April and Australia

May 082012
 

Caroline is busy being adorable. Here are some pictures from April 21, 2012, the day before she was two months old.

IMG_2883-3

IMG_2879-2

One of these days I’ll get a good picture of her gorgeous smile. It’s so adorable! I treasure her little coo’s and goo’s!

Paul learned about his birth country, Australia, this month. Here’s the giant Australia cookie we made at the beginning of the project.

IMG_2842
IMG_2843
IMG_2845
IMG_2847

Beyond making a giant cookie, we didn’t do much other than reading lots of picture books about Australia. Are we There Yet? by Alison Lester was a child’s perspective of a month-long road trip around Australia. Paul enjoyed learning about the various landmarks and it was fun to show him the family picture in the Victorian mountains and a picture of himself with me by The Twelve Apostles when he was about six months old.

A number of books were about the animals of Australia. Koala Lou by Mem Fox, Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughan, Snap! by Marcia Vaughan, Possum Magic by Mem Fox, and My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch by Graeme Base. I wanted to do more with the learning about animals, but Paul did not have much interest beyond reading the picture books. We did watch a brief documentary about the Great Barrier Reef and then we enjoyed watching Finding Nemo and making a Finding Nemo game based on the Great Barrier Reef facts he remembered. (He is already forgetting these facts, but it was fun making the game anyway! He will remember what a “predator” is at least.)

I also tried to give him a very basic introduction to Aborigines and culture, but it didn’t go over so well. We liked Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein, which had Aborigine style artwork. We looked at the boomerangs we purchased when we lived in Australia and we talked about how the art of dots and lines created symbols. He didn’t much care, so we’ll have to return to that sometime! And we read a very silly folktale called Whale’s Canoe (by Joanna Troughton) which is supposedly based on a Dreamtime tradition.

And then he summarized all he learned in this video.

(Yes, Caroline is crying in the background. Ryan was holding her, so it wasn’t like I was just abandoning her. But my, it sounds pretty bad watching the video and hearing her crying!!)

It was fun! He wants to move on to Asia now, although I must admit, I’m not sure which direction to go in first as “Asia” is a huge continent!

Hallelujah!

Apr 192012
 

This post of celebration is a few days late, but there is still cause to celebrate! Caroline, who was eight weeks old yesterday, has begun to separate night from day!

On Sunday night, she slept for seven hours straight for the first time. The next two nights she slept for five hours and last night it was three hours and then four hours. These longer stretches of sleep have been wonderful for this mama. I was beginning to feel a bit insane in the two or three hours sleeps I was getting. After almost two months, such sleep deprivation is quite discouraging. Now I feel like a human again. Monday I celebrated by cleaning the house.

Yesterday I fell asleep again mid-afternoon. I hate taking naps like that! It feels great at the time but then I wake up feeling groggy and lazy. I don’t get things done that I intended! Ryan says drinking lots of water helps stave off sleepiness. Do you have any other suggestions?

Caroline smiles regularly now. It’s such a pleasant thing to go to my baby and be greeted with a happy face of delight. I have been awful at taking pictures of her. I find I’d much rather hold her and cuddle and coo with her than run get my camera! Caroline notices toys and has begun to enjoy her mobile, much as Paul enjoyed it at the same point in his life (see his video here!)

Caroline lays there staring at the mobile without moving. Then I turn it on and she smiles or kicks or flails her arms. She definitely likes it!

Here she is in a new dress getting ready to go to church! (April 15)

IMG_2872

I had the force the toy into her hand but she grasped on to it for a while. I love her expression in this picture. (April 14)

IMG_2864

Six Weeks Already!

Apr 062012
 

Caroline turned six weeks old this week. She is a fantastic baby. She loves to eat. She smiles to us all now (although the smiles are still a rarity, so I treasure them!). She is incredibly vocal about what she needs: food (NOW!!), diaper change (NOW!!), attention (!!). I feel like there is a lot of crying at various points in the day but I’m trying not to feel to guilty about letting her wait a few moments sometimes when really, I just can’t hold her all day long (much as I sometimes want to).

She is strong. During tummy time (if she’s happy), she’ll lift up arms, legs, and head/neck and just float on her tummy for a few seconds before relaxing. She tries to turn her head from side to side then too. She grasps hold of my shirt or arm. She tries to get her tiny hands into her mouth, a difficult task since she doesn’t realize she controls them. She’s clever because when she’s hungry, she knows the binkie is not going to do much for her and promptly rejects it with an angry yell. She’s sensitive because she recognizes the love surrounding her and responds with coos and a gentle six-week-old smile.

No, she’s not sleeping through the night — or more than 2.5 or 3 hours at a time (except for one night when she slept 4 hours!!). But that’s to be expected. I’m doing much better with the sleep spurts though. The first few weeks were a blur for me. It’s been a while since I had sleep deprivation (and Paul began sleeping long 5-7 hour stretches very early!) so these first six weeks required some readjustment, but I’ll make it.

Caroline is a precious addition to our family. Sometimes I stare at her and think “oh yeah, I have two kids now, that’s weird.” But other times I am only excited and grateful and excited to see her developing personality. I love having her in our family, and I am delighted to treasure these moments with her now when she’s still so innocent. And unknown: it will be great to get to know her too, but this little “doll-like” blank-slate stage has some precious bonuses too.

And Paul simply loves being a big brother. Yes, he’s had his moments of jealousy, (such as his frequent requests that I put Caroline down to do something for or with him). But in general, he can’t wait to greet her in the morning, and he’s just living for the days when she’ll understand that he is her Big Brother, a role he is incredibly proud of.

IMG_2851-2

IMG_2850-2

(Apparently, someone’s head always has to be cute off.)

One Month Old

Mar 222012
 

All day long I’ve been close to tears: my baby is already one month old! I cannot believe how quickly that time passed by. I pick up Caroline and she is heavy (comparatively). Her tummy is chubby and her face is squishy. Today, I saw her eyes have tears for the first time when she cries. She is smiling more regularly at me and staying awake — happily — more frequently. Her going-home-from-the-hospital outfit is almost too snug for her. She’s almost no longer a newborn!

I just want to sit and cuddle her a long while. I can’t believe I’m losing the newborn baby stage so quickly! I miss her little crooked legs and her newborn innocence already.

IMG_2668

Spring has sprung this week in Chicagoland. It’s been in the 70s and 80s all week, so Paul, Caroline, and I have tried to get out a little bit each day to enjoy it! Here Paul is telling about the city he drew on the driveway.

I know this is new Mommy emotion, but I’m choked up as I type this, thinking about how big my little girl already is getting. On to month two for her, despite my desire to cling to the newly newborn baby!

This weekend Grandma Peggy and Papa Paul and more family are coming to celebrate Caroline’s recieving a name and a blessing in church on Sunday. We’re so grateful that Daddy honors the priesthood and can give her that special blessing.

The Earth Game

Mar 192012
 

Paul and I have not done much “school” since I posted at the beginning of February about our “school at home” progress. Obviously, this was due to the fact that I was in the uncomfortable last stages of pregnancy and then actually having a baby and taking care of a newborn.

Never the less, we have read through a book about the Earth from a fabulous Early Bird Early Learners series by Lerner Publications (this particular book). It’s written for slightly older kids, but by reading together, one chapter at a time, Paul and I enjoyed learning how the Earth’s crust moves, what volcanoes and earthquakes are, and what all of that means for us.

Since neither of us have been in the mood for worksheets lately, I was trying to think of a way to make remembering and reviewing these details fun. We weren’t interested in sitting in the school room, but Paul always wants to play board games with me!

IMG_2630

Voila! We turned Earth’s Crust into a game!

I found a mostly blank game board online. Paul found pictures in the book that he liked and I found similar ones online as well as a few clip art images to illustrate the game board. Then we added squares to correlate with the images: each of these squares gives or takes away an earth “token.” So, landing on a volcanic eruption may cost you two tokens, and the squares before and after it are labeled “volcanic ash” and may cost you one token. A “sleeping volcano” gets you a token.

IMG_2633

And then we made questions, Paul reading me sentences he liked from the book and me rewording them as a question or as a true/false sentence. When we land on a blank space on the board, we have to answer a question. Right answers get us more tokens. Whoever has the most tokens when we’re done playing the game wins!

IMG_2632

Paul and I have played this every day for two weeks now. He loves it! For the first days, he’d have to read the book to find the answer; sometimes I had to help him by finding the page or picture that correlated to the question. But now he knows the answers without having to look for them. How many four-year-olds care about magma (the name of a new imaginary friend, apparently) and lava and the plates of the Earth’s crust, which are moving? It’s quite fun to see him get excited about these things.

IMG_2628

Caroline is usually on my team. She usually sleeps through our turn. Sometimes Paul wants her to play by herself. She sleeps through that, too, and Paul takes her turn. He loves to include her, though.

IMG_2631

 All pictures on this post taken March 8, 2012. Caroline, age 2 weeks, 1 day old.

Caroline’s First Days

Feb 282012
 

Caroline didn’t cry when she was born. She went from swimming in amniotic fluid to completely born in twenty minutes, apparently gulping lots of fluid in the process.

They gave her to me immediately. My only thought was that she was pink and looked well. But she didn’t cry. Paul didn’t cry either, but this was a bit different. Something seemed odd.

IMG_2531 IMG_2532

After just a few moments, the nurses took her back from me. They wanted her to cry, so they gave her a shot she needed, gave her a bath, and proceeded to give her a vigorous rubdown. She had her eyes wide open, but she did not make a sound. I was stuck on the delivery table getting stitched up and I couldn’t see her, but Ryan stood by her. I remember starting to get a bit concerned after about ten minutes or so of this.

IMG_2540 IMG_2533  IMG_2537

Shortly, Ryan and the nurses left with her “for a little while” to take her to the special care nursery where she could get further attention.

I can’t recall thinking much other than “a little while” isn’t very long.

I was still running on adrenaline. When I was discharged from Labor and Delivery we went straight to the special care nursery. Because she was born so quickly, Caroline had developed TTN (Transient Tachynea of the Newborn) which meant that she had liquid in her lungs and as a result was breathing quick shallow breaths.

IMG_2541 IMG_2542

Because I’d been up more than 24 hours at this point (well, except for the brief, contraction-filled two hours I’d had at home), I was incredibly the first day. The three days Caroline spent in the Special Care Nursery were rather draining on me; I like to know what is happening and I felt pretty out of control for my little girl’s sake. Anyway, let’s not dwell on those days. You’ll notice I didn’t take many pictures. The nurses were great and Caroline is fine: there are no long-term issues from TTN.

IMAG0012 IMAG0010 IMAG0008 IMG_2545 IMG_2546

Caroline came home on her third morning.

IMG_2548 IMG_2547

Paul came with Grandma and Grandpa (where he stayed Friday night to Saturday) and he was so excited to finally meet her. He’d seen her through the nursery window. “That’s my sister!” he said with pride. When she and he were finally together, he was so excited to read her a story.

IMG_2550  IMG_2552 IMG_2553 IMG_2556 IMG_2559

Paul is a great big brother. He’s feeling the stress of new rules and less attention, but overall, he seems quite pleased to be a big brother now!

Labor, Naturally

Feb 282012
 

I had not been feeling well in general last weekend. Paul went to Grandma’s house until last Monday night so I kept saying to Ryan, “This would be an ideal time to have a baby!”

Sunday afternoon, partially in jest and partially with the hope that they would work, I made a batch of what I found online called “Jump Start Your Labor” Molasses Spice Cookies and ate quite a few of them. Monday, since I was without Paul, I ran some errands and, when I had extra time, I found myself walking around stores looking at baby things and hoping I would not be pregnant for another three weeks! I walked around for about an hour and a half.

Tuesday morning meant taking Paul to preschool and going to the doctor for my 39 week check up. I’d progressed a little since the previous week, and the baby was low and engaged. “We could induce you, if you’d like,” Dr. M offered.

I declined with a sigh. Much as I wanted to not be pregnant any more, I knew I wanted nature to take it’s course. Dr. M ordered an ultrasound to make sure baby was alright: I was measuring small, and at this point it’s important to make sure there is enough fluid for the baby.

By the time the ultrasound was finished, I had to pick up Paul from preschool. We had lunch, I got the blood test the doctor ordered, and then we went to a friend’s house for a play date. Around this time, Ryan called to ask if I’d mind if he joined the youth group at the temple for baptisms. I wasn’t crazy about him being gone, but I said sure, because really, it wasn’t like I was in labor or anything.

By the time the play date was over, I’d called Ryan back and told him to please not go to the temple. I just felt so off. We were nearly home when Paul reminded me that I need to stop and get milk. I cried at the thought of going back out to the store, but we did it. I bought a number of freezer meals, because let’s face it: if I felt that miserable already, how would I get through another week of pregnancy?

That night, I took a long warm bath. By ten p.m., I was noticing some light contractions but they were irregularly spaced. Ryan went to sleep by about 9. “If it happens tonight, ” he said, “I’d like to be rested.” I dozed off about 10:30.

At 12:15, I awoke to contractions again, this time about four minutes apart. They didn’t get strong, but they were consistent for more than an hour, so we called the sitter for Paul and headed out about 1:30 a.m. or so. Paul was groggy in the car to our friend’s house, but he still was awake enough to say, “It’s time?”

The ride to the hospital was about 20 minutes after we dropped off Paul. The contractions got closer together and I worried we’d make it! And then the real contractions started — a bit farther apart than the weaker ones had been — and I realized those close together ones I’d been feeling were just the beginning, and they were nothing compared to the real thing. I have a bad memory.

At any rate, I labored in the hospital for three hours with regular painful contractions. Ryan was a saint, much as he was last time. He just kept me going through each contraction. “One at a time,” he said. Each one was bad, but then there would be a respite before the next. I was going to make it! This time, I did manage to walk the room a little, to bounce on a labor ball, and otherwise not remain on the bed as I had when I was laboring with Paul.

I was 5 or 6 cm at 5 a.m., and I couldn’t stand the thought that I’d be there for so many more hours to get this baby out! That next hour had some of the most horrible contractions but it was worth it, I suppose, because by 6 a.m. I was complete! Nearly there. We had no idea.

The nurse called my doctor (Dr. C was on call, not Dr. M) and said “come quickly.” Almost immediately, at about 6:05, my water broke (finally!) and I knew it was time to push a baby out. The nurses kept asking me to not push, to wait for my doctor, and I would have none of that.

I have, apparently, false memories of this part: I recall totally losing it. I was yelling at everyone to get the baby out and I didn’t care who took the baby out just do it! I was screaming that I couldn’t move, that I couldn’t stop pushing, that the people there were not listening to me. I don’t remember what I said, I just remember knowing that I couldn’t stop the inevitable! Ryan says I wasn’t that bad in my yelling, and that I seemed fully in control. I remember feeling completely out of control.

At any rate, my doctor got there about 6:15 and by 6:25, I had delivered a newborn baby. I can’t say I felt like dancing out of the room as I recall feeling about delivering Paul: I was pretty sore and I also was rather groggy from being up all night long. But I still felt that rush of accomplishment in knowing I’d made it through naturally again. Of course, labor was half as long as it had been with Paul. I suppose that helps. But I did leave the delivery room thinking “That wasn’t so bad.”  And really, it wasn’t!

Dr. M stopped by on his morning rounds at about 8:30 when I was still in the delivery room. He said, “Well, you were right: you wanted nature to take it’s course!” It seemed quite strange to me to think that less than 24 hours earlier, I’d been in the office dreading the thought of being pregnant another three weeks!

 

 

School at Home

Feb 112012
 

IMG_2521

I’ve been pondering home schooling for about a year now, although Ryan mentioned it to me as a possibility long before that.

“Oh, no. I could never do that!” I argued. I’d be too tired, I don’t know enough, it would be stressful.

Then last summer Paul taught himself to read. He’s probably at a second grade level now, at least if the text is large. (If it’s small text or too much on a page, then he still “can’t” read it.) If it was only reading, I may have let it rest. But that was not all.

Using his fingers, he began to put together the rudiments of addition. And because he has an analog clock in his bedroom, he wanted to learn how to read it. He loves putting coins in his piggy bank, and I found myself explaining how each coin has a different value.

In the fall, he started requesting books on different scientific subjects, firstly the planets. From October through December, he wanted to read everything he could find about the planets.

In about November, he began expressing an interest in the human body, probably because my body has been changing with baby growing. He became fascinated by digestion (pee and poop!) and by the heart (I feel my heart beat! I’m alive!) and his bones, which he can feel through his skin.

Around the same time as these science topics began to fascinate him, he began asking about maps. We printed a map to the church, and he wanted to follow it as we drove; he has always been fascinated to watch the GPS cursor on the map in our car navigation system. We’ve learned about map legends, the four directions of the compass, map scales (this is still a bit confusing to him), and some other things.

Because of his fascination and because he seems so advanced in his interests, I thought I’d experiment a little bit with just how interested he is: what can I manage to do with him as a stay-at-home mom? Could I possibly homeschool him?

I bought a handwriting book about ABCs and Numbers. It has a “Kindergarten” label on the cover, so Paul, being the reader he is, decided he was doing “Kindergarten School at Home.” We decided to collect his worksheets in a binder, and thus began Paul’s homeschooling. Now that we moved my office into the same room as Ryan’s office, we also added a space for Paul to be his “work space” or school desk.

We’ve been through two phases of home school now. The first phase lasted about two months, and it was exhausting. Paul wanted to spend every afternoon doing all the different subjects: ABC worksheets, number worksheets, more advanced math concepts (money or time or something new), science, and maps. Every day he wanted some of everything. It was so much fun! He didn’t want to stop for dinner! Needless to say, this was exhausting. We literally spent three or four hours every afternoon doing more and more worksheets. I couldn’t keep up in finding or creating interesting age-appropriate worksheets.

We’ve moved in to a new stage now. I should clarify that before we began “school at home” and before Paul practiced writing on the ABC worksheets, he found writing itself “too hard.” We set up a desk space for him. The numbers and the ABCs in caps and lowercase are on the bulletin board for him to refer too. Now, he does not mind writing, and in fact likes to spend an hour a day writing his own games and worksheets and activities. Some of these are for me to do, others are just for fun for him. He loves it!

IMG_2529

A skeleton worksheet Paul made me: I was to label the body parts/bones!

So the new stage is much more balanced between Mom’s worksheets every now and then and Paul’s imaginative writing and creating. We still do some more “formal” school at home.

He loves finding things on maps, and we have been learning how there are seven continents. This month we have particularly been focusing on Antarctica and penguins for science and geography. (The human body is still on his radar, but he’s a little tired of it at the moment. Every few days he has a question and we find pictures in a body book.) In mathematics, we started learning about adding one to a number, but it hasn’t clicked yet that he doesn’t have to start at the beginning (1, 2, 3,…) to add just one more. (He regularly figures out basic adding on his hands, though.) We’re still practicing patterns, and he often makes up his own, which I hear is good for early math skills. He loves to do mazes. We’re learning about “greater than” and “smaller than” maybe once a week, and we practice reading clocks on the hour and half half hour about as frequently. Sometimes we get out the pretend money and set up a store where things cost pennies, nickles, and dimes.

And I’m trying to introduce him to the concept of “history.”

Although he still is intensely interested in learning, we’ve mellowed out to about 30 minutes or 1 hour a day of “school at home” before he’s ready to do his own writing or learning projects.

That’s just perfect for a four year old. He has preschool twice a week still to keep him social. He has gymnastics and swimming lessons to keep him physical. And he’s hard at work at challenging himself to learn and practice in his own imaginary activities as my teacher.

In the state of Illinois, school is legally required for all children beginning at age 7. Home schooling parents are not required to submit grades to the state, but they need to have records of some kind to show children are learning according to the state standards.

Paul, then, has another two years and eight months before I’m required to officially home school him. At this point, this is my plan: for the next two years, I’ll follow his lead. We’ll (probably) do three-day-a-week preschool again next year. The following year, I’ll either send him to kindergarten for 2 hours a day or I’ll join a co-op where he’ll play with kids his age. (I’m leaning toward the co-op, as I imagine that half-day kindergarten with 2 or 2.5 hours a day will not provide much time for socialization.) When he turns seven, and when kids his age are in first grade, I’ll determine just what kind of “curriculum” he needs and we’ll implement it. I suspect he’ll be far above first grade Illinois state standards come that point, if his present interest in learning about the world continues. And if he does slow down, I suspect we’ll be able to get in to a slightly more formal school routine (especially with co-op friends to support us) without too much trouble.

At any rate, I’m really excited to see where “school at home” takes us in the next two years. There are so many possibilities!

Christmas Present, Birthday, YW, and Pregnancy Waiting Game (Oh My!)

Feb 102012
 

This post is evidence that I must update my blog more often! But since I’m now 2.5 weeks away from my due date (!!) I really just feel this urge to get up to date…so I can hopefully soon move on to newborn pictures.

Our family Christmas present this year was a new patio door for our kitchen. We ordered it the first week of November. After more than a few hiccups, it was finally installed the last week or so of January! Here it is!

IMG_2518

It does not stick when we try to open it! It’s not rotten on the outside! It doesn’t leak when it rains! It’s a sliding door instead of a swing open door, so there is more room in the kitchen! In general, I think we’ll like it very much. Ryan applied primer to the trim: we still need to paint the trim and figure out curtains at some point before the Western setting sun gets too irritating come this summer.

And then it was my birthday. Birthdays are very much NOT a big deal for me. My friends treated me to a baby shower a few days before, and it was so fun to get excited for a newborn baby GIRL!

Here are some pictures of Paul making a birthday cake for me with his grandma!

IMG_2447 IMG_2449 IMG_2454 IMG_2459 IMG_2464

And then we ordered a rocking/recliner chair for the baby’s room. We got it the week after my birthday (after a bit of an issue: why did we have so many issues with delivery people in January?!).

IMG_2517

That brings us to February. The Young Women of my ward put on a very well done New Beginnings program. If you’re interested, here’s a link to the YouTube video of their skit and a few photos of the Young Women pirates!

And then we come to the fact that I’m now 37.5 weeks pregnant. The count down is on! As of two weekends ago, we had a disaster area in the room formerly known as my “office.” I was in tears bawling because I was less than a month from having a baby but WE DIDN’T HAVE A NURSERY READY! Ryan talked me down off the edge of break down and we got busy painting. I did the walls; Ryan did the trim. I think it turned out very nice! We intended to have a grayish blue, but it turned out far more blue than we anticipated. With the dark brown and light pink accents we’re anticipating for the curtains (Ryan says he has an idea what we should do; good, because I am not a curtain person), it should look just right for our baby girl.

Now that the nursery is set up and I’ve officially reached “full term,” I personally am feeling rather emotional. I am incredibly excited to meet my girl. And I am so bored with being pregnant: feeling miserable, feeling exhausted and in pain, waddling when I try to walk, grimacing when I stand up, having to pee every 60 minutes, and waking up to pain as I try to move in the bed at night. Not to mention not sleeping well at night overall.

That said, I feel panic whenever I realize that I could give birth tonight or tomorrow. I dread spending time in the hospital.  I dread the pain of childbirth, while at the same time I dread the fact that I may end up with medication like an epidural or a Cesarean against my wishes. I panic at the thought of having a newborn to bring home this weekend. I dread the lack of privacy in my own home. (Don’t get me wrong: while I”m glad to be near close friends and family and I’m excited to share my baby, I’m still a bit in a panic about how life will go on with visitors. I am a private person!). Paul will lose the one-on-one time we’ve been enjoying so much lately. I’ll be so exhausted from never sleeping. I’ll have 10 or more diapers to change a day. I’ll have a human being depending on my body to provide nourishment every hour or two (for an hour!). I’ll have two children to get ready to go out to whatever we have to go to — even the drop off for preschool is going to be quite the bother, since I’ll have to take Caroline in with me each time!  I can’t handle another child yet! I should be so happy to have the time to clean my house right now.

Except I can’t bring myself to do the basics: clean my house (it needs it!), go to the gym to exercise (my last chance!), cook a fantastic creative dinner (I have time!).

So I’m torn between feeling exhausted and bored and overwhelmed and guilty and excited and delighted and just plain tired.

IMG_2520

Photo at 37.5 weeks.

Incidentally, I’ve been collecting a few things others should NOT say to a nine-months pregnant woman. Any others you can think of that really got on your nerves?

  • “I see your third nipple!” (This from the nurse, referring to my belly button poking through my shirt. Great. Thanks. Can I kill you now?)
  • “You look far too happy to be about to have a baby!” (Oh, how I hate you for saying that! I feel so miserable I can’t even begin to express it. Maybe in public I really try to not be a whiner? Ever thought of that?)
  • “My, that went fast!” (I’m quite tired of hearing this too. No, it didn’t. It’s been 37 weeks. And I’m tired of it.)
  • “Oh, I didn’t know you were pregnant!” (I can’t blame people on this one if they haven’t seen me in a while. But REALLY? A bit annoying to hear since I obviously have a baby in my stomach at this point.)
  • “You’re about to pop!” (I’m not a balloon. And while I wish it were true that the end was near, it really could be 2.5 more weeks! Which seems like an eternity at this point.)
  • “I was 10 days overdue with my third…” (Not what I want to think about.)

Something I love to hear:

  • “You look fantastic!” (No other comment necessary from giver of this comment. I don’t feel fantastic, but I’d love to pretend I look it!)

Pregnancy Update

Dec 152011
 

I look back at the lack of photos and details from my first pregnancy and realize the same thing is happening this time! I’m not keeping up with this, and I’m amazed (but very happy….) to see that there are just 11 (eleven!) more weeks until baby Caroline’s due date.

Of course, most days, eleven weeks seems like an eternity, since I know I will be getting progressively more uncomfortable. Here are some updates as to how I’m doing and how our family is.

First, I have to say it is fantastic that there are so many holidays in the fall. This makes it feel that time is passing more quickly! It’s helping Paul too, because he has milestones to look forward to: his birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

Paul is very excited to be a big brother. There was a time around his birthday and Halloween when I wasn’t sure what he was thinking — people kept saying “Are you excited to have a little sister?” when he’d get this vacant look in his eyes and not smile. But since then he’s become rather excited. A few stories.

One day near Thanksgiving, we were in the supermarket getting groceries and I couldn’t resist: I had to stop by the little baby clothes. I saw an adorable “Santa” dress for babies: it was bright red velvet with white fur on the collar and sleeves.

“Oh, this is adorable!” I said.

Paul could reach some of the lower shelves and he said, “Look! here’s one in 4T! I can wear this one!”

I explained that he couldn’t wear a dress: those were for girls, like baby Caroline.

Paul promptly responded, “Let’s go find some more adorable clothes for baby Caroline!”

A few days ago now, we were reading a book about a girl with a favorite dress. (I’m currently a round one judge for the Cybils awards, so we’ve been reading all sorts of picture books.) I asked him what he liked about it and he said, “It’s about a girl with a dress, just like baby Caroline will have! So I like it because it’s like baby Caroline.” He had different reasons for liking the book a few months ago when we read it: now it’s all about the “little sister” and “girl” side of things he notices around him, which he’s looking forward to embracing when Caroline joins our family.

He is certainly going to be a great big brother!

As for me, well, here’s a belly shot from when I was 26 weeks (three weeks ago now — that’s how long it’s taken me to post this!)

IMG_2333

(Yes, it’s a bit out of focus. Apparently, my husband the photographer has a hard time just taking a picture of a person.)

I am wearing the same shirt (albeit four years older, stained and so forth) that I was wearing when I was 25 weeks pregnant with Paul here. I think I look bigger this time around…. and in the three weeks since I took that picture, I’ve gotten MUCH larger. I’ll take a 32-week picture to compare with my 32-week picture with Paul as well.

So how am I doing? Do you really want to know? If so, keep reading. If not, stop now. I don’t normally go in to health issues on this blog: it just seems so personal. But, this is partly a pregnancy journal too, and I miss not having my thoughts from my first pregnancy to reflect on. I was just too busy moving to Australia and getting settled, I guess.

Two weeks ago, my pelvic bones decided to split apart. I don’t recall this happening in the first pregnancy, and the fact that I pushed for more than 2 hours and Paul’s newborn head was quite smashed together suggests that it was a rather tight squeeze for him. So I’m hoping the fact that all of my pelvic bones are aching and sore will mean that delivery in February will go much quicker and with less difficulty. I was concerned at first, because I didn’t recall so much pelvic pain when I was pregnant with Paul. The doctor did a check and all was well. He did say that, unfortunately, I’ll probably just be in pain for the rest of the pregnancy. Great. So far, it has moderated a bit, so it’s not too bad.

I don’t have Gestational Diabetes or any worries about pre-eclampsia. In fact, my blood pressure is so low I am often dizzy. I can’t exercise by walking on the treadmill or using the elliptical anymore. I can’t even swim one lap of freestyle without stopping; it’s just too exhausting and hard to breathe. So I’m trying to bring myself to the pool a few times a week just to do breast stroke or elementary backstroke very slowly, to stretch, and use the pool weights. I don’t really feel like I’m exercising, but I guess that’s better than nothing.

Baby is a kicker. This may be my fault. With Halloween candy and then Thanksgiving and now Christmas fudge EVERYWHERE around me, I find I’ve been eating tons of sugar. Baby always responds to that. At any rate, from about 8 p.m. until midnight, I struggle to sleep because she’s so busy making herself known. I’m at the place in pregnancy where I’m waking up at night to pee, because of kicks, and because I simply can’t roll over to get comfortable. I’m so tired come morning.

Also, I have low platelet counts, which I’ve had for a few years now, but it is getting worse. Normal counts are above 140 or 150 (thousands). Before pregnancy, I was 100-120, with is not a big deal. Now that I’m pregnant, I’m  hovering between 80 and 90. It’s not a big deal until it gets to 20, 30 or 40, which is when I’d need a transfusion during delivery. Also, I can’t have an epidural if I drop into the 70s, but since I’m really wanting to go completely natural again, that won’t be an issue. I’d rather the epidural isn’t even an option!

Speaking of, I’ve had tons of pregnancy dreams that just made me laugh (and others that weren’t so funny).  The day after I watched The Business of Being Born (which I really liked; I think it gave a balanced look at the positives and negatives of home birth), I dreamed about my own baby girl’s natural birth, which was great, since it didn’t hurt at all (if only). I dreamt once that I was full term and kept telling Ryan we had to go to the hospital and he kept saying, “I’ll take a shower first” and “I’ll have some dinner first” and “I think I’ll go shave.” Baby ended up being born on the bedroom floor and Ryan (in my dream) was mad because the floor was all gross then and we needed new carpet. I’ve had bad pregnancy dreams: nightmares of surprise early delivery when I’m trying to find a babysitter for Paul and can’t and the baby ends up born on the bathroom floor. And then once I had a dream about my low platelet counts: I was delivering my baby and needed a transfusion so the doctor or nurse was running down the hall calling “Does anyone have A negative blood? Anyone? Anyone?”

Anyway, that’s me. I may look small (people still can’t believe I’m 7 months along!) but there is a full-sized kicking baby inside that makes it hard to walk, hard to sleep, and miserable some days because I’m just SO EXHAUSTED.

I must have a bad memory of pregnancy. But then, last time I was just a lot more positive I think. Here’s what I said at 36 weeks pregnant (which right now seems like a long time from now). Maybe it will get better again?

 Older Entries