake between. 

The baby's going home outfit is washed. The bassinet is set up. We are installing the car seat bases today after dinner. We are SO close to being ready. I'm also almost completely ready at work. That means the baby will not be here anytime soon. 

I had the GBS test last week at the doctor. And I currently weigh 8 pounds less than my husband. I have to keep feeding him late night desserts. It was the first of the no pants appointments and I was sweaty. Of course. So they gave me the little blanket to cover up and I threw it on the floor. The doctor walked in and I was sitting there all spread out with nothing covering the bottom half of my body. And I didn't give a single F about it. The doctor checked me and I was 1cm and VERY high. That meant it was the most uncomfortable thing ever. I might ask them to skip the next time (no I won't).  And, as usual for me, I had to peel the table paper of when the appointment was over. 

10 days left of work. 

2 weeks and 3 days until we have a baby. 

36 Weeks and a Sprinkle

Here we are.... 3 weeks and 1 day left. I still don't have the idea that this is real. 

I had a small sprinkle on Saturday. My SIL hosted it and she had an adorable idea - everyone brought children's books instead of regular baby stuff. I loved it!!! We had been worried that we'd get more baby blankets or bottles or towels, but everyone brought books (we did get a few extras and I'm not complaining, especially about the huge boxes of diapers!). 

Last night, we took a small family trip to the mall and we bought a little tiny going home outfit. 

Ridiculous. So cute. I decided I would allow myself to buy one outfit for the baby and there it is. We did get another tiny onesie with a crab on it because (a) we live in Maryland and (b) it was $4. 

I'm still doing about the same. I am completely exhausted in the evenings after work. I am not sleeping well and my hips really hurt. None of these are a big deal or anything weird. It does mean that I wake up on the weekdays and think to myself exactly how many work days I have left (14 including today). 

35 Weeks and Officially Disgusting

I had my appointment on Wednesday and I got some disturbing news: I have a fungal infection on my underbelly. Think about that for a second. I essentially have athlete's foot on my belly. From being disgusting. The doctor breezed over it. "Oh, do you have some itching" (a little) "You have a small spot of yeast on your belly down here. Get some {blah blah can't understand-izol} creme, the stuff for jock itch, and put it on the spot. That will help." Then she told me that next appointment (the 17th) will be the Group B strep test and my first cervical check. So last week was my last pants-on appointment and now I get to sweat through the paper on the table while I wait for the fun (who doesn't love the cervical checks!) bits. I have the creme and I now cover my bottom half in gold bond powder every morning to lessen the sweatyness. I'm not sure if it helps. 

Anyway. 

Baby is head down. Heart rate was 140-150s. 

Since I had an extra long weekend (W was sick on Wednesday, so I had 5 days off!), I got a ton of work done on the nursery. M got his tools out of the way and hung the curtains for me. We brought up lots of boxes from the basement. I did 4 loads of laundry* and folded everything. I still have 3 boxes left to sort out and at least two more loads of laundry. I will set up the crib with the bumper and then take it out when we actually start using the crib in a few months. I am crazy. 

W helped me sort out baby stuff. I pulled out a ton of breast pads that I hated (why did I keep them?) and he found the baby food containers. I got distracted by organizing the linen closet (everything! must! be! perfect!) and came back in to see every baby food container filled with a breast pad. He told me the diapers were ready for the baby. 

*Laundry: I know (because I am smart) that I don't need to use dreft. I know that the scent free/dye free detergent that I already use for myself is perfectly fine for the baby stuff. I also know that dreft smells like babies and I love it. So I bought one container and I promise not to buy anymore. But you know what was frustrating? Standing in Target looking at my options (I could only find a picture of one. You can guess what the other looked like): 

So, right there and then I had to decide the sex of my baby. I ended up picking the girl detergent. Only because they had one bottle of boy detergent and three bottles of girl. I didn't want someone who knew they had a boy on the way facing the crisis of buying GIRL detergent for their baby BOY. The horror!

34 Weeks and thirsty

Here we are. It's July! That means it is almost August. 

I'm trying to make an effort to enjoy these last few weeks. I really am. I want this to be my last pregnancy and I want to savor the moments, but it's hard to enjoy feeling like this. Not that it's hard *right now*. I feel fine right now, sitting at my desk with the cool air around me. It's still early enough that my hands aren't sweating. I just had a snack and a diet coke (I try to limit this to once a week and I hate it when I waste my Diet coke on Monday Morning!!), so I don't feel hungry or tired. 

I've been craving gatorade. I've gotten out of bed on weekend mornings just because I'm so thirsty. I'll ask my doctor about it on Wednesday, but I'm guessing it's just because it's so warm outside and I keep sweating. 

M and I had a date night on Saturday. We went to a fantastic grown up restaurant outside of DC and then to  see a talk about my favorite radio show. The dinner was so great and relaxing, also very rich. Then we went and sat in a sold out theater for 2 hours and 15 minutes. By the end, I had my shoes off and my pants rolled up and I was sitting forward in my seat. I was still covered in sweat... my shoes were off because they would have ripped. They could not contain my swollen feet. I'd like to apologize to the people around me. Sorry. 

Interesting things from this past week:

We went to the pool and got into the grown up pool for the first time this year (W prefers the baby pool). I felt so great in the water. So light and cool. Then I got out. Holy crap. It was like returning from space. I felt like I weighed 800 pounds. I had to stand and hold a handrail for several minutes. M must have thought I was going in labor. 

We had a family picnic this weekend (which took 100% of my energy all weekend... now my house is a mess and all the clothes are dirty and I'm stressed) and M's cousin did the pendulum test. you know the one - you dangle a necklace over a pregnant belly. It goes in a circle for a girl and back and forth for a boy. I'd never seen this done and we had 3 pregnant girls at this party. It said boy for all three (one is confirmed boy). M's cousin would "zero" it over her hand and we'd watch it clearly go in a circle. Then when it went over our bellies it would be still and then start going back and forth. Kind of creepy, but also very fun. 

33 Weeks and Nesting

I went crazy this weekend. Good crazy, and I'm proud of myself. I built a bookshelf and organized the family room. Our family room was overrun with books. This isn't a bad thing, but I had no space for all the books. W has a bookshelf in his room, but we try to limit that one to books that are appropriate for bedtime. The downstairs books are everything else (and we do have storybooks down there, too). W LOVES books. And I love that he loves books. The main problem was that he couldn't find any of them because we kept them in a toy box and in our end tables. It was a cluster-f of books. Now they are all on a shelf and I'm thrilled. He loves it, too. The best part was that I got rid of all the terrible books (not to knock sesame street, but they produce some awful things). We read so much this weekend!

In the process, I weeded out the toys that W doesn't play with anymore and now we have more room for the baby stuff that will take over.

The crazy thing was that I started building the shelf at 8 pm on Friday night. That's not my style. Usually I'm laying on the couch nodding off by then.

On Sunday, I cleaned our powder room from top to bottom. I scrubbed the floors. The room had been smelling a little like pee. I blame the 3 year old. I wiped up the floor when he missed, but I guess it just wasn't enough. Now the room smells normal.

That's not the way I've been acting lately. My typical pregnancy cleaning routing is to do the bare minimum, maybe a little less. Now I want to clean all the things! I want to organize the pantry! This is better than steroids!

Baby news: 

Most exciting: We have a date! The repeat c-section is scheduled for 10 am on August 7th. That is less than 7 weeks away. I cannot wait. Part of me hopes that we go a little earlier for the VBAC, but a bigger part of me loves the idea of having all of this scheduled. I sent an email to my parents, inlaws and SIL to let them know the details and tell them about the timetable so they will know what to expect. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that they can come in with us in the morning and then get to see the baby at 10:05.

Least exciting: I had my insane leg cramp on Wednesday night. This happened with W, too (oddly enough, right at the same point in the pregnancy).  I woke up in the middle of a dream (I was pumping milk into a ziploc bag in my car... what?) and my left calf had completely seized up. Eventually, M woke up enough to realize what was happening and he got out of bed to stretch my muscle just like a trainer on the sidelines. He is my hero. It wasn't my first leg cramp of this pregnancy, but all of the others have just needed a quick stretch to go away.

Still less exciting: I got the Tdap shot at my appointment on Wednesday. My arm stopped being sore over the weekend. 

W news:
We're on potty training phase 4. This is the part no one talks about. W is potty trained for pee and poop. He is doing very well at night. However, he will not pull his own pants down or up. I am trying to prepare for my post-baby self and getting him to do this little step would be a great help. But he just looks at me and says he can't do it (he can*). So I'm bribing him. Pull down your pants and then pull them back up... you get an M&M. If I have to help (minus showing him the front and back and final adjustments), no M&M. It's not working very well.

*We were visiting friends and W was upstairs playing with his girlfriend. The girl came downstairs and told her mom that her dress was all wet. They had taken themselves to the bathroom. W was standing on the stool washing his hands. His pants were mostly back on, just very crooked. He did everything on his own.

32 Weeks and Swollen

My feet are wide and puffy. I'm down to one pair of work shoes (and they really aren't nice shoes). They have always been a little big. Now they are snug. Outside of work, I wear either the same shoes or flip flops. I didn't have this last time, but it also wasn't this hot. It wasn't summer! I really like my feet and it makes me sad to see them so puffy.

I am sitting at my desk right now with my legs spread so I can reach my keyboard. It's not pretty. My shirt also has a hole in the armpit. I don't think any one can see it.

I have some issues I want to talk about. I'm going part time at work after this baby and my MIL will be watching him/her three days a week. I am grateful that I get to do this, but I'm also afraid. It means we have to be very careful about our spending. We can do it! My main fear is one that people bring up a lot, but in a different context.

I had no problem taking W to daycare. I know lots of people say they could never leave their child with a stranger or that they want their baby to know who Mommy is. W has thrived in daycare. He knows I'm his mommy and he's always known that. At daycare he is one of many kids. He is loved, but he is not THE MOST IMPORTANT person to the ladies at daycare. We've had no issues with bonding and love in our house.

Now, with baby #2, W will continue to go to daycare 5 days a week. We decided to keep him full time because he is used to it and he is now in the preschool program. I look at daycare as school now. I want him there for the school part every day (and the nap because he has a real problem napping at home - he needs a nap). As for the baby, M and I will be splitting the day on Monday. I'll be working Tuesday - Thursday for short days and then I'll be home on Friday. MIL will be watching the baby Tuesday - Thursday. I've decided I'm ok with that.

I am absolutely ok with the quality of care from my MIL. She will be attentive and follow any instructions I have. She will probably do a better job that I would. My ridiculous fear is that my baby won't know or won't want Mommy after having my MIL around. That is why I didn't want her to do 5 days a week. Baby will be SO loved and showered with attention and care. If I continues to work full time, MIL would be with the baby about 50 hours a week. I would be with the baby (assuming 8 hours of me sleeping a night) 62 hours a week - less if you factor in chores and being with W and the amount of time the baby spends sleeping. It's possible that the baby would have more 1-on-1 time with MIL than with me. Obviously, the baby would think that MIL was mommy. I can't deal with it. My jealousy about this was stressing me out big time. It is crazy. I talked to M about this and he couldn't believe this was bothering me so much. My logical mind knows it is stupid. But it's there. It is the reason that we are doing this 3 day a week schedule. I will have more time with my baby than MIL will have. My baby will know that I am mommy.

We'll do this schedule for about a year. Then we want to transition the baby into daycare. We noticed W really benefiting from daycare around that time.

I'm very excited about the time I'll have with the baby. I'm also excited about having that Friday to get a *little* done around the house so we'll have more family time on the weekends. M is excited about his Monday afternoons with the baby. It's going to be great.

31 Weeks and Sideways

Based on my extensive medical training, I think this baby is transverse. It's pretty uncomfortable, but not any more uncomfortable than a baby that is head down. Just different uncomfortable. I don't have any feet in my ribs, which is a plus. Here's why I think that:
1. I don't have any feet in my ribs. 
2. I feel a butt (or head) sticking out of my left side. 
3. I feel a head (or a butt) sticking out of my right side. 

I have trouble sleeping on my side because I am either laying on the baby's head or it's butt. Also, I think the baby is facing downwards because it is weird sitting up with feeling all kinds of movement all over my underbelly. I rarely feel any movements at the top of my belly. I don't think this is a big deal at the moment. 31 weeks is still plenty of time for a baby to shift positions. Some of my doctors feel around to find the baby's position and some don't. The last time a doctor did this, she couldn't tell where the baby was. It's little butt hides sometimes. 

I had an appointment last Wednesday and all was fine. We filled out the paperwork for the cord blood donation. I hope that works out. Then we talked about the scheduled c-section. We picked a date so I could get the same doctor that did my previous c-section. The date is August 7th. I haven't told people this yet because it is not "officially" scheduled yet. Our families will go crazy and start taking days off and all that as soon as they know anything. M is very happy to have this date, he wants to just go in and have the surgery and be done. I, the one who has to actually HAVE the surgery, am feeling pretty good about it too. I had a phase where I was going to do really try for a VBAC. But I never felt like I was going to go out of my way or lie about due dates or change doctors to get one. It will be nice to experience a regular birth. But it will also be nice to have everything worked out and the baby here after a full night of sleep. 

My birth experience with W was rough. Recap: In the hospital at 8 am to be induced, uncomfortable labor around 2 pm, crappy epidural, pushing by 7:30, stopped pushing around 10:30, c-section at midnight, "sleeping" from 2:30 to 4:30 and then awake for the day. Full story. 


Absolutely, utterly exhausting. 

It led to an emotional and upsetting post-partum hospital stay. I really, really, really don't want to go through that again. 

One thing that I kind of gloss over in the birth story is that I had no idea when W was actually born. I had no "IT'S A BOY!" moment that I had been waiting for. I never saw him covered in goo. My epidural wasn't cutting it during labor and it wasn't good enough to completely numb me for the surgery. The anesthesiologist gave me some strong stuff to get through the cutting and it made me black out for that part. Yes, I'm happy I didn't feel it. I don't blame him. He did the right thing. 

But that moment... I really want that moment. I feel like I'll get that with the scheduled surgery. I know I'd get it (and more) with a VBAC, but I feel like it I could always end up back in the OR anyway. And that is why I'm ok with the CBAC. 

30 Weeks and Counting Down

30 weeks is a sort of milestone. I'm down to single digits in my baby countdown. And the countdown is on. I remember this is when people start telling you to "sleep while you can" and you want to punch them. Seriously. It's still true. I wake up 3 times a night (minimum) to pee. Then I wake up every hour to move myself around, which is not easy. I have to adjust the ceiling fan. I have to roll myself over. I have to move my body out of the pool of sweat. Then it starts thundering outside. I swear I slept more after W was born than I did in the weeks leading up to it. Also: Every time I sneeze, I get round ligament pain. 

The baby has hiccups right now!

I'm making a huge to-do list today. I've been telling myself that we'll get going on the baby stuff when we hit 30 weeks. And here we are. 30 weeks and I have tools piled up in the baby's room. I've done zero things in preparation for the baby. We've been doing other stuff that we wanted to get done, but are not exciting (like replacing exhaust fans). I can't wait to see all those little clothes again. I think that will make this sink in a little more! 

I'd like to add that yesterday marked 4 years since I started this blog. Thank you to all of the friends I have made along the way. You have really made a difference in my life and I'm grateful knowing you are out there!

29 Weeks and Dirty Clothes

I noticed something this week. This is my second round with these maternity clothes. I lent all of them out to my cousin when she was pregnant last year. I also lent some shirts out to another friend. So some of my shirts are on their 4th pregnancy. I'm happy they've had so much use... but I also realize that pregnant people are sloppy. I'm not blaming my cousin or my friend. I'm blaming me. Almost all of my clothes have some sort of stain on them! I'm sure they are my fault. I feel bad for lending out stained clothes! Gross! I know it's me because most of the stains are grease stains. I should try to get them out, but I'm too lazy. 

Baby is still behaving. My mom was able to feel some kicks over the weekend. I had a very fast appointment last week with a heart rate in the 130s. I gained 8 pounds in 2 weeks, so I'm going to watch my snacks over the next two weeks to try to slow that down a bit. 

Here's something cool: We went to the beach on Sunday. The weather wasn't that great, so I wore capri pants over my suit. I wore a maternity bathing suit top. This was the very first time in my life that I had ZERO body issues at the beach. I saw super hot girls walking along and I didn't care. I took pictures of just me, full length! That never happens in a bathing suit! I sprawled out on a chair. I threw myself down in the sand to dig a hole. I just let it all out there and it was great. I don't know if we'll make it to the beach again this summer, so I wanted to hold onto that feeling. I wish we could all have that! I'm sad that I had to be 29 weeks pregnant to feel that way. I told M about it and he said that I should feel that way all the time. I'm glad the person that counts thinks that about me. I'll try to keep that feeling next year. 

28 weeks and new clothes

I saw my mom over the weekend and she brought me some maternity shorts. Now I'm ready for the summer... whenever that starts!

I've been feeling pretty good the past week. My back hasn't bothered me and I slept pretty well. That's all good news. So far, the third trimester has been kind to me. Nothing really new to report there.

I got our pool passes for the summer and now I just stare at the pool everyday when I drive by. I can't wait to just float for a little while. I hope the bathing suit I bought will fit all summer. I hope I can find a way to shave my legs all summer - or I hope no one gets close enough to tell!

Grateful

This is always my most conflicted time of the year. The searing pain has faded, but the general feeling of sadness is still there. Four years ago today, it was my last day of a seemingly normal pregnancy. I was visiting friends and wearing maternity pants (maybe even the same ones I am wearing today). I had no inkling that everything would end the next morning.

I feel guilty spending so much time dwelling on the baby that isn't here. I'm distracted by planning a birthday party and huge birthday surprise for W (a playset in the backyard!). But I also have had extra time to think. Every night this week, I've been sitting in the dirt clearing a garden around the area where the new playset will sit. It took a long time. I had time to think. Our lives would be completely different if we had that baby. The biggest difference would be that we wouldn't have W and I can't comprehend that. We'd still have a little boy, just older. Maybe we'd have a second kid by now. I try not to dwell on all of this. I don't want to wish away the life I have right now, the amazing kid that W is becoming and the tiny baby that always assures me that he or she is just fine whenever I need it. 

I wish I could send this post back in time to myself four years ago. I remember people trying to tell me about how they knew about some girl who had a miscarriage and then had a baby soon afterwards and she was happy now. Hooray for her, she's not me. What about the pain I was experiencing? What if I didn't have that success story? 

And now I am that girl. I am that story. I am so grateful. 

27 Weeks and heartburn!

The heartburn really isn't that bad yet. But it happens a lot! 

My mother's day was absolutely wonderful. We had lots of family time and M took W to the bathroom as often as he could. I didn't have to wipe anyone's butt yesterday! 

The baby seems to have moved up in my belly this week. All of the movement was low and seemed to be happening in my underbelly. The baby would kick me right in my c-section scar and it was actually getting to be a little painful. Now it is up and I can feel the kicks from the top of my belly and now they are fun movements and don't make me wince. We felt a butt (or a head) over the weekend sticking out a bit. It was fun to "play" with the baby for the first time. 

I came out on facebook after my appointment last week. I put up a picture showing W in his Big brother t-shirt. It was a small collage idea that I got from pintrest. I mainly did it because I want to use it in my scrapbook. It felt weird to post the news as I enter the 3rd trimester instead of the 2nd. At least my distant friends will all feel that my pregnancy is very quick. 

I was hesitant to put the announcement up. I knew that I wanted to do it, but I'd been putting it off for a while. I didn't want to hurt my SIL or any of my friends who are still dealing with infertility and loss. But I also didn't want to just start posting pictures of a newborn all of the sudden. 

So then I started wondering what people would think. I haven't been shy about speaking out about miscarriage on facebook. I post every October 15th about it. I will post articles that I find if they are interesting. I posted one of those inspirational photos yesterday about moms in mourning. I didn't say anything in the pregnancy announcement about my losses leading up to this pregnancy. I wanted to focus on the positive. Did anyone see it and think, "It's so easy for her. I wish it were like that for me." Or maybe, "I hope this one came easier for her." Or even, "There's a story of hope there." I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings. 

26 Week appointment

Well, I liked the sugar drink again. I enjoyed the quiet 45 minutes after my appointment to sit and read my book. I loved my McDonald's breakfast afterwards. Hopefully, we'll get good news from this appointment. Last time I needed to start taking iron pills after the results came back. That's not so bad. I'm not too worried about the diabetes. 

The actual appointment was super-fast with a doctor I had never met. I didn't like that part too much. She was running late and barely talked to me. The heart rate was in the 140s and my measurement looked good. She did give me a pamphlet on Cord Blood donation. I looked into this when I was pregnant with W and I really wanted to do it, but it wasn't widely available in my state. Now it is offered as a normal procedure at my hospital, so we will definitely sign up (I have to wait until 28 weeks). 

So, on we go! I'm into the two-week appointments now and I have the next four scheduled. One of them is with the doctor who did my c-section. I'm going to do everything I can to have her do this one if needed. For those of you who have had repeat (scheduled) c-sections, when did you set the date? 

26 weeks and my little tree

I’ve talked about my little tree before. My mom gave it to me after my 14 week miscarriage and I had to take care of it. I’m not a gardener and I absolutely cannot keep plants alive. I have no idea. The plant on my desk is only alive because a guy near me takes pity on it. My garden looks ok because I only plant things that have no maintenance requirements. I was upset when my mom gave me this tree because I knew one day the tree would die and I would feel like a failure.

We have come to that time. We moved in August and brought the tree with us. In the moving, I know I didn’t water the tree like I should have. I saw it turn brown over the winter. And now it is completely dry and the leaves (I think they are called leaves on this type of tree) are falling off. We did the huge spring clean up and mulching a few weeks ago. M’s parents were helping us. I told M that I thought they should take the tree and dig it up. There is no way I could do that myself. He told me to wait and see how it goes through the spring. So it’s still there, right where I can see it. Dead. I’m upset about that.

26 weeks is treating me well. I have an appointment on Wednesday with the Glucose test. I like the drink and the hour to read a book and the McDonald’s breakfast I get for myself on the way to work. So I’m looking at this as a little treat for myself. Is that weird?

I fell down on the street Saturday morning. I was walking along to meet up with MIL who was watching W and had taken him for a walk. I decided to walk up the street to meet them and walk back together. It was a beautiful day! I went around a corner and stepped right off the edge. I stumbled and fell on my knee. It was not a bad fall. I am not a fast walker and I am not tall. I got a scrape, but it didn’t even bleed. MIL could see me, but she was far enough away that she couldn’t even yell to see if I was ok. A car was pulling up to the stop sign as I fell. The man rolled down his window and asked if I was ok. Then he watched me get up and brush myself off and inspect my knee. He asked again. I assured him and thanked him. When MIL got to me, she told me that man was the head of OBGYN at the hospital where I will give birth! Possibly the best person to have nearby when you fall down! M was concerned when I told him about it, but the baby hasn’t changed its habits. I’m not at all worried about the fall.

I’ll update again on Wednesday. It’s my last 2^nd trimester appointment! 

25 weeks and a break from diapers

Everything pregnancy related is going wonderfully. I did have a moment last week when I thought the baby wasn’t moving as much, so I laid down and it responded wonderfully with lots of wiggles and kicks.

I potty trained W over the weekend, starting with a day off from work on Friday. I was pretty sure he would get it quickly, but I was expecting a lot of resistance. He has always responded to “Do you have to go potty” with a loud “NO!” and sometimes he’d shout it “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” just so I would get the point. I never pushed it. Just hoped he’d potty train himself, I guess.

Several of my internet friends successfully used the three-day bootcamp, so I decided to give it a try. I found a weekend where we didn’t have anything planned and blocked it out. I read the book a few weeks in advance to see if we needed to do any prep work – mainly we cut out the nighttime milk. I read it again last week to prepare.

And it worked like a dream. I give most of the credit to W’s age. He will be 3 in 3 weeks. He understands everything we say to him. The rest of the credit is to the methods in the book. It was totally clear on what to say, when to say things and how to explain to your kid what is going on. We actually only had 3 accidents and I could tell that it had clicked with the 3^rd accident (he stopped and told me and then finished on the toilet), which was early Friday afternoon. I kept up with it for the 2^nd day just to make sure. We decided to drop it and take a family trip to the zoo on Sunday. We didn’t have anything else planned!

I was nervous about the outing – we took 4 changes of clothes and put an incontinence pad in the carseat. It worked out perfectly, though. I had to pee constantly and just took W into the bathrooms with me. He was cool with the public toilets as long as I held onto him.

The hardest part was the physical part of getting him on and off the toilet, the bending over, the up-and-down of it all. My back was killing me each night. That probably doesn’t happen to the non-pregnant people!

The best part was the 3 days straight of just focusing on W. I found several projects on pintrest for us to do together. We read tons of books. We watched a movie. We played outside. And, well, he did yardwork. M did the mulching around the yard on Friday afternoon. W was outside with his little wheelbarrow and no pants, loading up the mulch and delivering it to the garden. He only paused for bathroom breaks!

I’m going to be one of those people that preaches this method. Everyone I know that has used it was successful.