Health update, and baby nicknames

My blood pressure is much better. The medication helped, but what really what seems to have made the biggest difference has been having my c-section incision cleaned and packed daily.

Hubby's theory is that my c-section wasn't draining properly, and that my blood pressure was high because my body was trying to get rid of the bad stuff by PUMPING it out.

For a while, had to go to ObGyn to get the wound packed daily. Was on call... meaning would get a phone call from the ObGyn sometime during the day asking us to come on down. No forewarning. Couldn't really plan our days ahead of time. Lovely.

[Before you think otherwise, I very much like my ObGyn. But so do 20 thousand other women! So it's a little hard to get in to see her in a scheduled fashion... especially when she's off doing emergency c-sections, etc.]

Then started having a nurse drop by daily. Received some forewarning ahead of time, which was good, because if they could at least give me an hour, I could take a shower before. And considering my attempts at keeping the wound dry while in the shower were failing miserably, the only intelligent options were to take a shower just before, pulling out the packing myself just before I hopped in the shower, or to STAY STINKY. Bleah.

Hubby was trained 2 days ago to clean and pack the wound. So now we can schedule things ourselves. Weee!!!

When he has to return to work, not sure if I should attempt to clean it myself or not. I keep flashing back to the movie Ronin, where Robert De Niro is looking at his gunshot wound with a mirror, and advising 2 other guys what to do to get the bullet out. You get the impression that De Niro's character has pulled the bullets out himself on occasion when he didn't have anyone else, and just had the tools and a mirror.

And really badly want to know when I can start driving again. My hubby having to take me to all these doctor appointments, and doing the grocery shopping, while he also has to go to work, is just not going to work well. He's already pretty damned wiped out. He's been on "vacation", but in spite of that, the last 2 days of very little sleep have made him nauseated. Consistently.

And it's not exactly been a wonderful vacation for him. He's been my slave. And I'm Logan's slave, of course!

Need to send hubby to Vegas with friends for a weekend. Badly.

I seem to be handling the sleeplessness a bit better. Maybe it's a motherhood thing, a switch getting thrown in my body to allow me to function. Not looking forward to when I have to go back to work on top of this no-sleep deal, LOL!!!

Sigh.

Baby has been given alot of nicknames thanks to our various experiences with him.

(1) "Little One"
(2) "Little Guy"
(3) "Logan Monster"
(4) "Ten-pound Tyrant"
(5) "Bottomless Pit"

1 and 2 are obvious. He's adorable. And he's little.

3... he can be a "monster". But we mean it affectionately. And it's mostly to accommodate the way we also talk to the dogs. Boss is "Boss Dog", or sometimes "B-Dog". Ellie is "Ellie Girl". Sometimes she's "Ellsibub", sorta like "Beelzebub", except there's nothing demonic about our Ellie Girl.

So Logan needs to be "Logan Monster". ;)

4... when he wants to be fed, he'd better be fed NOW. Even if he just wants another 5 minutes of food. It had better be now. "No, you may NOT take a bathroom break. No, you may not stop for a shower or to brush your teeth. What do you MEAN you need to eat and drink? NO, you must feed me NOW!!!!"

And when he pees, he wants that pee to leave his diaper NOW. But he also doesn't want his diaper changed. He wants the pee to miraculously leave his diaper. This whole changing thing is just way too inefficient for him.

Basically, it's pretty hard to please him!

5 has to do with how often he wants to be fed. And fed. And fed. Add to that the fact that he's not very, uhm, gentle with my nipples! And my hubby has started teasingly calling me a "moo cow".

Logan has made me realize that the perfect punishment for when he's old enough to do something wrong (and KNOW he's done something wrong) is to stick him in the corner and make him stand there... while wearing nipple-clamps. I keep threatening him with them whenever he makes me yip from pain.

He isn't getting anywhere near my poor nipples when his teeth start coming in. I am pumping WELL before we get there.

Thankfully, although he can be a tyrant, he's also really good at rewarding Mommy... even as he's making my poor nipples throb in pain. He makes this cooing noise that brings out emotions in me that I remember only having when holding and petting little puppies. Hubby calls it "mommy crack", i.e., crack-cocaine for mommies. It melts my heart. Which is good, because there are times that I've totally understood why someone might get frustrated enough to start shaking their baby!!!

I never realized babies could make positive noises. Thought it was all about screaming to high heaven at an ear-splitting frequency. But no, they actually make good noises, too. Oh, thank the Lord!!! :)

Anyway, in answer to my Sister-in-law's question from a few weeks ago, "no, we haven't killed him yet." :)

He's driving us crazy, but I still think Logan's a keeper. ;)

Don't break the baby...

We had our Sister and her boyfriend over at our house for Christmas. Logan isn't sleeping in his bedroom yet, so we shoved things around, and inflated a queen-sized blow-up bed in there. Infinitely more comfortable than the alternative: sleeping one person on my parent's ancient couch in the living room, the other on the floor. No door to close for privacy. No way to block out the light from the kitchen or the family room. Mom sleeping on the couch in the family room with a light on and the TV on, so...

Thought we were also sparing them the lovely beeping noises of the smoke detector that kept me up the 2 nights I slept on their couch in January, during the lovely termite-tenting of our house. But either the battery in the wall or in the smoke detector got replaced, or thankfully finally died. No beeping to be heard on Christmas Eve when we went over, LOL!

Anyway, my Sister and her boyfriend were arriving Sunday December 23rd, late in the evening. We took a look our baby, who hadn't had a bath yet. Who we had even been bad about just using a wet washcloth on his face. [His face was breaking out...] We'd been postponing a real bath until his umbilical cord fell off, but we'd even postponed just the "wash and dry a section at a time" version of baby bathing that we could have done in spite of the umbilical cord.

So, realizing we have a "welfare baby" appearance going on with our child, and knowing my Sister was on her way, we realized we needed to do more than just "feed the baby, change the baby, burp the baby, rock the baby". Needed to do more than just the bare minimum that appears to be sufficient to STOP THE CRYING.

We unpacked the baby bath kit. Hubby got the shower-attachment setup. [It's a battery-powered shower pump thingy that you dip one end into a water-holder. The water-holder has a temperature indicator so you know you're not about to freeze or boil the baby.]

The great hunt for the Johnson's Baby Shampoo failed miserably. [I had "hidden" it in the master-bath's shower.] So hair washing was to be done with the Johnson's Baby soap.

I put the baby bath kit into the guest bathroom tub. Filled the water reservoir. Watched the temperature indicator go up through "too cold" to "ideal", then crawl into "too hot". [Not the actual words on the indicator, but you get the idea.] Tossed some cold water in. There we go.

Removed baby clothing and diaper in other room, and brought baby in. Wiped Logan's face and ears and hands off with a wet washcloth first. Then wet his hair, washed that. Then wet rest of body and washed with a soapy washcloth. Then rinsed off. Wow. Baby is shivering. Wow. Really badly. Shit.

Hubby was watching, and we both realized that, as we'd been told, yes, babies have a hard time regulating body temperature! And washing/drying one section at a time was INDEED a better idea!

I picked Logan up and put him in a towel while hubby was taking care of something in the other room. Was in a hurry to dry baby. Baby is squirming like mad. While trying to get every part dry, realized his head was at a weird angle... shit, his head is hanging off the bathroom counter-top! Ack! Picked his head up and just grabbed him and the towel and headed for a better surface to finish drying him on.

Hubby meanwhile was hunting for onsies and socks, etc. We got him all suited up, covering every surface except his face. Hubby handed Logan to me, and I lay down and gave him all kinds of body-warmth, trying to counteract the hypothermia.

Phew!

We were wiped out. Apparently, so was Logan! He passed out and slept for HOURS after that trauma!!!

Eventually got him woken up to feed him. Then needed to change him. Hubby strapped him into his changing table as he's been getting more and more squirmy. I went over, took off the old diaper. Cleaned him. And then tried to lift him to put the new diaper under him. Hmmm... why can't I lift him higher? Shit! He's strapped down... I'm BENDING THE BABY IN HALF!!!!

Aigh!!!!!

Unstrapped the baby, finished putting the new diaper on him, and crawled back into bed with him.

I tried to break the baby. 3 times in one day. SHUDDER.

The next day, I was exhausted. Hubby had been telling me I wasn't resting enough. Mother-in-law was also like, "you're not resting enough." Sometime in the afternoon, I gave up, feeling guilty for apparently not taking good enough care of myself and feeling like I was getting punished for not feeling well, LOL. And crawled back into bed.

Well, this Christmas Eve, about 5 or 6 hours before we were going over to my parent's to celebrate. And of course, since it's Southern California, it was nice and cool in the bedroom this winter afternoon. NOT.

The afternoon sun hit. The room got up to mid to high 70's. And my post-partum body was having hot flashes. I'm trying to sleep, am keeping Logan close to myself so that he will sleep. Would wake up, and check his feet... his hands... his forehead. Was worrying now about heatstroke.

My Sister-in-law claims baby's are easier than dogs.

She's got to be on drugs. And she should be sharing.

Oatmeal the wrong way

Hubby makes me some oatmeal. Claims he makes it the wrong way.

Me: "You can't make oatmeal the wrong way... it's foolproof."

Him: "Yeah, well, you'll see."

Last time he made it for me, I had problems finishing it. But I think that was because I was either in the middle of the headache of death from Friday, or was dead tired, or something.

He brings it in to me. I start eating...

It's.... it's... kindof a little too chewy. Oh, it's not quite cooked all the way!

Me: "Uhm, how did you make this oatmeal?"

Him: "It's wrong, isn't it? Told you I make it the wrong way. I poured boiling water over it."

"Oh. I usually just poor water over it and slap both into the microwave for 1 minute."

"Yeah, the instructions say to cook it and the water at the same time, but..."

"Wow. You DO make oatmeal the wrong way!!!!"

A bird in the bathroom is worth... huh?

So, Saturday 12/15/2007, in the morning, I've just put Logan back into his bassinet after feeding and/or changing. I stop to read a little bit before closing my eyes for more sleep. I see movement out of the corner of my eyes.

It's small. And fast. And too high up for dogs. And it's in the bathroom.

A bird has found it's way into the bathroom through the hole in the screen. And it's bouncing back and forth in a panic between our bathroom mirrors and the bathroom window... but unfortunately, not the screen part of the window. Rather the bright, lighted frosted glass to no-where part, that birdy doesn't understand is a solid object.

I head into the bathroom, and close the door. I don't want the bird escaping into the bedroom and pooping all over everything, especially Logan!!!

I grab a plastic bag on the floor and put it over my hand inside-out, and proceed to chase the poor thing all over. And I'm barefoot, which I didn't think of in time before I went in there.

The bird hides between all our crap on the counter, occasionally leaving it's own crap there as well. And flies behind the toilet. And flies into the trash can on top of the toilet.(1) And flies up onto the shelves above the toilet. And towards the door, where it sees a crack under the door that it might squeeze through. And as I try to corner it by the door, it flies between my legs. I can feel it's feathers brush my legs as it swoops past, and mentally tick off something else I'll need to wash once I'm done, LOL!

Finally, it flies towards the trash can on top of the toilet a 2nd time. I check, but that's not where it is. Oh, it's somewhere under the toilet. In the toilet brush holder!!!

I snag that, and make sure the lid is secure, and walk out with my trapped birdy. Hubby is passed out, having taken "smelly hippie"(2) to ensure a good night's sleep.

I wake him briefly, to show him that I've captured a bird, explaining that it was flying back and forth between the window and the mirror, slowly bashing itself to death. I explain there's probably bird doo on the floor, and the counter next to the sink, so to be careful until I get it cleaned up. Then I take it outside and release it. Hubby passes back out.

I come back in, and rinse off feet and legs. I know I should have used soap, but was so tired by that time, I gave up. I crawled back into bed.

Tired hubby gets up a few hours later and wanders into the kitchen. Looking for bird doo there, LOL! And seeing none, assumes I've already cleaned it up. But is at a loss to understand why the bird was banging from the mirror near thew front door, all the way to the sliding glass door in the living room. :) [The sliding glass door also has a screen door with a big hole in it.]

We're both so tired, neither of us has made sense or understood each other for a couple of weeks, LOL!!!


(1) If you have dogs, you probably understand the necessity of keeping bathroom trash cans on top of the toilet. :) If you don't... nevermind...

(2) Smelly Hippie is what we call Unisom. There's an episode of Futurama where Lur of Omicron Persei 8 eats a hippie that's got some pot or something in his system. At one point, Lur says something to the effect of, "Whoa... this hippie's starting to kick in!!!!" :)

Doctor, Doctor, give me the news...

So, Tuesday 12/11/2007 I went to see my ObGyn for some various concerns.

My c-section incision was oozing quite a bit. No fever though.

My back was hurting, and I almost felt like maybe I had a UTI (Urinary Trace Infection).

And most importantly, my blood pressure was through through the roof.

So, the nurse practitioner looked at my incision. It wasn't infected, and it's designed to heal from the innermost incision to the outermost. And they leave room so that any fluids that need to ooze out can ooze out. So, instead of the flimsy 4x4 inch squares of gauze, we were advised to use a pad to catch the fluids. So now I'm wearing 2 pads per pair of painties, in a kind of t-square formation... one to catch the "lochia", and one to catch the ooze.

The nurse also re-taped the incision. But the tape lasted as long as the tape lasted last time: about 2 hours! Told hubby not to re-tape it a 3rd time. Waste of effort. :)

Using my pregger SI-belt to hold 2nd pad in place over the incision.

Peed in a cup for the UTI test. Came back negative. Wee! And noticed something really cool: I could aim alot better now, LOL! W/O baby in the way in my belly, I actually could almost see what I was doing. :)

Blood pressure was still bad. Was told that, at next visit Thursday of next week, if it was still bad, would be sent to someone to look into getting treatment for high blood pressure.

My blood pressure during the tail end of the pregnancy kept going up. I guess I managed to get gestational high blood pressure. Theoretically, it will hopefully clear itself up a month from delivery, unless it's decided to become a problem for me in my non-pregger state.

So, went back home. A couple of days go by, and I feel short of breath. Call my ObGyn. I figure the shortness of breath is because my ObGyn had to practically sit on my tummy to push Logan down towards the c-section incision. [He was still way too far up... hadn't dropped down hardly at all. 42 weeks, and the kid had NO intention of leaving, LOL!]

ObGyn says that I need to go to the ER.

No!!!!!! Not the hospital AGAIN!!!! Sigh.

She also says to pick up another pain prescription from her office on the way. She had given me 2 refills on her original prescription, on a special prescription pad that allows for the scary pain meds to be prescribed with refills, but the pharmacy had still decided to limit it to one filling per prescription on the medication due to some law. But again, the prescription pad my ObGyn used should have taken care of that law as far as refills were concerned.

BTW, if I've got typo's galore here, please forgive me. Although my hips are feeling better, and I haven't had any real water retention or any heart burn to speak of, I STILL CAN'T FEEL MOST OF MY FINGERS. It's worse in my right hand. Sigh.

So, Thursday, 12/13/2007, we pack Logan into his car seat (for his 3rd car ride since his birth), and head off to first my ObGyn's, then the ER.

At the ER, they check my blood pressure, draw a bunch of blood, take my temp, ask me a bunch of questions, etc. I try to regurgitate all of my symptoms. It's hard when you aren't allowed to eat or drink anything because results from tests might send you in for surgery, LOL! Blood sugar was tanking. Thankfully, Logan slept through everything, and so never needed feeding.

They gave me a CT scan to check for blood clots. Didn't find anything. Ended up very happily being sent home after being given a blood pressure med to take right then, then another for the morning. Told to see ObGyn next day so she could either prescribe the same med, or something else.

Felt better, but tired.

Next morning, got up early 'cause wasn't sure when would see ObGyn. Called ObGyn, explained ER wanted me to see her today. Took shower. Fed/changed baby, ate stuff.

Got into ObGyn just before noon. Splitting headache. Blood pressure still pretty high. Showed ObGyn results. She talked to another doctor. Ended up with another prescription. Told to go back to ER if headache got worse or didn't go away. And to stay in bed for the next 4 days, except for Logan's doc appointment Monday. And to come in again on Tuesday.

Hubby took me and Logan home, then went back out with grocery list I'd given him and prescriptions to fill.

I pretty much slept most of 12/14/2007 away, except for feeding/changing Logan. I was running from that headache. Around 7 or 9pm, woke up and the bloody thing was finally GONE. Thank you, Lord!!!

So, have been waited on hand and feet.

During the whole ER experience, was worried about what parents were going to think.

While I was in the hospital having 2 days of unsuccessful inducement, they flashed back to when I was a sick little kid, and they'd take me to the hospital once a year for a week at a time, to have the doctor's check on me and see how I was surviving. [Doc's thought I had a genetic disease that either God healed me of, or God decided I didn't have, LOL! I may in fact have just been sickly due to being born puny, 6 weeks premature, and never getting breast fed. Latter was not my Mom's fault, however.]

So, they are flashing back to when they were feeling helpless to help me. Mom's got congestive heart failure, and is nearly 80. Dad's nearly 86. If some stress takes Mom out, Dad is likely to follow from losing Mom.

Have been trying to keep them from seeing me in pain. Didn't think they could handle it. Didn't want the delivery to be the death of them!!!

So there I was, in the ER. Hoping that they weren't worrying too much about me.

I was stressed out. I wasn't doing "calm blue ocean" very well right then. But I've been trying to learn how to maintain the calm blue ocean thing.

Like, when I was in the hospital earlier for the inducement/c-section, I really didn't have the luxury to feel sorry for myself that I was getting poked with twelve billion needles. Remembering how I used to be terrified of needles, and how that was caused by being traumatized as a little kid, wasn't going to be productive towards my surviving delivery. Honestly, instead, I've been enjoying how I'm no LONGER terrified of needles.

I'm still a bit spooked by hospitals, but I was also enjoying the fact that I trusted that everyone there was on my side, and had no intention of hurting me, or allowing me to be in pain if they could help it.

I guess you could say that I was enjoying having a positive hospital experience rather than allowing self-pity to come into play about how I was justified in being scared or angry at having to suffer through the hospital again in my life.

I'd like to take credit for my more positive attitude, but I figure it's God, plus hubby's training, plus Zoloft and alot of kind people drawing my blood that have turned thing around for me, LOL! Ok, that and the birthing classes making me ready for what to expect. :)

Anyway, I've been trying to not react to crisis's with panic, but rather with calm blue ocean attitude. Whether the crisis is my own or someone else's. Not always doing it well. But have seen some improvement.

And ironically, I want my parents to do the same. Sigh. They understandably responded with, "well, now that you have your own child, you understand how we can still worry about you". They sorta missed the point, LOL! Because of their health, they can't really indulge that worry. They can be concerned, but it needs to be calm concern. 'Cause I want them to be around for a few more Christmases, damnit!!! :)

Anyway, things have been very weird. But thank God, Logan's health has appeared to be really good. Would rather I be the sickly one than him, anyday. :)

Now if me and hubby could just catch up on our REM sleep...

Communication Skills

So, my Sister called at 9:30am to make sure we wouldn't open some boxes she was sending for Logan until Xmas. Now, we're using the time from, uhm, sunrise to noon in order to catch up on our REM sleep due to feeding/changing Logan all night long. So the phone ringing in the bedroom meant we were scrambling to answer it before the ringing could wake Logan up.

After I talked to my Sister, hubby got up to turn the heat on as he thought it was too cold for Logan. Then he came back into the bedroom.

Me: "Love, could you turn the phone off?"

Hubby: "You want me to turn off the fan?"

"Yes, it's going to wake Logan."

"Ok......"

I put my head back on the pillow. Hubby turns off the FAN. I look up at the sudden lack of white noise.

Me: "Why did you turn the FAN off?"

Hubby: "You told me to..."

"No, the phone!!! The phone!" :)

We were both so tired, we both got the exhaustion giggles. :)

Home Safe

I'm behind several updates.

Logan was born December 5th at 3:10pm via C-section, after 2 days of unsuccessful induction attempts using 3 different medications.

Wee!!!

He was 8 pounds 3 ounces, 20 inches long. Due to the fact that they had given me morphine to help me cope with the long, unsuccessful inducement (went from 1 centimeter to a full 1.5 centimeters, whoo-hoo! :) ), he was born pretty danged sleepy.

Husband watched procedure. I was thankfully kept unaware via a blue sheet. When they broke my water through the incision, it reminded hubby of the water fountain at the Bellagio, LOL! He said first it squirted up 3 feet. He's since said it was 4. I think it's getting higher each time he tries to remember the scene.

He got to see my abdominal cavity. I'm glad I didn't see anything during the procedure, but I almost wish we'd recorded it so I could watch it once, then burn the evidence, LOL!

Several days in the hospital later, with lots of education and emotional / physical support from the nurses/doctors, they released us from the hospital on Sunday December 9th. That was way more of a production that I had thought it would be. And then, getting home, and letting the dogs sniff me and make sure I was ok (after I'd been gone since Monday morning almost a week ago) was also a production.

Then Logan wanted to be fed, changed, etc. Dogs got kicked out, w/o getting to meet him for a while. They about went nuts.

And my blood pressure had been running high. And then I realized my pain meds were wearing off, which might account at that moment for the feeling that my blood pressure was through the roof. And since they'd removed the staples Saturday, my incision was bleeding. Weee... just alot of stress even at home.

Hubby called his parents in to babysit me and Logan while he went to get pain meds at the pharmacy, as well as gauze to put over my incision. Before he left, though, he fed me and called the hospital and various doctors.

Basically, he had to take care of an invalid AND a baby. Well, I was doing the breast feeding, LOL!

His parents came over and talked to me and kept me company while he picked up my meds.

His parents came over later that evening also for moral support, LOL!

Saturday night, in the hospital, I finally lost it. Too much stimulation/information, too little sleep. Nurses had to pull me off the walls. Had a good serious crying fit. And then I finally had gotten those damned post-partum hormones weeped out, and I was SO much better. Sigh.

Hubby has been awesome. He's taken over on scheduling doc appointments, on feeding me, on chores, etc. I think we're going to make it, but it is a pretty stressful experience, LOL!

Worth it, though. :)

Finally figured out how to wake Logan for his feeding sessions. Cold, wet feet. Diaper wipes work great for that. Now if we can figure out how to get him to calm down and go back to sleep! :)

And my milk finally came in. And with that, Logan has been voracious!!!

Ok, got to click submit before he starts crying again, LOL!

Oh, the dogs finally met him. They keep checking him when he cries. I can't help but think they want to give me advice: "what are you doing? No, do it like this!!!"

12/4/2007, 10:45pm. I. WANT. CHOCOLATE.

Ok, pain's getting worse, and kindof hanging on in a low-level way.

I want fentonal. And Reesus peanut-butter cups. And a Wendy's cheeseburger. And a LARGE order of salty, oily french fries.

Starting to get some slight cold sweats.

Chocolate ice cream would be good too. And chocolate milk shakes. And chocolate sodas. Oooooh... and about 3 coca colas. And some mac and cheese.

Why do I feel voracious???

12/4/2007 9pm Still being induced.

Well, 2 doses of something to soften the cervix have left it a little softer, but still at 1 cm. Or at least, at noon today, it was still 1cm.

Now on picotin (spelling?!?!?) to induce contractions and also open up the cervix. Started that around noon today. Have had some contractions... was almost getting repetitive, with ones every 6 minutes. But not quite happening right now.

They were ironically really low on the pain scale. Freaking me out. Was expecting to be pretty much speaking in blasphemous tongues, spinning my head 360 degrees around, and projectile vomiting green bile at this point, LOL! [And that's as much of the movie The Exorcist as I can even remotely stand to remember, LOL!] But they have been really nice and easy. It makes me feel like they are just making me a little too relaxed so they can jump me later! :)

But this is what IS hurting: the kid is trying to DIG his way out, I SWEAR!!! I keep looking down and going, "Ouch! Hey, cut it out! Let my cervix open up first!"

2 weeks being cooked extra... the little bugger has got nails, I know it. And he's definitely SCRATCHING. Yikes. OUCH.

They keep upping the picotin dosage every hour or so. And they will check my cervix at midnight, and if it's still closed, will give me some medication to open it up, while still keeping me on the picotin.

So, still preggers. And have a picotin drip and saline drip attached. And the baby monitor cables. Weeee.

Hubby setup an ad-hoc network that I can reach through his computer. His computer is hooked up to the internet via his phone. So as long as he's here, I have network access. Yea!!!! :) But don't count on it. Things may change.

It was funny, because he was asking me, "are you trying to access bleah"? Uh, no, I was trying to access something else... So then he password-protected his ad-hoc network, and we both started laughing as we realized the people out there who had briefly had Internet-Love, and were now DENIED, LOL!!!

Thank you all of you for all your words of encouragement. :) Can't believe all the VERY COOL friends I've made online. :) You guys ROCK. :)

12/3/2007 In the hospital

This morning, the doctor determined my water was a little low. So I was walked over to the hospital.

I looked at the nurse pathetically and asked if I could go home first and grab my bags, etc., LOL! Nope. Husband had to rescue my car. And bring my bags. I think there's a part of me that wanted to just go home and hide, and maybe they wouldn't drag me to the hospital until the original induction date of December 5th, LOL!

They've given me stuff to dilate my cervix. I'm here until Logan comes out. Been here since 10am-ish. Seen both sets of grandparents.

I won't often have internet access. There is no wi-fi... using husband's laptop to type this, and his laptop is using his cell phone for internet access. So my laptop is just going to be for playing movies.

I feel weirdly disconnected, LOL! I need my internet fix, damnit!

Anyway, whenever I'm able, will keep you guys informed. :)

I may be here a LONG while. Sigh.

Still preggers 12/2/2007 1:30pm, plus spooked myself

I am now officially... uhm... 11 days late. And I recently (within the last week) learned that mortality rates for babies suddenly go up past 42 weeks. [I'm being induced at the 42 week mark if he hasn't come out before then.]

So, I sleep in all kinds of weird patterns. I slept from 8:30pm to midnight, got up, was up until 5am, came to bed. Around 5:30am Logan stopped running laps. I was lying on my right side, which sometimes feels a little funny, like maybe that was where the cord is hooked up. Sometimes I've felt my heart start working harder, like maybe Logan is squishing the cord on that side.

So, Logan was running laps. Then suddenly he just stops. Like he's done, he can sleep now. But my first thought was "he ran out of oxygen, he's going to be stillborn!"

I started patting my belly. Then kindof moving my belly around. Then moved to my left side to get him "off the cord", assuming he was on it. Then majorly thumping my belly, poking my belly, shaking my belly around. Kid wouldn't move.

Logan was probably in there, lying there quietly, going, "WTF??? I'm trying to sleep here... what the hell is she doing?!?" Husband woke up to me patting belly and then stopping and waiting quietly to feel something. I sent him out to the garage for the stethoscope*. He came back once w/o finding it, went back out when I told him where I thought it was. By that time, Logan had started squirming, because I'd given up on poking and prodding, and now Logan was all like giving me his thoughts on waking him up, LOL!

Tried to find the heartbeat using the stethoscope. But couldn't find his heartbeat. And learned that getting frustrated and slapping the stethoscope onto the next location of my stomach (in my search pattern) was kindof jarring on my ears, LOL!

But he was moving around, and all peeved at me for waking him up. So it was all good. Went to sleep. ;)

* The stethoscope was in the garage because, of course, that's where everyone stores it, right??!? :)

So, a friend gave us her gun safe several months ago, and we stored the huge thing in the garage. She couldn't remember the combination, but was pretty sure she knew the first and last numbers. We tried to break into it, and had no luck after a LONG time of trying. We wanted to (a) be able to use it, and (b) return her guns!!! The gun safe was never registered when it was purchased, so there was no-one to call for the combo!!! Friend eventually came to stay for a few days, and tried to break into it herself. We also tried to get someone to come out and break into it for us, but w/o proof of ownership, for some reason (LOL), they balked!

There was a little ID code on a piece of metalic paper that was stuck to the safe, but the metalic paper got majorly munged when the safe was moved, so couldn't even use that to ID the safe!!!!

Safe was moved to our friend's house on Friday. She can now sit there in her garage, trying to crack it open in her copious free time, LOL!

This whole event made my husband post something on his blog about how a free safe is never free, LOL!!! I think I did the same... have to find the links, but whatever... :)

Anyway, Logan is fine. I've been pretty good about not having pregger panic, but I guess the whole idea that I really COULD over-bake Logan is starting to work on my brain. :)

Still preggers 12/1/2007 7am, plus Vader PEZ Dispensers

My friend Radioactive Jam found the scavenger item I suggested, a Darth Vader PEZ Dispenser. I honestly wasn't sure one existed, but I figured if Snoopy PEZ dispensers existed (they do... I own one... uhm... somewhere around here... guess I should post a picture), then surely a Vader PEZ dispenser also exists. ;)

I'm embarrassed to say that I only just realized he'd found my suggested item. I.E., he found it almost a week ago, but thanks to this whole pregnancy thing, I've been rather oblivious, LOL!

I'm currently up right now, having risen a little after 4:30am after a bout of pregger heartburn, followed by the ever-present pregger need-to-pee, followed also then by the need to have several sneezing fits in an attempt to clear my sinuses of all the phlegm that my pregger body likes to accumulate when I sleep.

Basically, I'm a sneezing, peeing, burning monster, but thankfully I have chocolate (in the form of miniature Reesus Peanut Butter Cups), so I haven't killed anyone yet. ;)

People keep telling me that it's all going to be ok, that Logan will arrive soon. Although there are many aspects of pregnancy that I'm really done experiencing, I realize I'm not actually in any extreme hurry to end this whole thing. I've enjoyed the extra time to rest and nest and prepare. I don't want to over-bake the kid, but I haven't been in a hurry to rush to the hospital and do the deed.

And a part of me -- a very small, weird part -- will actually miss being pregnant. It's a truly bizarre but amazing experience.

This does NOT mean I'm already ready to start working on kid #2, LOL! Once I get my body back, it will probably take alot to talk me into doing this a 2nd time. ;)

So, did have some signs last night that the kid is thinking of packing up his stuff and exiting prior to the eviction date of December 5th. I wasn't feeling so hot yesterday evening... or rather, I was feeling pretty cold. Having the heater on, the fire going, and blankets didn't seem to help right away. And I sorta felt like I was having cramps, but mostly I just felt really tired, and like my tummy was in solid-basketball-mode. Lay down for a bit, got warmed up, then managed to get back up to go out and continue seeing the PS3 demo hubby's friend was giving us. :)

I think I must have overdone things yesterday morning, with the doc appointment and then the grocery shopping, and insisting on not having help with putting the groceries in the car. [But then, bringing on labor from dropping 24-packs of water into the trunk would NOT be a bad thing at this point.] Am feeling much better at the moment. Maybe I should go lift some more 24-packs. ;)

So the PS3 demo: got to see a ton of hubby's friend's games. Included were:

• Heavenly Sword


• Warhawk


• Ratchet and Clank


• Folklore


• MotorStorm


• Resistance: Fall of Man


• Assassins Creed

I'm not sure which one floats my boat best. They were all VERY VERY PRETTY. :) Resistance felt a bit like Halo 3. Warhawk felt like Halo 3 online, LOL! You definitely use alot of the same skills.

I do know I'm still totally jonesing for Grand Theft Auto 4 when it comes out. We don't own a PS3 yet, but it will be out for the XBox 360, so that's ok. But then again, some of the games in the above list were nifty enough to warrant the purchase of a PS3, so... Heh. Maybe our old PS2 can go into the baby's room for playing DVDs and my old Spyro 2 game. ;)

Of course, hubby's friend has already been heavily exposed at our house to Guitar Hero for the XBox 360. ;) Not sure if hubby's friend has seen Halo 3 yet for the XBox 360, although he's played 1 and 2. Hubby wants to borrow 1 and 2 to play the back-story, since he's already finished Halo 3. Well, almost: he finished Halo 3 in normal mode, and now has been fighting it in Legendary mode. But he's lost a bit of his impetus, thanks in part to the purchase of Guitar Hero, and the fact that he's "Flooded out" right now, LOL. [If you play Halo 3, you know what I mean by being Flooded out. ;) ]

I've played a little Halo 3, mostly alongside hubby, and mostly trying to be the reason hubby can re-spawn. If you play in 2 player mode, as long as one of you is alive, you can continue the round w/o restarting from the last checkpoint. When one person dies, if the other is still alive, the dead person re-spawns and play can continue. This assumes the other person is any good at staying alive... I'm not, LOL!

I've also enjoyed Guitar Hero... and would be playing MORE of it, if I hadn't lost feeling in my right hand's fingers thanks to being pregnant. Strumming the guitar just isn't really comfortable. I'm just glad I can still type reasonably well in spite of it. [At least I'm no longer retaining water in my right ankle... pregnancy side-effects are SO weird.]

My hands both feel sore and tight when I try to close them into fists. Freaking weird.

Yeah, ok. I'm ready for the kid to be born, LOL!

The left hip feeling like it's rubbing bone-against-bone... I could deal with that. I miss walking the dogs, and hobbling around gets a little old, but whatever. Water retention... in only my right ankle? Weird, but could cope. I could mostly deal with my sinuses going from their normal crappy state to the uber-crappy pregnant state. The heartburn... mostly controllable with Zantac and/or Tums and some swearing, so... cool. The peeing when there's barely any pee to pee ("Why does it say 'paper jam' when there is no paper jam?!?"), ok, can deal with that. The kid running laps in my belly... ok, sure. The kid trying to feng shui my organs around... rather uncomfortable, but he doesn't do it ALL the time. Being required to drink a TON of water in spite of the fact that I have a bladder being squished by this kid down to the size of a... hmmm... PEZ dispenser... ok, sure. Seeing doctor's more times in a year than I can shake a stick at: ok, whatever. [The Phlebotomy and Endocrinology departments in one clinic have insisted I bring the kid around after he's born!!!] The back hurting if I try to do dishes... sure, whatever, no biggy.

But my hands cramping up? Losing feeling in most of my fingers of my right hand? Ok, I'm done here, LOL!

Phew. Well, it's almost 7:00 am. My nose has shut up. I think the heart burn is finally done with me. And it's about time to pee again, LOL. Maybe I can pee and then go back to sleep. :)

Good night all.

Oh, forgot. Hubby's friend thinks I'll go into labor on Sunday. I've had several different labor-date predictions from online and real-life friends. Not holding my breath, LOL! But then, hubby's friend has made other "predictions" before that have been correct.

Hubby's friend doesn't have ESP or anything... he's just really good at seeing where things are going, LOL!

So maybe he's right, and I'd better crank the nesting into high-gear today (Saturday) as this might be the last day of pregnancy, LOL!

... but think I'll do that AFTER some more sleep. ;)

doc appt, 11/30/2007 7 pm -- Still pregnant, induction 12/5/2007 6pm

Well, he's STILL IN THERE. ;)

Saw the ultrasound specialist again. Or rather, a nurse there. First she did the ultrasound. And he's still head down, which is good. ;) I forgot to ask, but I gather my amniotic fluid is still good. [Phew! Thank God.]

So, there's this mortality curve that is pretty high during the beginning of the pregnancy... then gets much lower to almost 100% chance of survival through like 30 weeks thru 42 weeks. Then after 42 weeks, it drops off DRASTICALLY. Hence, why doctor's worry about babies running late, and why they are willing to induce labor in order to tackle that scenario.

Which is why I'm having a doctor's appointment every 2 days now, LOL. And why, if I hit 42 weeks, that's when he's getting evicted. Here that, kiddo? Better pack it up in there. ;)

So, they then recorded his heart beat for a while. Then the nurse came in, took this rattling device, checked that it rattled, and then pressed it to my stomach and rattled it. I had a moment of apprehension before she pressed it to my stomach, not realizing it was just a noise-maker, and that it wasn't, say, going to give me an electric shock, LOL!

Basically, it's a pre-natal alarm clock. After using it, Logan was INDEED awake, LOL! And they recorded his awake heartbeat for a while. :)

So he's doing well. God is watching out for him. :)

Afterwards, I went to the hospital to re-pre-register, LOL. It's been almost a month since I originally pre-registered, so... All they said they needed was my new insurance card. My company, just for grins, is changing my insurance as of 12/1/2007. Just to spice things up and make me worry about what's still going to be covered, LOL. :)

Anyway, the hospital now has copies of the new insurance card. And assuming I don't go into labor before midnight tonight, it will be the CORRECT insurance card. ;)

Then went through McD's. Scarfed food. Went grocery shopping. Felt my left hip REALLY bugging me. Shuffled back to the car. Declined help in getting stuff to the car: if putting all this stuff into the trunk starts labor, it will be a GOOD THING, LOL! Except for all the frozen food that would thaw and melt while my hubby rushed me to the hospital, LOL.

Drove home. Hubby helped me unload. Put crap away. Dragged trash cans back in. Put laundry into the dryer. Took shower to get doctors-office/hospital germs off me. [OCD, OCD, OCD!!!!] Then crawled into bed and slept from about 2:30pm to 6pm, LOL.

While I was sleeping, hubby's best friend from childhood came over, and they played Guitar Hero. They are still at it. ;) I'm really glad hubby has this time off, and kinda glad therefore that Logan is running late. Hubby has seriously needed this. It's not the same as being able to run off to Vegas and have a REAL vacation, but still.

Oh, and hubby's best friend was able to come over and play XBox as he got laid off over a month ago. Yuck. Hoping he can get a job soon, but that at least he's also enjoying his mini-vacation as well. ;)

I kindof liken being laid off as getting that summer vacation we all miss from childhood, LOL. It's a little hard to think of it as that when you're in the middle of it, and scared about finding the next job. If you can treat it as a summer vacation with a little assigned summer reading, it will help you be fresh for the next job. The summer reading is writing your resume, sending it out to a few new companies every day, then enjoying the rest of the day, LOL. :)

Yesterday, did a little nesting. Had my niece and her 4 week-old son over. Got to hold him... that was REALLY cool. :) And hubby's best friend came over and played XBox too. ;) Can't remember what else happened... all fuzzy. Days are sorta running together.

So, that's what's happening. Doing some grocery-hoarding in preparation, like a squirrel stuffing more nuts into my tree. ;) Doing some nesting. Still have yet more nesting I could do. Weeeeee.

And of course sleeping, eating, peeing... basically, other than the nesting/preparation/doc appointments, living the life of a baby, LOL! Soon that will change.

Lost mucus plug. Still pregnant, 11/29/2007 3am; induction Dec 5th 6pm if necessary.

About 3 hours ago, I lost my mucus plug. The mucus plug is something that sits in the opening of the cervix. Some women actually lose and rebuild their mucus plugs early during their pregnancy... i.e., they can lose it for a bit, but then they replace it. It's not critical to, say, keeping the water from being broken. It's just an extra cog in the wheel of all the weird things that are pregnancy.

I don't think this means delivery is imminent, LOL! But certainly that things are moving forward. Progressing.

So what does a mucus plug look like, you ask?

Ok, you're not asking, you're actually shuddering in fear that I'll tell you. Skip the blue text below if you don't want to know. Else, read the blue for an entirely TMI (too-much-information) moment:

---

It looked like novelty snot. Like what you might buy at a practical jokes/magic store.

No, I'm not kidding.

It was white-ish, yellow-ish, clear-ish and looked a little stringy, and acted like it might have some tensile strength to it. Like, if I flipped it against a wall, the entire thing would stick. And if I then tried to pull it loose by just one end, it would slowly peel off and would stay in one piece.

Didn't try it. Not into flinging intimate bodily fluids/substances at my walls. And didn't take any pictures, unlike the time much earlier this year where I felt inspired to take a picture of my puke on the lawn after a food poisoning incident. ;)

---

Ok, you're safe now. :)

I guess I should hurry up and do some extreme nesting tomorrow morning. Maybe Logan is indeed choosing to come out on the original predicted delivery date of 11/29/2007. He definitely turned his nose up at the corrected delivery date of 11/21/2007...

Well, I thought 11/29 was cooler, anyway. 2 prime numbers. :) So's the year, if you omit the "20" part. Else... sigh... 2007 is divisible by 9. :P

Had doc visit. Still pregnant, 11/28/2007 7pm; induction Dec 5th 6pm if necessary

Had a 9am appointment with the specialist with the cool extra expensive ultrasound equipment. His nurse checked to ensure the amniotic fluid levels were good (they were), that he was still head down (he is), and then hooked up a heart monitor.

I got to lean back and rest in this recliner-like chair while wearing this monitor over my belly, listening to his heart beat.

Other than a few times when he squirmed and the monitor therefore lost his heart beat, his recorded heart beat was strong and steady. He's doing really well, thank God, in spite of being cooked an extra week, LOL!

I had only fallen asleep sometime after 4:30am, so after the appointment, I crawled back to my car, drove through McD's, ate breakfast on the drive home, hopped back into the shower*, then crawled back into bed at 10:30am. I slept until 4:30pm! "When the sun sets, the Vampire rises from the crypt", LOL!

* My OCD was firing, and the idea that my wet, clean hair had been up against the recliner-like chair that other women's hair had been up against, and that I'd had that goop on my stomach, was too much. The warm 2nd shower felt so good, anyway. :)

It's 7pm. Trying to decide if I'm going to go into more nesting tonight or not. The recliner at home is rather comfortable, LOL!

Induction date December 5th, 6pm

Talked to my ObGyn. She let me know that due to her schedule, she wouldn't be able to induce until December 5th, 6pm.

So, the original "induction date" of December 3rd is now December 5th. The kid's been given 2 more days to think about this, LOL!

If I am still pregnant all the way until December 5th, then Logan will be a total of 2 weeks late.

And yes, as of 11/27/2007 3pm I am STILL PREGNANT. ;)

Let me rephrase the "schedule" comment above. My ObGyn is already over-scheduled with patients those evenings. It's not like she's trying to take off those evenings or something.

Weee.... running late in your pregnancy is fun!

Last night (Sunday) I ran out of steam and took a nap from 5pm to 7pm. Got up, then had one of those nesting spurts. Ellie's crate top is now doubling as the baby's changing station, and the basinet is now also on my side of the bed. The baby diaper genie thing is setup. Weeee! Progress.

Still want to clean and place a bookcase on my side of the bedroom. The baby diaper genie and the trash can need to be on the top shelf. When you have German Shepherds, or any other LARGE dog, it's a good idea to put the trash cans high up out of doggie nose range.

That is, unless you like having things like bloody tampons and snot-filled crumpled kleenex's spread around the floor, vigorously chewed on. ;)

Got to midnight, and remembered I hadn't taken my prenatal meds yet. Ick. Have to be upright for at least a half hour after taking them. So, took them, then sat up.

Had an ObGyn appointment in the morning. Wanted hubby to come with me, as he's taking time off his job right now anyway. Otherwise, he wasn't going to get to see her (ObGyn) until the birth.

Told hubby I'd be in bed in a little bit. Then he came out of the bedroom a few minutes later, with stomach cramps. Poor guy was NOT feeling well. He sat up with me, played Guitar Hero, ran to the bathroom a few times. Then we both headed for bed by 1am-ish.

Of course, my pregger heartburn kicked in. And my sinuses kept closing up or bleeding due to the pregnancy and lack of moisture in the air. And yet, the post-nasal drip was in fine form, threatening to go down the wrong pipe and make me cough. Oh, and I was also a little stressed about waking up early enough to make it to the ObGyhn. Short story, barely slept all night long.

At around 5:30am, I got up to pee, and read a little. It was almost 6am. Realized if I tried to go back to sleep then, I wouldn't be able to get up by 7am to make it to the ObGyn. [Wanted to leave with breakfast having been eaten, dogs fed, fingers pricked... and wanted to have left the house by 8:30am-ish to make sure I made it in time to do the lovely peeing in a cup thing.] So gave up and go up, checked email, let dogs out, fed dogs, pricked fingers, fed me, checked more email, waiting 1 hour, pricked fingers, hit the shower, and left on time but dead tired. Left hubby in bed. He was wiped out from his food poisoning. Told him I had fed and watered the dogs. Got a mumbled response in the affirmative.

Made it before 9am for my 9:15am appointment with my ObGyn. Due to the long 4 day weekend, she was backed up with phone calls and other emergencies. So they got me into the exam room sometime around 10:40am. Yikes! Sat there, with no pants, and one of those flimsy paper-lap-covers to maintain my modesty. 10:45am... the nurse comes in. My ObGyn had to run to the hospital to supervise a C-section. She should be back in "15 minutes". I look at the nurse like she's on drugs... 15 minutes? Nah... 30 minimum to run over there, scrub up, get into smock etc., do the job, take all that stuff off, talk to the patient, and run back. Probably more like 45 minutes.

I kept thinking I should pee again while I had the chance, but was afraid of being in the bathroom when my ObGyn came back! I knew she was going to be horribly late all day, and didn't want to contribute to that, for her sake and the sake of the rest of her patients. Was given the chance to see a nurse practitioner instead, but considering I was running 5 days late on the due date, felt like I should talk to the doctor directly.

I asked the nurse to hand me my cell phone, and texted my husband about the delay. Didn't want to wake him, but if he was up, didn't want him worrying.

At 11:35am he called me as he was worrying and hadn't seen the text message, so was glad I'd asked the nurse to hand me the cell.

Sometime around 11:40am my ObGyn was back! Over the course of the hour I had sat there, I had figured out exactly how much out of synch my watch, my cell phone, and the clock on the exam room phone were. And I had discovered that, when you are pregnant and running on somewhere between 2 and 4 hours sleep, you CAN become mesmerized watching a clock slowly change. "Oh, wow... the minute changed again."

I would have just laid back on the exam table, but pregger heartburn doesn't do horizontal real well. And I was having it pretty badly that morning.

ObGyn was very apologetic when she got back. I was just very happy to finally see her, LOL! [And thinking that I maybe need to find a slightly less popular ObGyn, LOL!]

So, she found the baby's heart beat. Still good. And then she looked under the hood. And discovered I was 1 centimeter dilated. Could be tonight, could be a week from now. Water not broken.

Let me tell you something about having your cervix checked for dilation. If it's not dilated, no big deal. If it is, the person checking it is going to stick their finger (or more fingers) in it to guestimate how dilated you are.

I wasn't expecting the finger IN the cervix. Kindof like the Spanish Inquisition. Or at least, I wasn't expecting what it would feel like.

When she put that finger in there, I levitated off the exam table! If she wanted me to move to the left, or right, or to start revealing national secrets, I would have been all over it. I felt like a cow with a nose ring being led around! :) And I yiped.

It didn't exactly hurt that bad or anything... it was just REALLY unexpected, LOL! She held my hand with her free hand while she finished poking around. I didn't really need that, but I think in part it was so she could keep me from squirming away from her hand while she kept poking and prodding, LOL!

So, she told me the news. 1 centimeter. Water not broken. Today, tomorrow, a week from now. That everything was ok. I had told her about not sleeping well the night before, and that I had had heartburn. And that I had also had bad heartburn while sitting in the waiting room and exam room. Ick. Didn't think to bring Tums with me, and no-one in the office had any... normally don't get the heartburn in the AM.

My ObGyn told me that, if I felt like I was miserable enough, we could induce tonight!!!

I was SO tired. I way more wanted to sleep than to have the baby tonight, LOL! "Nope, not miserable enough yet." :) Anyway, still want to give the kid a chance to make it out in his own time.

I asked my husband when I got home if he thought he was miserable enough, LOL! I mean, this was affecting him too, although not on such a personally physical level. He said he was fine, it was up to me. :)

I have 3 doctors appointments with the dude with the sophisticated ultrasound equipment: Wednesday, Friday, and next Monday Dec 3rd. Basically to make sure that the kid still has enough amniotic fluid, and is doing ok while cooking extra long. And another appointment with my ObGyn next Monday, December 3rd. If the kid hasn't come out by then, induction will be the evening of December 3rd.

Hear that, kid? You have a deadline!!! :)

So, crawled out of there. Per ObGyn, picked up some Zantac for the heartburn. Forgot to get some Ocean nasal drops... apparently the drops work better than the spray for lubricating dry pregger noses, and I think what I have at home is the spray. Picked up a few more items. Drove through McD's. Drove home. Felt sorta... violated... LOL. Took shower. Then reheated McD's, ate lunch. Pricked fingers. Crawled into bed at 2:30pm-ish. Turned off phone. Husband fielded phone calls, and woke me up at 6pm. We went out to dinner with his parents at Outback. Had a terrible time trying to wake up, LOL! But finally did. Dinner was very nice. :)

And now, we're back home. And yes, I'm STILL PREGNANT, LOL!

Discovered this afternoon that husband hadn't really registered that I'd fed the dogs. When he crawled out of bed at 11:30am, the dogs were pushing their bowls around, and convinced him they were wasting away. Guess what, dogs? No dinner for you tonight, LOL!!! Little sneaks. ;)

Tomorrow I intend to sleep late, then do some nesting. Maybe, if I have energy, will try to tackle the thank you notes FINALLY. I am majorly overdue on those, and I don't know how much I'll feel up to doing them after Logan arrives. But definitely need to finish unpacking the last few items for Logan's room, and put some bedding away.

Anyway, if Logan doesn't arrive on his own, he should be here sometime around December 3rd or 4th. Weeeee..... :)

Oh, I forgot! Guys, thanks for your encouragement in your comments on my prior post. :) You guys rock. :)

11/26/2007 6 am -- Still pregnant

The baby was due 11/21/2007.

As of 11/26/2007, 6 am, I am still pregnant.

When that changes, will let you know. Until then, will just keep updating this single blog post with the latest date/time at which I'm still preggers. :)

Countdown delayed...

Well, I am still pregnant.

Today, Wednesday, 11/21/2007, is my due date. Or at least, we're a little over 3 hours into my due date. Couldn't sleep, was having some heartburn, so got up to read Dooce and also post an update. :)

Sunday during the day I briefly wondered, while in the "throne room", if what I had, 'er, just "done" was pee or squirt a little bit of amniotic fluid out. I found out last week that if I break my water, I have to go in to the hospital first thing... no waiting for contractions to start. I'll need to be on IV antibiotics for strep-B germs "down there", to keep them from hurting our son. Once my water breaks, he's no longer protected from them in the womb. :P

Well, as I said, I couldn't tell whether I'd just peed or had a little amniotic fluid leak out while on the throne. Just wasn't quite sure. Nothing more came out when I left the throne room, so decided to let it go for now. I.E., I wasn't dribbling anything more out while in a non-peeing mode, so...

But this did spook me enough to finish up packing at least my bags for the hospital trip. I need to wash a few more things before the baby's bags are packed. Sigh. Although really, all I probably need to take to the hospital for him is going to be the car seat, the clothes he will wear home, and a blanket. I think the hospital will take care of everything else.

Sunday night I took Tylenol PM as I had a 1pm appointment Monday with my ObGyn, and was afraid, if I didn't have help falling asleep, that when I finally did fall asleep, I wouldn't get up until WELL AFTER MY APPOINTMENT WAS OVER. This was a valid fear... some days I don't drag my ass out of bed until 2pm. I'd blame pregger exhaustion, but honestly, left to my own devices, I become VERY nocturnal.

The dogs are really confused about their varying mealtimes. Sometimes their breakfast is at 2 or 2:30pm, and on days I have "early" appointments, their breakfast could be 9 or 10am. Thankfully, they are fairly flexible dogs. Well, they've had to be, living with two computer geeks. :)

Well, anyway, Sunday night/Monday morning, I kept waking up having cramps. They felt like regular ol' menstrual cramps. Kinda freaked me out. They weren't anything horrifically painful, and so while lying there, decided, "screw it, I'm going to get some more sleep", and passed back out. When it started to get light, I got up, let the dogs out, peed, and drank some water. The water seemed to help, whereupon I wasn't having any cramps that I could sense. My tummy would go hard like a basketball occasionally, but afterwards it would relax. And it wasn't hurting. And I didn't notice that it was hard unless I put my hand on it to check it.

So once again, decided upon more sleep.

Got up finally. Fed dogs. Got cleaned up. Grabbed my 2 bags for the hospital and -- just in case -- shoved them into my trunk. If it turned out my ObGyn said that my water HAD broken, or that I WAS in labor, or WAS dilated, I wanted to be able to head straight for the hospital.

Just to make matters interesting, that Monday morning I was constipated and then, nauseated. And then I had the runs. Hmmm. Wondered once more if maybe Monday was going to be our son's birthday, considering my body was acting really weird.

Well, all my fears were for naught. Per my ObGyn:
1. My water hadn't broken.
2. I wasn't dilated.
3. The contractions were probably just "practice" contractions for the real thing.

My son is still very much NOT ready to leave his nice, warm, wet abode. He likes it in there. My nausea was probably due to the fact that I was hungry, even IF I didn't feel any hunger.

So... I drove to Longs, picked up a bunch of travel bottles of stuff that I might need at the hospital, drove to McD's to have food that is bad for me but makes me feel better, and then crawled home.

And was pretty much done for the day, LOL!

I've since wondered if the Tylenol PM made the cramps come on, due to perhaps the Tylenol PM making me a little dehydrated. Either that, or it was just time for practice cramps.

Pregnancy is just a totally weird experience.

Talked to a friend today who told me that when she had her 2nd baby, she was in labor and DIDN'T KNOW IT. She was having menstrual-like cramps that she was able to easily deal with. She went into the hospital to get checked out, and found out she was already 4 centimeters dilated! Whereupon, it was time to send her to the delivery room.

I'm not sure if I'll have the same experience. My Mom had menstrual cramps so bad that she had to take codeine or other high-powered meds in order to be able to function. And one time, she had a miscarriage w/o even realizing she was pregnant... and almost died from blood loss. She'd been lying down, doped up on codeine as the pain was exactly like her normal menstrual cramps... i.e., she thought she was having a period, and not a miscarriage. And unknown to her, she was slowly bleeding to death. Her first husband pulled back the blanket to discover that fact. Almost didn't make it to the hospital in time to stop the bleeding.

I had bad cramps as a teenager. Had to use heavy meds at first. Then figured out I could take the worst of the edge off the pain with a little more Advil than the recommended dosage. And it was all good.

After I was on the pill for a while, my periods got much milder. Still needed Advil to cope, but wasn't anything at all as painful as when I was a teenager.

So, I'm a little confused as to what to expect now as far as levels of pain when I first start REAL contractions.

ObGyn told me that when I was having real contractions, I'd know. But my friend didn't know. But then again, if I start having menstrual-like pain that makes me flash back to being a teenager, I think that will be a REALLY GOOD CLUE, LOL!

As I said, being pregnant is a really weird experience!

This whole thing has taught me to have alot more respect for mothers and fathers in general. Their role in life isn't an easy one. They have both the worries of screwing up their kid after the kid is born, as well as the whole physical problems during the pregnancy. Although, in general, the man mostly just has psychological discomfort during his wife's pregnancy... brought on by his wife driving him crazy due to her physical discomfort. ;)

I've tried to not drive my husband too crazy during my pregnancy. There are a few things I wish he'd do differently now that I'm close to the end of the pregnancy. I'm sure there's stuff he wishes I'd do differently... pregnancy or no pregnancy, LOL! It's a challenge to try not to make things harder than they already are.

Anyway, as I said, baby's not ready to move out of his waterlogged apartment yet. So, will keep you all posted when that changes. :)

Week 39 update

So, yesterday, Wednesday, was the end of 39 weeks. 6 days to go and I'm due to deliver.

Heh. Guess I'd better hurry up and pack my bag and my son's bag, LOL!

Monday night/Tuesday morning was kindof rough. A friend/co-worker has a 9 month old son who has been in the hospital most of his short life. His son was in the children's ward of a hospital in a town about an hour to 2 hours drive away. Let's call the son baby "C".

So C needed heart surgery. He didn't have enough arteries to his heart, and although he was getting by, it would cause him problems later. And he was being fed through a tube directly into his stomach, because he couldn't swallow well, and would aspirate food or stomach acid. And his lungs were kindof iffy... sometimes he would have low oxygen saturation levels that couldn't entirely be explained. And the poor kid kept catching infections, probably in part because of all the medical intervention... all the tests that involved sticking tubes into the poor guy's throat, etc., in order to take a look at things and try to figure out what was wrong with him.

I'd been keeping up on how he was doing on a web page that was provided by the hospital he was staying at. Baby C's parents updated it fairly often.

Baby C's parents took turns staying down at the hospital. While one was at the hospital, the other was in town working, and taking care of their 3 year old daughter.

Monday morning baby C was scheduled to finally have his heart surgery. He seemed really stable, like his lungs were doing ok and like he was in good enough health to finally have the surgery and hopefully be able to go home with his family soon. I was excited to read that, and hopeful everything would go well. Baby C was such a trooper, as were his parents.

Monday night/Tuesday morning I read the latest update on the web page. Baby C didn't make it. He had complications with his lungs during the surgery, and died.

I read it about at 2am Tuesday. Cried buckets. Posted my comments on the web page, i.e., how sorry I was, etc. Then emailed work to forewarn them, so they could do what they could for C's dad, who works at my company.

Then I posted something about it on Tribe. And after crying some more, I flipped channels on TV trying to calm myself down. As much as I wanted to grieve, it wouldn't do me or my unborn son any good for me to let myself be all upset about it.

Tuesday at 5am I crawled into bed. I also ate 2 prunes just before doing so, as I've been fighting off pregger constipation. Sometime around 6am I fell asleep.

Tuesday morning, 8am, I got up. Had a major poo, but had to push to get it out. Then thought I had caused a contraction from all my pushing. And maybe also from my emotional upset over baby C. Oops...

Crawled back into bed, drank some water, and worried for a little bit. The "contraction" wasn't all that painful. And afterwards, all I felt was Braxton Hicks contractions, which aren't painful for me. I could only tell I was having them by feeling my belly, and thus knowing it was going from "hard basketball" to "soft volleyball". :)

I was told if I had 4 contractions an hour, I should go to the hospital. I thought about it. I REALLY didn't want to go.

When people go through a traumatic experience, the best thing for them is to sleep. It helps all sorts of things. Lets their minds process what's happened. If I went to the hospital, I was only going to get more stressed out. I wasn't having anything like painful contractions. Screw it. I put my head back on the pillow, and passed out.

It's hard to deal with the death of a little child. It never feels like it makes any sense. And, as an expectant mother, it was messing with me. Why did God take baby C away? Would He take my baby away, too?

Had to remind myself, even God went through this. He lost His Son. Admittedly, it was planned and necessary. And both Father and Son were in agreement over what had to happen. [Though neither liked the price that had to be paid. Jesus even asked His Father if the "cup" could be taken away from Him, but still, to have God's will be done over the matter.]

Reminding myself of that... and that God empathizes with our pain... made it easier. And made me a little less worried that God was going to be taking my baby next.

So, baby C is having his funeral on Friday. I don't think I'll be going... have too much going on at home, and not sure it's a good idea. Sounds like a little more stress than I should be putting myself through. Much like Scarlett O'Hara, I need to "think about baby C" another day. Gotta concentrate on my unborn son.

Tuesday, after sleeping in until 2 or 3pm, I crawled out of bed, fed the dogs, fed myself, got cleaned up, and headed down for my flu shot. Weeeee.... ;)

Wednesday I took it extremely easy. Didn't want to feel anything like a real contraction again until my son is really supposed to come out.

Thursday, i.e., today, was extremely busy. 9:20am ObGyn appointment, where the doctor told me that I hadn't had a "REAL" contraction Tuesday morning. And that, if I had had a real contraction, I'd know it, LOL! And that my unborn son was still hanging out in the womb, head down, and that other than a softening of the cervix on the vaginal side, there was no evidence that my son was coming out early, LOL! He's still happy to hang out for the long haul. :)

I had a 10:45am appointment with my psychiatrist. But before that, I needed something to eat, as I was STARVING. I rushed through McD's, scarfed food on the drive back to my shrink, and made it to the correct block in time... to see that there was NO parking allowed on the side of the street where my shrink is for about 3 blocks. Tree-cutting. No parking on the opposite side, as everyone and their dog was parked there. Did a few circles and finally found a place to park. Now I was late. I waddled my pregger body as fast as I could, short of running. [Running when you are 6 days from delivery is a bad idea, LOL!] Hit the crosswalk button. Car on my left decided to turn right in front of me when the light turned green, and when the crosswalk also said it was safe to go. I stayed on the sidewalk, muttering "Yeah, that's right, bitch. Ignore the pregnant woman." Mutter mutter mutter... I crossed the street, made it to my appointment. Shrink was running late too. Whew. Had a good talk with the people in the front office while waiting.

My shrink is a really sweet guy. We were both laughing as he's going to be in for shoulder surgery on my due date: we'd both be all doped up during Thanksgiving, LOL.

He talked a bit about baby C with me. As part of his getting his credentials, he got to work in different departments of the hospital. He said pediatrics was the hardest. Watching little kids be so sick and suffer... it got to him. So he totally understood how I was feeling.

Then we talked about, of all things, trying to feed my baby every 3 hours during the day so he'd be more inclined to sleep more during the night, LOL! And about how, once a baby is deeply asleep, it can be VERY HARD to get him/her to wake up for that scheduled feeding, LOL! His description of trying to get his own son to wake up during the day for a feeding was hysterical. :)

My shrink also told me to just try to enjoy this time as much as possible, to see the humor in all of it. Whereupon I replied, "I guess you've never read my blog!" ;)

So, appointment #2 done, LOL.

Drove to where I'd had my flu shot Tuesday. I'd forgotten to give them the "recommended donation". They were really appreciative of my coming back, and also remembered me talking about baby C! Whoa. Good memory! Heh.

It was only a few blocks from my shrink to where they were doing flu shots, so it wasn't that big a deal for me to go back. :) And it was the right thing to do.

Then did errands:

Pet store for 2 dog harnesses, so I could belt the dogs in to my car. Letting them run amok in the back seat with my son in a baby seat back there didn't sound like a good idea. They wouldn't intentionally try to hurt him, but they probably would step on the poor kid, LOL!

Orchard Supply Hardware for some cleaning tools. Wanted some empty squirt bottles so I could make some low-concentration bleach, or alcohol, or vinegar sprays. Trying to find some stuff that would be fairly safe to use to clean surfaces our son is going to be lying up against. Also got some more cleaning supplies and stuff...

Staples for stamps (I REALLY need to get those thank you notes out, LOL!), and for cardboard boxes to pack up all my Vampire and other children-inappropriate books that are still stored in our baby's future room. [Somehow I think he's a little young yet to be reading Anne Rice. :) ]

And gas.

Got home at 1:30pm. Cleaners hadn't been here yet. Whew! That meant the bathroom was available... I wouldn't be interrupting them cleaning it if I asked if I could pee. Heh... my bladder just gets smaller and smaller. Peed. Fed dogs. Realized I was going to DROP. Slept from 2pm to 5pm, with a couple of phone call interruptions. [Cleaners needed to postpone until Friday, Mother-in-Law checking in from Arizona to make sure the kid hadn't popped out yet, LOL. :) ]

So that's been my week so far.

Oh, with one more ironic thing: I got a letter from the EDD saying that my disability had been disapproved because they hadn't been given the amount of sick time I was going to be using! Hmph... well, there's the start of the pre-partum time until when I actually deliver, which is predicted to be November 21st, but that's really up to God. Then... let's see... if there's no complications, then 6 weeks from the birth for post-partum. If C-section, then 8 weeks from birth. If really bad complications, who the heck knows. Then there's the 6 weeks on top of that to "bond" with our baby son. So basically, damned if I know. Like I can predict this??? Granted, I had a feeling I was pregnant in the beginning, and a feeling that our son was going to stay in at least until the due date, but those are just moments of female intuition!!! Yeesh.

Did the EDD *MISS* the information that says this is all about maternity leave??

Harrumph. Looks like I have a couple or 3 phone calls to make tomorrow on top of the list of calls I already have in my queue. I think this is a miscommunication between either my ObGyn and the EDD or my company and the EDD. Or SDI and EDD. Not sure whom I need to complain to, LOL!

Well, that explains why I haven't gotten a check yet under SDI. GREAT.... Good thing I was trying to stash away a little cash prior to taking maternity leave.

Oh, yeah. And my Mom is freaking out and thinking she isn't physically capable of taking care of the baby when I go back to work. Which I kinda wondered about anyway, because of Mom's congestive heart failure. The recent freak out is because she had a "bad week" with her congestive heart failure. And I can totally understand that making her worry if she's really up to taking care of our son. But at the same time, hubby and I are both thinking she'll calm down about and change her mind next week, LOL. :)

And the other bad news: the girlfriend of a friend of ours is missing. She took off when she heard some upsetting news. She was in rehab for a while, then came to live with our friend and also live with her Mom, to finish detoxing. But now, as of Monday, she's un-locatable. Which probably means she's using again. Sigh. I really wish she'd completed her full stay at the rehab place instead of leaving early. Leaving early was really a mistake for her... she needed the full treatment time, far away from temptation, with professionals who could deal with what she's going through. I'm worried about her, and about our friend. Not much I can do about it.

And before you think of it, our friend would not have provided her with temptation. Far from it. It's just that, being out of rehab, she's back where she can make contact with people who could get her drugs. And am afraid that's exactly what's happened... that she's back under the influence. Sigh.

The good news: went out to dinner with hubby and one of his co-workers. Had an awesome time talking shit. And our friend's sister works at the restaurant, so got to talk to her as well, and hear about her 3 pregnancies, LOL. :) Basically it was just really nice to be outside just to chill, and have some real food.

I have to say, I'm developing quite a few acquaintances at the various clinics I've had to go to throughout this pregnancy, LOL! I think I mentioned once before that the phlebotomy department at one place wants me to bring our son by after he's born, LOL! Well, so does my shrink. :) It's cracking me up... I'm used to having friends at work, but having all these acquaintances at my various doctor's offices?!?!? :)

Oh, another thing about baby C. I had been keeping my parents up to date on his condition for most of his life. That way they could pray for him, and have their Bible Study also pray for him.

I was a sick little kid growing up... nothing as bad as baby C, but still some things were predicted -- that thank God, never came to pass -- that scared the crap out of my Mom at least. Dad I think wasn't so scared... he was maybe partly in denial, and unwilling to accept any of the scary predictions until they actually happened. I did nearly die my first year, due to my puny immune system. But here I am now, basically a normal 39 year old, having (thank God!) a reasonably healthy pregnancy.

There's what doctor's predict, and there's what God says will happen. God trumps doctors every time.

Anyway, my Mom had been identifying alot with baby C because of her experience with me being so sickly as a little kid, and all my hospital visits. So here I was, with this bad news. I'd already taken it pretty hard... how hard would Mom take it?!?!? I decided to put off telling her. Emailed my Sister about it.

Well, ironically, my Sister was on the phone with our Mom while my Sister was reading the email I sent her. My Sister read the email to our Mom before she got to the point where I said, "I dread telling Mom about this", LOL! So Mom got to hear about it, got to get her crying out with Dad, and pray over it. And was basically ok with it by the time I next spoke to her!

I was HORRENDOUSLY grateful to my Sister, LOL! Even if she only told Mom on accident! :)

So, thinking about what happened to baby C also made me think of what if I died during the birth. I'd be leaving my poor husband w/o a wife, and my son w/o a mother. And what would this do to my parents? I was pretty sure my Husband and my Sister would survive the loss. But not so certain of my parents. It would probably kill my Mom... whereupon Dad would die from the shock of losing both Mom and me. Sigh.

I found myself hoping my Sister could tell my parents about my death, too, and take it out of my hands. I wasn't sure I could handle how they would react to it.

Whereupon... yeah... hee-hee. :) Realized it wouldn't really be in my hands in the first place. And got the stupid giggles. :)

---

Addendum:

My ObGyn's office talked to the EDD office, and straightened it all out. The guy at the EDD office even called me just to verify my home address for sending the checks! And he was INTELLIGENT, and COMPASSIONATE, LOL! And very concerned that I'd been stressed out by the decline letter. [I was a little stressed about it last night, but by this morning, realized it would just probably take some phone calls to fix it.]

So, I can still afford to be on Maternity Leave! Yea!!!!!!! :)

Anything negative I've said about government workers I have to take back, LOL. :)

Birth Plan

Running on low energy here... but keeping my sense of humor.

So my niece-in-law had her baby last Friday. Baby "J". :) She got to go home before he did, because the poor kid aspirated some meconium, i.e., some baby-in-the-womb-poo. But he's ok. Now she's at home, fighting off an infection (probably from giving birth), and he's the one doing alot better.

I've been keeping my parents up to date on J's condition. My parents go to a Bible Study, and I wanted them to be able to pray for him. 'Course, I need to keep them up to date on my niece, as I think she's now having a rougher time. :P

Before J came home from the hospital, my Mom and I were discussing the situation, and how it must be making J's parents feel.

Mom: "So, when do you think they'll let him go?"

My sense of timing struck.

Me: "Oh, in about 18 years, then I expect they'll send him to college."

DEAD SILENCE.

Me: "Sorry, couldn't resist."

Groan on the other end of the phone. :)

In other news...

My husband was hot to trot to get an electronic copy of my Birth Plan. I was ok with showing it to him, of course. I mean, it's a joint affair... heh, whether he likes it or not. ;) [He'd rather wait in the waiting area with everyone else. 'Course, so would I, but there's no way for me to "not be there" during the birth, LOL!]

But I was a little confused as to why he wanted an electronic copy of the birth plan as soon as I could get it to him. I knew we were pretty much in agreement on everything. The only thing I wasn't sure of was circumcision, but since he's a guy, I deferred to him on that one. :) [And yeah, he says our baby boy is getting circumcised.]

Then he surprised me. He took the birth plan, and did this:

YES side:



NO side:


Yes, he laminated it and double-sided it. :) He condensed my text to something quick and easy to understand. He also picked up a cool "leash" for it for me to wear.

That way, if he's not in the delivery room, (and I'm babbling incoherently in pain/delirium), someone can just look at the card to see what I would have wanted! :)

This is on par with how, a week or two ago, he brought home flowers for me. Just because. :)

Niecy Nash and Hot Chocolate

Today, Monday 10/29/2007, was my first day of my Maternity Leave. Totally weird, not having to go to work. And yet NOT being laid off. Messing with me.

Nice to be off work w/o worrying about job hunting and resume writing. Nice to know my job will be there when I get back. But weird to be off work in order to be Suzy Homemaker and a new Mom!!! :)

My Gestational Diabetes doctor said I could get away with an occasional hot chocolate. My numbers have been decent enough.

Sunday night, I gave in to that urge and had a Nestle French Vanilla Hot Chocolate, with cinnamon dumped in to hopefully reduce the sugar spike. [Cinnamon is supposed slow down the digestion of whatever you're eating.]

My husband isn't fond of the French Vanilla. I however thought it was divine.

I had it rather late, as my husband was working on some documentation, and wanted me to look it over when he was done. I had it in part to help me stay up. I mean, what did it matter to me? I could sleep in Monday.

Well, I was still ready to fall over. My husband sent me to bed... it was almost 2am. I ended up reading his document after he got home from work Monday.

While in bed, drifting off, my unborn son started to go hyper. If he had been outside my belly, he'd have been running laps around the block! Oops. He definitely got the first jolt of sugar and caffeine.

Two hours later, at about 4am, I woke up to pee. Because that's what I do all night... wake up every 1 or 2 hours to pee. I came back to bed, lay down, and promptly started sneezing. My husband had to be up early, and as I lay there, blowing my nose, I realized I was WIDE AWAKE. The caffeine and sugar had reached me now, somehow...

I got up and took the dogs, some water, and some kleenex with me. The water, because, in spite of the fact that my bladder is squashed into a container the size of a grape, I'm supposed to be drinking 128 ounces of water a day since I'm pregnant. I never make it, but I get about 5/8 or 6/8 of the way there, as judged by how many 16 ounce bottles of water I can drink.

Now, most people know they should be drinking eight eight-ounce glasses, or 64 ounces. Because their bladders are normal sized, and it makes no sense to send them running to the bathroom as often. It's just not as funny w/o the pregnant waddle. It's definitely a sight-gag. I know there must be camera's hidden throughout the house just to capture each of my frantic trips to the bathroom.

So I'm sitting there, in the recliner, flipping through channels. I see this show called "Clean House". It reminds me of "Clean Sweep", which is one of those shows that brings me great hope. You see, I am a packrat, and I live in a packrat's house. Watching other packrat's find a cure always gives me hope.

Well, "Clean House" is totally just like "Clean Sweep". So I settle in to have my hope renewed.

I'm up watching it for a while. The host... looks... REALLY familiar. Like she should be wearing a police uniform, with her hair up, and brandishing a gun. In Nevada.

I do some checking. Sure enough, it's Niecy Nash, the funny black chick from Reno 911, which my husband and I are addicted to.

I end up watching more of the show just for her! I've already become a big fan of her comedic talent, as well as the talent of all the other actors and actresses on that under-appreciated show, Reno 911.

But it was really weird. Houses got clutter tossed out, and some very nice changes done to them. Home-owners were blown away with being able to see their floors again. But no-one got arrested, nothing got blown up. Made it very surreal.

At 6am, I finally felt tired again. Crawled back into bed. My husband woke me up when he got ready to leave. I then passed back out until 1:30pm!

Yikes. And Day 1 began.

Crawled out of bed. Fed the dogs. Pricked my finger. Fed myself. Pricked my finger again. Folded laundry. Did more laundry. Ironed some pants for my husband. And that was it. Didn't accomplish anything more other than faxing in my Gestational Diabetes numbers and sending some emails.

So much for Suzy Homemaker. :P Guess I can't be too hard on myself. 3 weeks and 2 days to go on the pregnancy.

What we're paid for...

So, today, it's 5 weeks until this kid pops out of me. Assuming of course he knows the schedule, LOL.

Last night I went over to this lab where one of the pieces of software I support is running. I had just come from my nighttime doctor's appointment... heh, I had 2 doc appointments yesterday plus work! Talk about running me ragged.

Anyway, I get all bunny-suited up (which is NO small feat when you are nearly 8 months pregnant), and waddle my ass into the lab. The 2 night test engineers are in there, preparing to run stuff on the system I support.

I make a few key changes, ensure my stuff is backed up, and tell them to go for it. They load stuff, and click Start. I stand around, wanting to watch to ensure my changes aren't going to cause any problems. Just for warm fuzzies: my changes were really benign. Not doing anything major to a system that I won't be around to support once I go on Maternity Leave, LOL! Once I start leave, I'll be out of commission until mid February.

It's been my experience that people who use hardware/software I support, even if they aren't "technically trained", i.e., don't have a "real engineering degree", are still people who HAVE A BRAIN. Some people don't extend themselves beyond the exact tasks they are being asked to perform, and yet others pick up an intuitive knowledge of the systems they use day in and day out, and can offer insight's you would have missed about the very system you helped develop.

I.E., a college degree and your IQ level aren't necessarily directly proportional!!!

And shoot, I learned way more out of college than I ever did IN college.

But unfortunately, not everyone shares my opinion.

Anyway, one of the test engineers and I get to talking. He's explaining why he's been avoiding using one part of the system. He suspects a problem. The hardware engineer has attempted before to do something about the problem, but his initial solution caused a different, unintentional side effect, and so hasn't been in use for a while.

So the test engineer is telling me what he thinks might solve the original problem. We both discuss some ideas... I'm no hardware type, but what he's suggesting sounds pretty good to me.

I ask him if he's going to tell the hardware engineer about his ideas, as I watch him crumbling the drawings of his solutions and tossing them in the trash.

He responds with, "No, I'm not paid to think."

At which point I had to put my forehead down on my arm and just shake, I was laughing so hard!!!

[I knew the hardware engineer must have said that to him. Sigh.]

Man... I'm going miss those test engineers while I'm on Maternity Leave. Sigh. :)

Rats and Straws

All this insanity going on, and I forgot to post about the rat at work.

[Either that, or I DID post about the rat at work, and my pregnant brain can't remember it.]

So, a couple weeks ago, I get in and there's all these pieces of plastic on the floor. I slowly figure out it's the lid to my can of nuts... THE can of nuts that is SAFE for Gestational Diabetes. There's also a couple of nuts on the floor. I show my co-worker, and I email our maintenance dude that we have a RODENT.

At the end of work, I toss all the food on my shelves away. I can just see the rodent crawling all over my stuff. I don't lysol my desk, but I do lysol where my food had been on my shelves. I ensure that the only food I'm leaving in my shared office is in the filing cabinet.

Then, the following week, while I was out sick on Monday (chills/cold sweats/exhaustion) and Tuesday (3 hours of sleep/exhaustion), the rat came back, and broke into my OTHER jar of nuts. This jar had a HEAVY red plastic lid. It was the nuts I can't eat, because they are salted, and I can feel my blood pressure go up when I munch on them. I left them out on my desk for others to eat. Guess the rat took me up on my hospitality.

My office-mate was at a meeting when I got in. I read (in email) about the 2nd visit of the rat well after I'd put my crap down on top of my desk, in areas the rat might have walked across. Ick.

I lysoled the surface of my desk. I lysoled some items that were on my desk that I take home with me every evening, but otherwise managed to stop myself from going too crazy. The following morning, before I set stuff down, I lysoled the desk again and then set my purse and my lunch pail, etc., down. My poor office-mate opened a window to keep from gagging on the lysol stench. He mentioned that the cleaning lady cleaned off my desk after the rat had been there, and I tell him that I bet she didn't swab it down with an antiseptic. [This is because I watched her use her duster to move the prior can of nuts' lid flakes around the floor to one location so she could easily pick them up. And because she was willing to take some of the food that I'd thrown into the trash (because the rat might have walked around the packaging) and take it home. I mean, yeah, maybe I'm at the extreme end of germaphobia, but she's kindof at the extreme of not caring about germs, LOL! She's a nice person, but I don't think the word "sterilize" is in her vocabulary. :) ]

So, that was the rat situation. It broke into other people's cans of nuts, as well! I guess it really likes nuts!

There's a sticky trap under my desk, but as I no longer have food out, the rat hasn't come back. I suspect that, with everyone hiding food now, it's probably given up and escaped the building.

The rat situation has been going on while all kinds of other things were going on over the past 2 or 3 weeks. But with all the other things, I forgot to blog about the rat. Which is ironic, because having a wild, disease-ridden rodent crawl all over my stuff is like my worst nightmare.

We've had a rat and we've had mice in the house, pooing everywhere, especially in our lower kitchen cabinets, which double both as a place to put pots and pans, as well as a pantry. Trying to clean all of that up periodically drives me totally batty, especially when I realize it's time to also clean ALL OF THE PANS, ETC., that the rodent might have walked over or peed/pooed on. That is a MAJOR task. We've got alot of pots/pans/dishes down there.

If I weren't afraid our dogs would eat it, I would get a cat. A really MEAN cat.

Anyway, no further signs of the rat at work since my food at my desk has been kept in the filing cabinet at night.

Please, don't get me wrong: I don't dislike all rats. Pet rats are great. They are disease free, and can be taught to not go hide in the kitchen and poo everywhere, LOL! It's the wild ones that decide to make themselves pests... or the wild mice. Or cockroaches or termites. Basically, the uninvited guests are the ones that piss me off.

I'm very much an animal person, but when a creature decides to invade my home and defecate everywhere, I get rather murderous thoughts towards it.

So straws. Well, the exhaustion has I think become the last straw.

Wednesday night, 10/10/2007, I was to have my last birthing class. My husband was on travel, due to a mixup in when his conference really was, and so he wasn't going to make the birthing class.

I was at work, sitting there, looking through my birthing class notes to see what the last class was about. And I realized that I didn't really care anymore. I was so tired... all the time. My hips have decided to hurt way more often. Just sitting in the computer chair that day was painful. I figured that was a sign.

I was done. Friggin done.

And after the class, I'd have to come home and try to clean up a little, "find the floor", so our house cleaners would have actual SURFACES to clean Thursday, LOL! And although I care about them dearly, they aren't the greatest at getting food off of our dishes, so I was planning on also doing a ton of dishes, even though that tends to really mess with my back right now. :P

I decided right then and there that I wasn't going to any more evening baby classes when I had been at work all day. Screw that. Yeah, the classes were so I'd be a good mother, and so I'd be informed about labor, etc., etc. But if I didn't get some rest at night, I was going to drop the kid right then and there.

So I skipped out on the last birthing class. And I made a mental note to skip out on next Monday's "breast feeding class". I've read a little about the difficulties some women have breast feeding, and what to do about it. I think I'll just wing it. :P

So that brought it down to 2 more classes. The first is "Baby Basics", which is on a Saturday morning. [It's the makeup class for the one my husband and I were too tired to attend on the morning of the baby shower.] And the last class is a baby CPR class, on a Monday night, but I should be off work by then. Those I don't want to miss.

So yeah. I give up. I'm not superwoman. I'm a tired pregnant woman who has been doing her best to meet everyone's expectations, but who just can't right now.

Besides, all this stuff, all this stress has been distracting me in a way from what it's really all about. It's about this adorable baby boy growing inside of me. It's about talking to him while he's in there, and talking to him when he's finally come out.

I am already in love with our son. He and I have had some long and meaningful conversations. :) Or more often some very silly ones, LOL!

And that's what all of this whole insanity of pregnancy is about: our son.

I love that today, Thursday, he kept squirming around while my ObGyn tried for the longest time to find his heartbeat. At one point she said, "Oh, did you hear that? That's him moving! You're going to have to run after this kid when he's born!" :) She finally found the heartbeat, and thank the Lord, it was in a good range. So far, he seems like he's doing REALLY WELL, even though I've got Gestational Diabetes, even though I'm getting more and more tired and miserable of being pregnant, LOL, and even though I found out that 64 ounces of water a day is actually HALF of what I should be drinking while pregnant!

I think I'll just move my computer at work into the bathroom upstairs, LOL! Yikes. Either that or learn how to catheterize myself and stick a bag down a pant leg.

The irony of drinking THAT MUCH WATER, when your bladder is being squished to a small fraction of it's original size, is hysterical. Then there's the fact that my "What to Expect when you are Expecting" book says not to hold it in if you have to go: just go to the bathroom and go. Why? Because a full bladder CAN bring on premature labor!

Yikes. It's just really amusing to get upstairs into the bathroom and do my thing, and then be like, "What, bladder, you made me come up here for THAT amount? Yeesh." Yes, there are downstairs bathrooms at work... but the upstairs bathroom, well, flushes better, LOL! And is generally cleaner as it's less used. :)

And although it's probably not helping my hips, it's at least giving me SOME exercise.

So, I'm just done. I can't do it all. I give up.

I've got a little under 6 weeks to the due date. This is it, the last stretch.