Dream Baby Dream

Last night I had an awful dream – I was injecting myself with something and I knew that injecting myself with this “stuff” was going to kill me, but I did it anyway.

Yeah. Not so much fun to wake up to a suicide dream. Although, I realize, that it has nothing to do with suicide and everything to do with being pregnant. I’m thinking that the injections symbolized the fertility drugs I had to take to get pregnant and the dying wasn’t so much a physical death but a METAphysical death. You know – like the death of my current identity being morphed into my NEW identity as a mother? Just my armchair psychology for the day, but it was spooky nonetheless. Took me awhile to fall back to sleep again.

I’ve pretty much escaped the crazy dreams of pregnancy. I have one every now and then but most of the time I’m pregnant in my “regular” dreams and I’m always telling people I can’t do this or that because DUH I’m pregnant. Tellingly I wasn’t pregnant in last night’s dream. Georgie, my poor sweet, has been shouldering the bulk of the nightmares this pregnancy. I think because I manage to work out my anxieties while I’m awake rather than asleep.

The identity dream fits well with all the work we’ve been doing around the house. Sunday we needed two cars to schlep the FIFTEEN bags we had filled to the Salvation Army. FIFTEEN and yet our house is still filled with crap and looks a mess. Georgie started moving things out of the room that will eventually be the baby’s which means I have to now SHARE the spaces I’ve called my own for the last ten years. Not too much resentment here. I walk into my closet and there’s all of his STUFF.

It’s okay. I’ll get used to it. And it’s not like we’re all freaked out that the room won’t be ready for the baby, per se. I mean, the furniture and stuff won’t be delivered until AFTER the baby’s born – it’s that we have 16 years of accumulated CRAP that needs to be weeded through and thrown out and the baby is just an excuse. I keep telling myself that this is a great exercise because hopefully sometime in the next year we will be moving and there won’t be as much to throw out when we do!

It is a daunting task though. Yesterday I actually got down on my hands and knees and vacuumed the base boards next to my bed and underneath my night stand. DISGUSTING. I told my sister and she said WOW – you really are nesting. Guess it’s true.

I also did some knitting!


Friday – when we had no heat or hot water – it turns out a transformer blew in our building. So in order to fix it they had to turn off all of our electricity. They did this at 2PM. I thought GREAT! I’ll get out my Creative (like an IPOD only BETTER) and listen to some podcasts and finish Oblique’s sleeves! Only the Creative was dead. So I knit to the tune of jackhammers (they had electricity, of course) until the sun went down. Then G came home and rescued me from the cold and the dark. Sometime while we were out, the lights went back on – as well as the heat and hot water.

I did manage to finish the sleeves. And I did the button bands on the body AND I seamed the raglans. All I need to do now is the collar, finish seaming and decide what to do with the bottom of the sleeves. I sort of draped it on my shoulders and this thing is HUGE! I think, it will get a bit smaller once it’s all seamed up, but still – it’s like a blanket coat! Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week. There’s a chance I’m going to run out of yarn, but I have an angel helping me out. Margene has the yarn in her stash and she’s going to send me a skein. Although, I think, now, I might be okay. Fingers crossed!

I knit something else yesterday too!

Believe it or not, I wore my first pair of monkeys Sunday night! We had a party to go to and I wanted some fancy socks in case I took my shoes off and I pulled a pair of monkeys out of my sock drawer. I have never worn ANY of the monkey socks I knit! NONE! I mentioned that I’ve been thinking about socks a lot lately and wearing them was so fantastic that I took out the Purple Rain STR Monkey that I started a million years ago – actually it was back in August. Last I knit these I was on the heel flap. Yesterday I managed to finish the flap, turn the heel and knit the gusset! All night long I kept telling Georgie how good it felt to be knitting SOCKS! This was all punctuated by the fact that I went through my “pedestrian” sock drawer over the weekend and got rid of EVERYTHING. I told G – once you’ve gone handknit – you never go back.

Thank you all for all your encouragement and support about my last post. I’m much calmer now (although we do have childbirth class tonight) and I’m handling my fears pretty well. I’ve been reading some stuff – stuff that pisses me off and makes me feel VERY judged and stuff that assuages my fears and lets me know that whatever I want is truly fine. It seems to me that the baby will be coming out of my body – in some way shape or form and that’s NATURAL. Nothing about this pregnancy started out conventional – so who’s to say the end will be that way as well? I’m open. Truly open. And I think that can only be a good thing for my body as well as my mind. I have some very solid ideas about how I want things to go – and that really has more to do with how I want to be treated (with respect and honesty and intelligence) than the actual EVENTS that take place. I trust my husband implicitly that he will help me to have the best birth I can have. So thank you for your confidence in me. It means a lot.

Off to get rid of more stuff! It’s so FREEING!
L, C

Squalor

Today we have no heat and no hot water. Also, they’ve started the dreaded drilling I talked about way back when. They’re refacing the outside of our building – including taking off the balconies and redoing them. They haven’t gotten to my unit yet, but they’re getting closer and closer. All you hear are jackhammers off and on all day. In the cold with no hot water. And I’m pretty sure my neighbors are running a restaurant next door.

Fun times.

We started our childbirth class a couple of weeks ago and while I always knew, you know, intellectually, that the baby will come out somehow – I hadn’t really given much thought to HOW it will come out. The details and all. I’ve never been one of those people who thinks that a baby should be born in a field or underwater or god forbid my living room (not that it wouldn’t be nice to be able to crawl into my own bed after the kid arrives, but can you imagine the CLEANING I would have to do to get my house ready for something like that?! Makes my head spin.) But at the same time I’m not the kind of person that wants to walk into the hospital with my c-section scheduled around my favorite television shows.

DISCLAIMER: GIVING BIRTH IS ABOUT AS PERSONAL AS IT GETS. EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO THEIR OWN BIRTH EXPERIENCE, HOWEVER THEY CHOOSE. NO JUDGMENTS HERE.

I’ve never given birth before. I have no idea what it will be for me. At the class the other night the instructor went around the room and asked all the women how they thought they handled pain – then they asked the partners to corroborate. It was strange for us because my husband has been in fairly constant pain since he was about 14 years old and while I’ve had great experience with MENTAL pain and anguish, I’ve never really had to endure physical pain. So who knows? That first contraction might hit and I might be begging for the epidural.

But I’d like to go into this thinking I’m going to get as far as I can WITHOUT drugs and see where it takes me. I want options.

The instructor alluded to a few things about the hospital where I’m giving birth that didn’t sit so comfortably with me and I started to get upset. Prematurely. I haven’t discussed any of this with my doctors and I’m honestly only starting to feel my way about the whole thing.

Which brings me to the topic I really want to talk about – ANXIETY. I’ve dealt with anxiety and panic my entire life, but this is different. This is REAL. Most of my anxiety has been irrational – some kind of circuitry issue in my brain that starts to flip out when I’m feeling out of control or my hearts beats a little fast – there’s a trigger and suddenly I’m sweating and breathing heavy and my gut starts to twitch and if I indulge the feelings I’m in full blown panic. I KNOW what this is. I’ve lived with it for close to thirty years and I’ve made GREAT strides to manage it.

This panic? This new panic? This anxiety about bringing a new life into this crazy fucked up world? This life that I’m – ME – responsible for? Holy shit. Now that’s FEAR.

I’m trying to take it all in stride. I mean, it’s not often in my life that I get to be scared with GOOD REASON. I should embrace that right? My problem is that I spend a lot of time trying to decide whether or not my reactions are NORMAL. Am I too anxious? (Before anyone starts to tell me about PPD and all that, you should know that I see a mental health practitioner way more than I see my OBGYN. I’m well taken care of because of my history.) Yesterday I read something about Halle Berry – who’s also due in March – and she said that she’s started thinking about giving birth and she’s completely freaked out. Even more so than she was at the Oscars! Just the reality check I needed!

I’m lucky to be surrounded by rational, knowledgeable women who’ve given birth lots of times and can assuage my fears. Or at least validate them. That’s important.

By posting this, I’m not looking for everyone to unload their magical, tragic, run of the mill birth stories on me. And I know that everything will be all right. My husband is bucking for COACH OF THE YEAR and I’m not sure you could get a more supportive partner. My corner is STACKED baby! And I haven’t lost sight of the ultimate goal – a healthy happy baby – and more importantly – a HEALTHY HAPPY ME! However, whatever we need to do to get there.

I’m posting this because I’ve been pretty honest about my feelings this pregnancy. I haven’t sugar coated anything. And now that I’m getting down to the end I feel like it’s just as important to talk about how I feel – my fears and such – as it is to talk about my acid reflux that makes me sit up in bed at night gasping for air because I was choking on my own bile. Did I forget to mention that? I’m taking steps. It’s getting better. Last night I slept so well I didn’t even get up to pee. YAY KEGELS!

Every day I get a comment from another reader who’s also pregnant – who knew there were so many of us? And maybe my writing about how scary it all is will help someone else who’s also terrified. And just so you know – it’s not all scary. The other day I was rubbing my belly and thinking about the doctor pulling that sweet babe out of me and saying “IT’S A ____!” and putting the baby on my chest and then saying hi to the baby and then looking into Georgie’s eyes and watching him fall in love with our baby and man I lost it. I’m losing it now. Fear isn’t everything you know.

Sleepless in Secaucus

While there’s been lots to complain about this pregnancy (YES. I’m puking again. Not everyday, but enough to be miserable.), there’s also been some stuff I HAVEN’T gotten.

My skin looks the best it’s looked in years. Not one pimple the entire pregnancy. Ditto my hair. It’s gotten a lot drier (same for my face) and that’s GOOD for me. My hair looks fantastic.

I haven’t had any “issues” in the area you could have issues in – very common in pregnancy – think low. Not that low. Up a little. YES. There. No issues. Everything’s moving right on schedule thank you very much.

No swelling. No blood pressure issues. No infections. My weight gain has been pretty on target. (I think I can thank the puking for that.)

And up until last night – I was sleeping pretty good.

Usually I fall asleep with the lights and the TV on a bit early and then G comes in and I wake up and pee and take my vitamin, etc. Last night was no different, except when I woke up, all of a sudden I was hit by TERRIBLE heartburn. I took a Pepcid (which I should probably just be taking every day no matter what) and that didn’t really help. I couldn’t lay down. I even went and had an ice pop because it burned so bad. I brought the husband pillow in from the den and tried that but I was so freaking uncomfortable. And hot. This weather is killing me. I’m HAPPY to be pregnant in the winter because it’s COLD out and I’m WARM all the time but NO. I get freaking Spring.

I didn’t fall asleep until 3AM. Caught up on a lot of General Hospital though. My freaking neighbors woke me up at 8 with their new blender. Fucking fantastic.

I’m so cranky today. I’d really LOVE to go to sleep but my bedroom stinks from all the cooking my neighbors do. Now that they have the blender, they can really chop up all those horribly offensive ingredients they use. (You may think I’m exaggerating, but there’s nothing worse than walking into your house – especially your bedroom – and being bombarded with SMELLS. Smells that aren’t yours or your loved ones or anything else you might want to smell. It’s truly awful and nothing we’ve tried works. Dude! Why can’t they bake cookies or something?!?) ETA: We can’t open the windows anymore (not that it helps much) because we sealed them for the winter (something we do routinely – the drafts are HORRIBLE) and for the expected construction.

Also, did I mention we have no water today? Hot or cold? Yup. No water. And the fire alarm blared off and on for two hours last night while I was trying to rest.

I’ve been really busy this week so I never finished my Oblique sleeves and I’m behind on other stuff and time is ticking away.

Sorry for the complaining. I’m just tired. Welcome to the THIRD trimester!?

PS – I’ve picked the Color Contest winners! I’ll announce them as soon as I hear back from the winners. CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDERS!

Cicek Sepeti

Cicek Sepeti

We’re having a WHAT?!?!

Reality has set in. Now that I don’t have to think about work 24 hrs a day I’ve realized that OH MY GOD! We’re having a BABY!!! I don’t need to tell you that panic is not pretty. That’s pretty much what I was doing this weekend. Panicking. A BABY! That is FOREVER! AND EVER! AND EVER!

Scary stuff my friends, as I’m sure many of you know. Scary scary stuff.

I tried to assuage my fears with knitting. Selfish self-indulgent knitting. (BEWARE: Some seriously CRAPTACULAR photos to follow!)

Oblique now has my full attention. I’m loving it! I finished the back and the measurements all seem good (it’s going to be big and comfy!) and I started on the fronts. I am a big fan of doing the fronts and sleeves together. It takes a bit longer, maybe – maybe not, but you can also keep better track and make sure that you do the same thing for both fronts/sleeves. I’m at the point on the sleeves where I can start the shaping decreases and that shouldn’t take too long. I figure the fronts should go pretty quickly because you’ve got raglan decreases along with neck decreases – that’s a lot of decreasing! I’m hoping, maybe, to have the fronts finished by the weekend. Ambitious, to be sure.

I’ve started feeling sick again. Sad, but true. And I’m tired. Things hurt. All of which makes me really nervous because I’ve still got 13 weeks to go.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday or day off or Tuesday. I’m trying to think up a spectacular birthday contest – something really over the top this year. We’ll see how well my brain works!

Thanks for reading!

Always Look On The Bright Side

I’m trying to convince myself that the fact that I failed my 1 hr Gestational Diabetes screen today (with flying colors, I might add) means I get three hours of knitting time tomorrow morning when I go for my 3 hr GTT test. Whoohoo!

Somehow, though, it’s not really working. The other night I couldn’t get the baby to move for about an hour and a half and completely freaked myself out – I drank some grape juice and stayed on my left side and finally, at around 2 AM, the kid started moving. Then, the next morning, I threw up all over the place – I always keep the toilet seat up! Not yesterday. Fun times.

I love feeling the baby move all the time and just when I think I’m enjoying being pregnant, another stumbling block. I know failing my 1hr test doesn’t mean I have GD (my sister says she failed the 1hr with all three of her kids and never failed the 3hr) but I just want something ANYTHING to be a little bit of a no brainer already. I just want ONE thing to be a little bit easy. I know I shouldn’t be ungrateful because the fact is my baby is healthy and seemingly happy floating away in there and that’s the most important thing. I KNOW THIS. But still, I’d like to catch a little bit of a break. Just a little one.

It’s times like these I’m glad there’s still so much work for me to do. Busy is good – otherwise I’d be sitting here crying my eyes out.

Belly Shots

Hold the vodka, please.

Since you’re all so into progress shots – I thought I’d share a different kind – still progress though!

That’s my lame attempt at a self-portrait. I had to enlist the Daddy-Cam for some decent-ish shots.

These pictures were taken today – 23 weeks, 3 days. Depending on what book you’re reading, that puts me somewhere in the sixth month.

Although the profile shot and the back fat aren’t the nicest, head on it’s so cute! I’m really enjoying my belly these days – I think it looks so pretty! It’s got a nice shape and I guess I’m carrying in the front? No stretch marks YET (they’re coming – I got stretch marks on my boobs and hips in adolescence so I’m not naive enough to think I’ll be immune. And before you start telling me about all kinds of miracle creams, the scientific research I’ve read is that stretch marks are genetic. You either get them or you don’t.) Georgie likes my belly too. Which makes it doubly nice. Thanks for letting me share!

L, C

Now this makes me happy!

Sarah and I bumping bellies in DC!
THANK YOU SARAH! Totally gave me the smile I needed today!
L, C

It’s A…

HUMAN!

Exactly what we wanted! Whew! We were worried there for a minute or two.

The ultrasound was really long, and honestly painful. The baby was VERY uncooperative apparently. Wouldn’t stop moving around and then it would hide itself and more than half of the ultrasound I was on my side with my back to the tech and the doctor so they could see what needed to be seen. Finally they got all the measurements they needed (I’m telling you my belly will be bruised tomorrow) and declared our baby PERFECT! (At least as far as the ultrasound goes.)

We didn’t bring a video tape (I couldn’t find one this morning) but in the end, the ultrasound was so long and they had so much trouble that Georgie started to read the paper. Every now and then I’d tell him to check things out (my head was behind the screen, as I thought it would be) and he’d look and then get scared he was going to see something he didn’t want to see (like some kind of gender identification) and look away. I was like, honey, that’s the umbilical cord.

To top the day off: WE FINALLY GOT SPRINGSTEEN TICKETS!
The baby WILL be hearing The Boss in utero. We’re going to have a nice weekend in DC and catch the show on the 12th. I can’t wait. A little bit of relaxing. A little bit of Bruce. And a whole lot of my favorite boy and my other favorite boy. Or maybe my favorite girl. 😉

Here’s another picture. A foot. I’m bruised on the outside AND inside. YAY BABY!

PS – I’ve had some questions about Spin Out prizes. I have NOT awarded them yet. It looks like I’ll be doing that right before Thanksgiving. My elves will be coming to help and hopefully I’ll have a break in the workload before then to post the rest of the prizes that I haven’t posted yet. I’m terribly sorry for the delay. I apologize to all the people who donated prizes and all the people who bought raffle tickets. THE PRIZES WILL BE GOING OUT! I promise. Thank you all for being so patient! I really appreciate it!

Halfway

Sometime in the night last night I passed the 20 week mark on my pregnancy. That means I’m halfway there! YIPEEEEE! Although that also means, holy fuck – I’m halfway there!

The other night I was sleeping and I guess I was on my back and my belly was exposed (I was probably scratching it when I fell asleep) and G said all of a sudden it moved like I was being donkey kicked from the inside. DUDE! I WAS! The baby’s all over the place now and Georgie still hasn’t had a really good feel, but at least he could SEE it.

Someone said in the comments the other day that I seem to be enjoying the pregnancy now and I have to say it’s true. I get all emotional when I think about it, but I just love feeling my baby move inside me. And I’m loving the changes in my body. My boobs may be huge, but they’re matching up nicely with my growing belly. I actually feel kind of sexy in a whale-ish type of way. And man can I dance now! We were listening to some 2PAC the other day and I could shake that booty like never before! Guess it’s all those loose ligaments! How do YOU want it? [WARNING: link NOT work appropriate.]

And yesterday I was able to satisfy a fantastically intense craving: bagels and fish. Specifically, a bagel with cream cheese and baked salmon. From Murray’s. MMMMMMMM. So good. It didn’t even give me indigestion!

I’ve made some progress with my knitting as well. Last night I was able to fix my mistake and figure out a better way of reading the chart. Now I can glance at it and know where I am without having to count boxes and stuff. Really, not brain surgery, but my hormone laden brain can’t handle much these days. I hope to have a progress picture for you soon, but two rows a day doesn’t make for a lot of progress.

Tomorrow is our big ultrasound! I’m excited about it, yes, but I’m also a bit bummed. I know that I’m not going to be able to see half of it at least. The techs at the hospital where we go are very SERIOUS about their jobs. Not that that’s a bad thing, but my head sits BEHIND the screen while they take their measurements which means I can’t see squat. It’s only when the doctor comes in will she turn it to face us. I know I shouldn’t complain because I just want everything to be healthy and all, but really – I want to see my baby! That shouldn’t be a big deal. Everyone else I know gets to watch their baby the whole time. I guess I’ll just have to be content with watching G watch the baby. Again.

I’ll report back tomorrow – but no, we’re still not finding out the sex.
Have a good one!
L, C