the world around me stops, when it’s time to blog

November 8, 2007 at 7:17 am | In Doctor Visits, Expectant, First Trimester, General, Plans, symptoms | 5 Comments

Is that how it is for you? There are shoes on the floor in the kitchen, the highchair tray needs to be cleaned off and dishes unloaded from the dishwasher. The bed that I stripped earlier needs to be made, and it’s comforter put in the dryer. It’ll take me at least an hour to complete all the little things that need to be done before I pray and close my eyes to the world. But first, I must blog.

So…

today’s topic: OB visit number 1. 10 Weeks gestation! :)

My appointment was at 9:30.  The bus picked me up at 8:40 and had me to the hospital by 8:55. The OB/GYN office is really close by the hospital so I decided to pass the time in the hospitals cafeteria, maybe find something good to read. I had a muffin and a nice hot drink. It only cost me a dollar and twenty cents! :) There weren’t any newspapers or magazines laying around so I just read the hospital information packet.

It’s really not a bad hospital, very family friendly…it doesn’t have a starchy clean feel to it, like big efficient hospitals. As I sat there waiting for time to pass my thoughts helplessly fell back on the hot summer days surround Diederick’s entry into the world. The food from the hospital’s kitchen is quite delicious and I got to have three meals a day for free while there for our four day stay, it was so great. And in the birthing center they had a refrigerator stocked full of upset tummy settling treats available for devouring between meal hours. No outside hospital food allowed in. Oh and the room was so nice too, being half conscious at best I was thankful to have such a friendly helpful staff. All the same, I did wish my mom was there.

Shaking myself out of memory lane I headed over to the OB office. I checked in five minutes before my appointment and settled down with a magazine. I think read the better part of four mags before my name got called.

I’m so happy to be ten weeks! Ten weeks means the outside of the baby looks like a baby, a baby hardly over an inch long, but one all the same. A baby that has earlobes and finger tips, a baby that will have it’s first bowel movement in just one week.

Good news on the cramps, well encouraging thoughts anyway.

The midwife who I saw today, Raine, said that it could be a type of morning sickness. Instead of the internal upset and sensitivity to smells and tastes being manifest in nausea my body is reacting with periodic abdominal spasms. I’m not quite sure if there’s scientific research that says that the two are interchangeable, I know I hadn’t heard anything like that before. However, it was nice to see Raine so confident that I’m OK. She said that I’ve been doing the right thing to take it easy when I feel pain, but not to worry myself about it. If there’s blood then I have permission to worry–fair enough.

We just filled out paperwork. She did it really quickly, like some kind of machine without neglecting to talk as she did it. I appreciated that she was so efficient with it, especially since she’d been half an hour late to the appointment.  You know, come to think of it…the same thing happened on my first visit with her when I was pregnant with Deeder. “I got an emergency call from the hospital” Hmm…Oh well, I digress. I’m not saying that she’s lying, she just must meet up with loads of emergencies.

Raine gave me a lab slip for some blood work and had me schedule an appointment to come back in 3 weeks for my physical. As I scheduled the appointment I recalled that that was the appointment I missed in August. The day before my physical I miscarried, that was August 15th. A shiver ran down my back as I cleared my throat and took the appointment card from the receptionist. She said, “Well, we’ll hope to see you then.”   I said that I hoped so too.  I think everyone’s holding off on the congratulations for another 30 weeks.

I met with the outdoor 40 degree weather just in time for the bus. :) What a relief to not have to stand out in the cold!!! The bus ride home took forever and a half, or that’s how it seemed to me…probably because I was anxious about Deeder and his mystery illness. The bus driver needed to fuel up the bus (he forgot to that morning!) so everyone had to get off. Then he took his lunch break, thankfully for that we were all able to stay on the bus where it was warm. Now that’s something you wouldn’t find in a big town–a bus driver who takes lunch during a route.

Raine said that at our next meeting I’ll get to hear this baby’s heartbeat.  So I have an appointment card and a lab slip, and the hope of a heartbeat in three weeks.

I got another lab sheet in the mail today from Karen Gilbert my nurse practitioner at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical center, she’s my neurologist for less! :P We’ve only met the actual neurologist once, she doesn’t do office visits. I’ll have my Lamictal level drawn and my OB blood work at the same time, it’s always great to save a trip.

That’s all for tonight. Can you tell I’m bummed about not getting to hear the heartbeat? Well I am! Really though, if there’s a heartbeat today there will be one in three weeks, right? I can wait.

Bumbo Recalled???

October 30, 2007 at 4:44 am | In Baby Products, General | Leave a Comment

Recalled: 1 million baby chairs from Bumbo
Thu, Oct 25, 2007 (BabyCenter News) — Bumbo has announced a recall of about 1 million baby chairs in cooperation with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).If the baby seat is placed on a table, countertop, chair, or other elevated surface, a young child sitting in it can arch his or her back, flip out of the seat, and fall onto the floor, which poses a risk of serious head injury.There have been 28 reports of young children falling out of the Bumbo chairs, including three reports of skull fractures. These injuries were due to children falling out of chairs that had been placed on tables.

The recalled Bumbo “Baby Sitter” seat is made of foam, has leg holes, and comes in yellow, blue, purple, pink, aqua, or lime green. It has a round, flat bottom measuring approximately 15 inches across, and the seat back wraps completely around the child. The word “Bumbo” is printed in raised lettering on the front of the seat along with an image of an elephant. The words “Manufactured by Bumbo South Africa, Material: Polyurethane, World Patent No. PCT: ZA/1999/00030″ are printed on the bottom of the seat.

The following caution label is attached to the back of the seat:

WARNING — Never use on a raised surface. Never use as a car seat or bath seat. Designed for floor level use only. Never leave your baby unattended as the seat is not designed to be totally restrictive and may not prevent release of your baby in the event of vigorous movement.

The baby seats were sold online and at various retail stores nationwide including Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Toys R Us, Babies R Us, and USA Babies. The seats were sold from August 2003 through October 2007 for about $40. They were made in South Africa.

What you can do:

• Don’t let your child sit in the baby seat unattended, and don’t use the seat on a table, countertop, chair, or other elevated surface.

• Contact Bumbo if you’d like to receive a new warning label and instructions. The new warning label will say: WARNING — Prevent Falls; Never use on any elevated surface.

• For additional information, call Bumbo International at (877) 932-8626, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, or visit the company’s website.

• See a photo of the recalled baby seats on the CPSC’s website.

• Keep abreast of children’s safety recalls by checking our recall finder.

– Alissa Merksamer, BabyCenter News

Thankfully it’s only being recalled to add a new warning label. What kind of dumbo would leave a kid unattended on a countertop in a Bumbo anyway? I guess it’s the gals that had “Caution: Contents may be hot!” labels put on styrofoam cups for coffee. Well, I’m just glad the Chinese didn’t coat the Bumbo chairs it in lead paint.

In other recall news
38,000 “Go, Diego, Go!” toys were recalled–thankfully we don’t have any of them.
We just got in the mail a notification from the makers of Deeder’s carseat saying that it’s no longer “safe” a part needs to replaced before it’s legal to use again.

How come there were never massive recalls like this until recently? Toys used to be better quality, more carefully made. It’s pretty frustrating, and alarming!

moving plans, updated.

October 26, 2007 at 2:11 am | In Expectant, General, Plans | 2 Comments

Updated because they change so much, I do realize that I’ve never written about them on here before.

We seem to have many different Plan A and Plan B’s, all of which inadvertently switch which category they are in. One minute we have a nicely lined up stack of Plan A and a responsible Plan B backup, try to reiterate or sort through the stack and all of the sudden whatever was keeping them apart turns to nothingness and falls away, then they have to be re-identified. So so far we still live in Brattleboro Vermont, and we’re having another baby. My attic is full of boxes and totes full labeled and stacked in a way that makes sense to me, not because we’re moving, just because I have an attic and the stairs have mouse poopies on them! I want to know exactly what I’m looking for and rush out of there as soon as possible before a mousie comes into my housie. Unfortunatly, mousies do come down and must be caught in traps which really icks me out!!

Eh hem.

OK.

Plan A:

Goal: To move before the baby is born.

We talk to our land lady and tell her that we would like to be let out of our lease. Darren quits his job in the middle of March. We take two weeks to pack. We hire a big UHaul truck. They give you three days to load the truck, for this Darren’ll get a couple guys from his work to help. We leave April 1st. We drive in Darren’s truck with his car on a trailer behind it to Jamestown, ND and spend a week with his ma and pa then stop in Billings Montana to stay a couple nights with his sister, Roxanne. The moving truck arrives in Bellingham. Some nice person there unloads it in some apartment that Darren has pre-rented where we will arrive shortly. (Alternative to this plans, as told by Darren: All of our stuff is unloaded into a storage unit somewhere in Bellingham, we arrive and set up camp at my folks’ place for a month until we find our own place and a job. I think Darren’s thinking of Heidi in this scenario, he wants time to look for a place that allows dogs, just don’t tell him I said that!)

OK the tricky part of this Set-A-Date-To-Move-And-We-Just-Do-It plan is the need for insurance dilemma. My meds are expensive and the move will at least cost six thousand dollars :O Yes, Darren is blessed to be in a profession where he’s needed everywhere, but going without a job does seem terribly irresponsible.

OK so that’s a whole in Plan A, but let me continue.

So we get there. Darren sets out with his picture perfect resume and goes and talks to everyone who hires nurses. He takes the best paying one and becomes perfectly happy and content with it knowing that’s where God wants him to be!

I have the rest of my prenatal care taken over by Judy Edmunds, my mom’s midwife and have a wonderful home delivery AT MY PARENTS! Eeek!

The sad part about hte job thing is that there really isn’t any psychiatric nursing job in Bellingham. Darren hates hospitals and he hates nurses, he says that the busy-ness of it could make anyone crazy and that the nurses are just out to make themselves look good to their bosses.

Plan B:

Goal: Move shortly after the baby is born.

Our lease ends in June. The baby is due June 2nd. We pack and move our things to another apartment where we stay until September. September would provide ample driving weather and give me a couple months to recoup. Darren says he would have everything nicely set up so that when I was out of the hospital I could just arrive at the new apartment and not have to be stressed a bit. I see the reality of this as something awful! He’d want to get a place that allows pets and those are of slim pickens and in more often than not in terrible shape. And for someone to let a renter stay only a couple months? We’d have to move make to our first place up in the woods to get that kind of leniency. How we would actually make the move never settles. Darren wants to have a bonding father son time with nearly two year old Deeder by driving across the country without mommy! Mommy would be put on a plane for Seattle with baby to meet Daddy and Deeder in Bellingham. Mommy doesn’t want to be separated from Deeder! But it’s very important to Daddy that driving be done because he wants his car and truck, and of course, his doggie.

Somewhere inbetween Plan A and Plan B Heidi gets left on the farm that was her first home. She joined the farm as a two month old puppy in 1991 after being sorely mistreated by the people who owned her momma. Anyway all those years she’s been Daddy’s best friend and he would very much like for that first place she called home to be her final resting place. He tells a store of how one hot summer she dug a deep tunnel behind the barn and birthed a dozen perfect puppies there, if it weren’t for her smartness they would have died in the exceptionally hot summer heat. He’d like to bury her in that hole.

Anyway, as you can tell from reading this, that German Shepard has made many of our moving decisions, Darren says she’s protecting us.

fat fat fat

October 25, 2007 at 1:23 am | In Expectant, General | 3 Comments

As much as I admire those skinny preggos I just can’t make myself completely on top of cravings. I’m so happy that I have cravings, but they’re the silliest things and I know that giving into them only works to my demise.

Recommendations?

Someone I was reading suggested drinking a lot of water. Only eating when you feel really hungry, when you feel a random craving that isn’t accompanied by pangs of hunger just to take a big swig of water. This hasn’t worked! That is if working means taking away the craving. :P

I haven’t gained any weight yet, but I do give in to what I want too much. Mom, you always looked thin after pregnancy, did you just have no time to eat? That I could believe?

How about you, Steph? You’re skin and bones! (Not that that’s good!)

I weighed 135 when I got pregnant with Deeder. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after reaching 210, and I’m not just talking about the red/purple streaks all over my body!

And let me add that I’m not just trying to be vain, just make healthier choices than I did last time–well, and look better after as a result of healthy choices :P

Hehe! Oh and I’m sooooo annoyed with how I can’t write any code on here…grrr. If you log on and see it all messed up it’s because I’m fiddling with things, I want to be able to link to things–there must be a way! I think I’ll ask my friend Wendy. Her wordpress blog was pretty great.

PS: Ignore that blue box on the bottom with feet in it :P I don’t know how to get rid of it! That’s where I’m going to put my belly pictures. This is a just girls blog, right? I can’t believe I’m going to belly pics again…so embarrassing!

Your Pregnancy, Week 8

October 22, 2007 at 8:09 pm | In Expectant, First Trimester, GaGa Preggo Calendar, General, symptoms | 2 Comments

Week 8: Goodbye sea creature, hello baby!

Fetal development in pregnancy week 8:

The embryo in second month Woohoo! You’ve got one whole inch of baby inside of you!

Your little embryo has finally reached the one-inch mark (30mm). And if it were possible to take a peek, you could actually see your tiny baby without a telescope! What’s more, your baby is finally starting to take on some very distinct human features. For starters, their little tail (really just the spinal cord) has disappeared completely.

It’s nice to know your baby can no longer be mistaken for a sea creature! Additionally, both their toes and fingers are prominent with very little, if any, webbing. Upper and lower limbs all show recognizable joints (elbows and knees) and the lower limb bones are starting to ossify. But don’t expect your baby to resemble either parent quite yet.

Right now, your baby’s head is disproportionately larger than the rest of their body–making up almost half of your little one’s height and weight!

And how’s mom doing? Your slightly-larger-than-a-cherry embryo is also starting to have a physical impact on you this week—and not just hormonally, as you may be noticing a slight bulge at your midline– mostly from water retention.

Most people won’t even notice the subtle change to your belly’s shape, but since you’re if you have been extra moody lately, that may start to subside this week, as the placenta is beginning to take responsibility for your baby’s hormone production tuned in to every little change in your body, it hasn’t slipped past. Good news for the hormonally tortured: if you have been extra moody lately, that may start to subside this week, as the placenta is beginning to take responsibility for your baby’s hormone production. This means your body will soon be able to relax a bit from its over-production of hormones as the placenta starts to regulate your baby’s hormones– allowing your body to focus on producing more normal levels of hormones for yourself.

I’ve been feeling really good, nicely unsettled tummy in the morning…extra tired, and having very specific likes and dislikes. I get a good two hour nap in every day and am to bed by 9:30.
My tummy does have a little bump, but just enough for me to notice! I don’t think I’ll be pulling out the maternity clothes for a while. All the same, I’m going to do belly pictures. You girls can stand that, can’t you? How about one with each OB visit report.

Boy I hope I get to hear the baby’s heartbeat when I go in in a couple weeks :)
I’ll be ten weeks along.

Keep praying for me…I still get cramps now and then. I just take it as a sign to relax a little, usually I go lay down for a few minutes and wait for the cramps to pass. They always go away pretty quickly, but still it worries me.
Other than a little cramping I’m happy with everything so far.

I’m 7 1/2 Weeks

October 19, 2007 at 7:28 pm | In Doctor Visits, Expectant, First Trimester, General | 5 Comments

I had an ultrasound today.

It showed that I’m further along than I thought I was–my new due date is June 2nd.

The little gestational sac was so beautiful! :P It looked roomy and full of protective fluid. haha

The last time I saw one on ultrasound was so recently–it was small and collapsed, hardly visible at all.

So 7 1/2 weeks. That’s further along than I was when I miscarried.

My first official prenatal visit is on Nov 8th, at 9:30.

Now I’m going to call my neurologist and set up and appointment to go see her. Then I’m going to take a nap. I know my usual blog has been suffering a bit…there’s little to say that doesn’t somehow include feelings about pregnancy. Think I can make it 20wks without saying anything?

ttfn

Daddy Bought Pizza

October 18, 2007 at 6:33 pm | In Expectant, General | 2 Comments

Darren took Deeder and I to Pizza Hut yesterday.

He ordered us each salad bar. Boy do they have a lot in their salad bar!! Six different kinds of pizza, fruits and veggies, Cesar salad and garden salad, two varieties of desserts, pasta and bread sticks. YUMMY! $6 each.

Diederick ate breadsticks, cottage cheese, and a slice of cheese and pepperoni pizza :)

Daddy also bought two pizzas and a box of breadsticks, cinnamon sticks and pop to go.

This, ladies, is the way I put on 60lbs in pregnancy. :P We went a few times when I was expecting Deeder. I don’t think we’d been since–I’m usually not a pizza person. I officially call Pizza Hut a preggo craving. It so hit the spot :P

The lab was empty when I went in, that’s never happened before! I guess noon is the time to go in! Tomorrow I’ll go in for the second draw after playgroup.

Wouldn’t it be cool if I were pregnant with twins? :D

Well, I’d better be off to the co-op now. Deeder and I are going to look to see if we can find one of the tinctures that Judy recommended. We bought Vitamin E yesterday, Darren said I can just take half the dosage that Judy suggested.

Does Judy have a website or email, Mom?

Your pregnancy week 2, and hormone thing :P

October 17, 2007 at 12:44 am | In Expectant, First Trimester, GaGa Preggo Calendar, General, symptoms | 2 Comments

All is still fairly calm and quiet– or so it seems. In reality, your little bundle of cells is now an embryo growing a neat little umbilical cord, while your body is getting ready to start working on building the placenta. You’ve probably already noticed your swollen tender breasts, although you might think it’s just due to your period at this point.- BabyGaGa

Steph, testing hormone levels is an early safe way to see how the pregnancy is going. If the levels are low then the pregnancy may be one that wont last. If the levels are unusually high the woman may be pregnant with multiples.
I suppose they have two levels taken to be extra sure that the first one was accurate. That’s about all I know. :)

I put a babystrology ticker on my main blog on the Who Am I? page because for some reason the coding doesn’t work on the free wordpress blogs. I love the ticker, it’s uber!

Tomorrow hopefully I’ll pick up the labs and do the first one. That’ll probably mean another post on here. I’m sure it’s just like any other bit of lab work. They didn’t tell me to do anything special like for the glucose test I took near the end of my pregnancy with Deeders.

That’s all for now. No cramps today!

Hormone Levels

October 15, 2007 at 9:21 pm | In Expectant, First Trimester, General | 2 Comments

I canceled my appointment for tomorrow and will be doing hormone level labs instead. Tabi will leave them at the front desk for me–I take them 48 hours apart from each other then schedule an appointment for an ultrasound at 6 1/2 weeks. I like to not have ultra sounds at all before 19 weeks, but I think I’m going to give this time.

If I hadn’t had an ultrasound right after my bleeding in August I probably would have lay around getting rest thinking I was giving the baby another chance to live when really s/he had already died two weeks earlier.

Opinions?

I was just reading on BabyGaGa

that most women don’t feel really morning sick until week six, that’s encouraging! Maybe there is puke and gassy-ness in my future!!

I’ll have Tabi call you…

October 15, 2007 at 2:58 pm | In Expectant, First Trimester, General, symptoms | 1 Comment

This morning I called the OB/GYN to tell them about my positive pregnancy test. The appointment that I have scheduled was to talk to my doctor about the weird one day period I had on the 29th of September, not to talk about another pregnancy. Rather than surprising him with the news I thought it’d be more convenient for everyone to just call ahead–that way he’d know what lecture to have in store for me. :P

The reseptionist said, “Hmm. Well, OK. Would you hold on a second?” She came back on the line in two minutes and said, “Well, I’ll have his nurse give you a call today and she’ll talk to you about your options.”

It’s so weird how they can be so happy about pregnancy for some people. But for those who were told to wait to get pregnant for a while you get treated a bit differently. It’s not exciting–it’s an inconvenience.

The good news is that my mom’s midwife had some suggestions for me! She recommends Vitamin E – 800 IU and some herbal tinctures. I’ll (hopefully) get to the co-op today and look for them. :)

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