First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes.....

Movers and shakers

2011-12-09T09:27:00.002-05:00

No one told me that a walker was tiring and that a week after she mastered walking she would be running across the house with a lunch bag in her hand and a sippy cup in her mouth.
C has started the point and whine. Its awesome because in general she can have what shes pointing at but sometimes its something crazy like my glasses or a mug of hot cofffee and she loses her shizz and looks at us like we have slapped her in the face.
Right now she is sick. Except she didn't get the memo. She is still running around laughing and being happy but she is covered in red spots and her nose is a leaky slimey faucet. The doctor thinks she has hand,foot,mouth but without the hand,foot or mouth part. It could also be chicken pox with a few spots in odd places. Both of those things are suppose to make her want to lay in bed snuggling. Instead she is running around moving things from place to place stopping only to hand me this or take a sip from her cup.

We are only getting a small tree this year. A mantle tree because miss mover would surely try to move every ornament from the tree to behind the mini quitar amp that she hides things behind. A quick glance behind there now reveals a bag of crushed cheese crackers, a Christmas card envelope, a remote for something and 3 different socks.

And she wakes...

Molars are a pain.

2011-10-06T10:48:00.002-04:00

Molars can bite me. C's are coming in. We know this because she will spend the day with snot face and then at night wake up about 30 minutes after going down screaming like someone set her on fire and does not stop until the medicine kicks in. And until it does she does not want to leave my side. She just stares at me, writhing in in pain, trying to find a position that is comfortable. It is like wrestling with a baby chimp. Maybe if she can get her feet on my shoulders the pain will stop, nope, maybe the top of her head in my lap with her butt in the air will work, nope, okay..what about one sitting on my knees with my face pressed into mamas armpit while my arms try to wrap around her neck while I shake my head "no" that might work. Nope. None of it works.
I tried explaining to her that one days she will get momey for these teeth and the tooth fairy will remember those sleepless nights and pay big bucks for those molars. But since shes almost one shes not really getting it.

In a blink..

2011-09-16T08:10:00.003-04:00

This is happening in our house right now. This was last week so now she is much more stable.

Where my camp is.

2011-09-15T08:55:00.002-04:00

I really do mean to write more. I am constantly writing things in my head, the millions of tiny things I notice everyday, the things I have come to realise not everyone sees, I'm always amazed when I say to Jonathan "Did you see that?" and he hasn't because those tiny things to me are like flashing lights. I wish I had a camera in my head so I could review each detail and tell a little story about each item, something I tend to do. I really want a digital SLR, I just cannot commit because I have a fear that he second I buy one a better one would come out and the one I just bought would drop in price. Yes, I'm afraid of missing a deal.
Autumn is here. In our house it is the favorite time of year! Yesterday marked our 12 year dating anniversary, next week is our 2 year marriage anniversary and next month is C's 1st birthday, Thanksgiving( they fall on the same day this year!) and Halloween!
I was in Bath and Body Works yesterday, just to browse, and ended up leaving with 3 soaps and 4 candles(bogo) all because they were fall scents. If my whole house smelled of caramel, leaves and apples all year round I'd be alright with that! This weekend we are repainting our kitchen. We only just painted it last year but after living with the colour we both agreed that the lemony yellow was a lemon and what we(ok, me.) was a golden yellow. It hit me last night why we didnt gel with the lemon yellow, it is a summer colour and our tent is firmly set up in the autumn. Even our first apartment, which was a dump, we painted in a fall palette. Sure the orange bathroom was a bit of a shock in the morning, but I still love the deep plum we painted the living room, although we probably won't be painting a room that shade any time soon.
Fall is so in the air that yesterday I bought a slow cooker. It was on sale(of course) and I'd been pinning slow cooker recipes on Pintrest so I figured I might as well give it a go. I am imaging warm comfort foods with slices of grainy crusty bread slathered in butter. Because fall means the carb intake somehow doubles, surely a left over from the caveman days of low food suppy during winter.
Fall makes me think about knitting something and this time finishing it. A warm chunky throw to curl up in with C, although more likely a wonky scarf that is either too long or too short.
I wish there was somewhere in the world where the weather was always like it is now. I'd move there in a second.

2011-08-12T13:10:00.003-04:00

The other day I had lunch with one of my best friends, we started as co-workers but quickly became great friends. When he left my former work place I actually cried, who would I eat lunch with? would someone replace me at his new job? Would ii have to find a new gay coworker to send pics of Jake Gyllenhal to? We sort of made a deal that when I was ready to go back to work he would try his hardest to get me into his new place. Since my old employer closed down shop while I was on mat leave I have no job to go back to. This led us to decide that I should stay home for ay least 18 months, unless of course a really great job came up. So I'm having lunch with my friend and he tells me he has a plan that involves me. To make a long story short-ish, it involves him taking a new position and me taking his old one.
In September/October.

I felt a little sick at first, which I always do when plans are changed, then I felt like crying. The thought of leaving C to go back to work fills me with heavy dread. Daycare in Toronto costs between 1500-1800 a month, or the same as renting a nice condo. On top of that we aren't on any waiting lists, which is like admitting you enjoy kicking dogs. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself though, he has yet to apply for the position and I have yet to polish up my resume.
The truth is though that if I was offered the job at the same salary I know my friend is making(I'm the one that encouraged him to ask for more when they offered him the job) I would have to take it. Sure we would have to scramble for childcare but those things have a way of working out. I have spent the last few nights mentally figuring out how much money I'd be bringing in since I no longer have any debt(other than the mortgage) and how we could actually start soing some of the things we have always talked about doing a lot sooner rather than later and my brain does a happy little dance until it reminds me that C wouldn't be smiling at me when she wakes up from naps or scrambling up my body to hug me or flashing me a smile when she does something new and my chest tightens and my eyes fill with tears. I try to remind myself that a year is what the rest of my friends get for mat leave and we are so lucky to get a whole year.

Time flies

2011-08-09T10:27:00.002-04:00

So much has happened in the last 2 months(!!!) We went to Cape Cod and it was wonderful, C was the dream baby on the plane, smiling and giggling at everyone and then passing out for the whole flight, ok she was a tiny bit cranky for about 4 minutes( which seemed like years in airplane cabin time right before we started taxi-ing but apparently we were the only ones freaking out as everyone commented on what a marvelous traveller she was as they got off. She liked the sand but did not dig dipping her toes into the ocean.
A few weeks ago she decided to start crawling and the next day decided to pull herself up on the sofa. She is fast. Seriously, like gold medal crawler fast. Suddenly our whole house is full of dangerous things.

I cannot even wrap my head around the fact that she will be 10 months tomorrow. This time last year she wasn't here, how is that even possible? There was a time in my life that she was not here and I can't imagine going back to that time(although I will gladly take the dress size from that time would be nice)

Adventures in baby food

2011-05-31T15:51:00.003-04:00

This week we tried beets with C. Beets are messy so feeding is done in just a diaper. Her reception to beets was the same as every other things she's tried.

Then the next day she really let me know what she thought of beets by sending a stream of liquid pink poop into my hand as I was changing her. Then I was all wtf!

2004

2011-05-20T22:46:00.002-04:00

I have an older blog that I started in 2004. It's under a made up name which allowed me to be anonymous, which allowed me a certain freedom to write exactly what I was thinking and not have to worry that someone I knew would find it. I had quite a few readers there, all other bloggers who used the same site. I made internet "friends" I got Christmas cards from them, I chatted on IM, it was my own little secret world. I wrote there daily, sometimes twice a day.
Then Jonathan discovered it and one night while drunk told our friends the name of it. I clearly remember feeling sick as he told them I did have a blog and the name of it. I quickly password protected it and after awhile set up this one. But my writing has never been as free as it was there. Which is funny because less people read this, but it's also probably easier to link to me.
Sigh.
I started re-reading that blog from the beginning just before I turn 27. It's amazing to see my life as I saw it then. A whirlwind of emotions and obsessions, that can only be those of someone who thinks they are approaching the end of their good years(lots of OH.MY.GOD I'M GOING TO BE 30!) and apparently a lot of pot smoking and drinking and nights out. I'm glad that it's there even if at times it is embarrassing.
It makes me realise that putting things down is important, to be able to look back and see what and where you were makes you realise how far(or not so far) you've come.
I really have to be better at this.

We are going on a summer holiday!

2011-05-11T09:51:00.003-04:00

We're going on a summer holiday! We will be spending a whole week in Cape Cod! Our friends have a summer house on the beach down there and we couldn't go last summer because I was preggers. This year though were going in late June. We were able to get cheap flights to Boston where our friends will pick the 3 of us up.
I'm so excited! A whole week! Usually we go somewhere for 4 day weekends, the last time we went anywhere for a week it was in October 2001 to England.
Obviously this trip wouldn't be happening if we didn't have friends who had a place so I know I'm lucky. Three couples and 3 children will all be going for a week. I've already been researching different places to eat and as luck would have it there is a famous ice cream place walking distance from the house!! YES!

Chop chop!

2011-05-07T23:31:00.003-04:00

Today I got my hair cut. My hair had gotten really long while I was pregnant. It also got thick for the first time in it's life. I basked in the glory of thick, long, shiny hair. Then I had C and that hair was put up everyday in a ponytail, bun or braid. Then it started falling out by the handful and was everywhere. Here is how long it was last night....I used to have it longer...in grade 6.

I decided that since I was getting it chopped off I would donate it. I looked into it and knew I needed a minimum of 8 inches for Beautiful Lengths I knew I had at least that much. After the chopping of the braid I measured it. 14 inches. FOURTEEN! Seriously.

I will admit it's a bit shorter than I wanted(it always ends up being shorter than I wanted!) and I forgot that the front bits have to be longer because they naturally curl up but other than that I'm digging it.

A weight lifted.

2011-05-05T11:25:00.003-04:00

I am officially out of credit card debt.
It feels weird to say that. That I have finally paid off a million stupid things that I bought years ago (complete lines of high end skin products, dinner for friends, shoes I have worn once, a fake ponytail, just to name a few.) A few things put me into serious debt. A complete lack of knowledge about money(money is for spending right?!?) one of the few manic episodes I have had in my life(if I just have this outfit and this whole makeup line I will be so amazing that someone will notice and give me my dream job and I will be able to pay it all off..yeah seriously that was a real thought.) and my first "real" job where I didn't really make that much but I felt like I was making so much more than my retail jobs. All of these things along with being approved for every credit card I applied put me in debt for the last ten years. Sure I was making all my payments even over paying but it never seemed to put a dent in it.

The one thing about getting my severance package was that it would allow me to pay all of it off in one go. I admit I felt anxious about it taking all that money and paying my debt off felt like throwing it out the window. I had to remind myself that I was really paying off all those silly purchases, actually purchasing them with my own money. That orange eyeshadow and lipstick that I wore one time are now mine...all mine.

Little Miss Snuffly

2011-04-19T22:21:00.003-04:00

I am placing the blame for the current state of health in my house on the germ filled cess pool that is a big name baby store. Everyone one of us was just peachy before C and I took a trip there last week and we had to use the washroom.

Now I am not a germaphobe. In fact I embrace germs, I rarely use hand sanitizer(only when I've touched something gross in public and then I use an all natural one.) I'm very rarely sick, even after being around sick people. I don't know if it's because I've got a kick ass immune system from not being scared of germs..I'm just saying.

I got sick first. I started feeling gross on Saturday morning. By Sunday morning I could barely speak, my nose was stuffed up no matter how much I blew it and my whole body ached.

You can't imagine how happy I was that C decided that she would have a 3 hour nap that day.

It is now Tuesday and I feel about 98% normal. I heal quickly. I'm telling you it's the germs.

I knew C would get sick, I was hoping she wouldn't but I wasn't going to place any bets.

I think she started feeling stuffy Monday night and by Tuesday night her nose was running like a faucet. Because she is C she was still smiling and laughing between sniffles. Last night there were more snuggles, she woke up sort of whimpering so I pulled her into bed with me and she snuggled in and we slept until 11am this morning. She's still snuffly but in good spirits.

Hopefully everyone in our house will be well soon!

YUM!

2011-04-14T17:05:00.002-04:00

This week C started tasting solids. I went really crazy finding the right book to use as my "baby feeding bible" and went with Sprout Right because it was written by a Canadian nutritionist and published last fall. So instead of starting with the traditional rice cereal we started with butternut squash. C seemed to like it, she had a few mouthfuls (and one covered chin!) and then became much more interested in the spoon so we stopped. The author stresses that first tastes of food are just that, tastes, getting her used to the new textures and flavors. So were not worried about how much she gets. I'm making her food. Cost wise it's cheaper. Jonathan bought an organic butternut squash for 2.50 and it made 8oz of food which have all been frozen into 1oz cubes. Time wise it took maybe 10 minutes of hands on time and 15 minutes of steaming the squash. It's another milestone that makes me happy/sad. The kid just won't agree to stay a baby, she is determined to grow up and it's going to be a blink before she's embarrassed to be seen with me and another blink before she's leaving home.

Raising the bar.

2011-04-06T10:06:00.003-04:00

Here I am at a bar. With C strapped to the front of me. I kind of look like death because we left right after I showered and I had pulled back what little hair I have(it's still falling out like mad.) and wearing no makeup, but whatever it was like +10 degrees out. This is the bar we used to hang out at with all our friends, Jonathan is still a "regular", it has one of the best beer selections in the city. We go to beer festivals, I grow hops in our backyard, Jon grinds his own grains and brews beer in our basement. Beer is a big player in our lives. We are beer geeks, beer snobs, beer enthusiasts. The first time we went to Mondial de la biere Montreal (we are not going this year because it's the same weekend as the Indy, not something I want to deal with) I noticed several people with babies strapped to them or in strollers. The next year I noticed even more. We only go during the day so that is probably why, I doubt anyone is bringing their babies at night when it gets louder and people get drunker(we always left around 5 because suddenly the students and work force arrive.) Anyhoot. Our first outing to our local was this past Saturday afternoon. First we stopped at the organic store to get C some sunscreen and some dinner goods. Then we strolled on to the bar. It was fairly empty as bars tend to be on Saturday afternoons, maybe 15 people in total. The attached coffee bar had more people in it. The bartender was excited to meet C who she has heard all about and we ordered two pints. I waited for someone to give us dirty looks. Instead we got smiles and a woman who came over to tell us how great she thought it was as we were obviously a loving family and had a super happy baby. It was so relaxing and normal.

And there they were.

2011-04-01T10:47:00.003-04:00

This morning C was chomping on my finger and I felt a sharp edge. Teeth! I was convinced that her vampire teeth were going to come in first, the chomping she does has always been to the sides and I swear I saw some bumps there. I was kind of looking forward to having a wee vampire in my house. Of course it's her two front bottom teeth like a normal baby. It's hard to get a look at them because she keeps trying to lick my finger when I try but I saw them, two barely visible white lines that hard and sharp. Teeth! I'm kind of sad. This is really a sign that she will not be a baby forever. I knew she wouldn't but teeth are the next step in getting bigger. There won't be any gummy smiles soon and it sort of breaks my heart. It's happening too fast and I just want to slow it down.

Sweet dreams.

2011-03-30T12:15:00.003-04:00

C still sleeps in her co-sleeper next to our bed. She also sleeps anywhere from 7 to 10 hours a night. Now I don't know if this is a coincidence or not but sleeping right next to her enables me to also sleep that many hours, this makes for a happy mama. This works for us. I'm surprised when friends repeatedly ask us if she's in her room yet. Of course they are surprised when I say that she is not. Someone even commented that we "have to let her sleep in her own room eventually." I smiled and nodded because they meant well but really? We have to? Because I'm pretty sure we don't have to do anything except nurture a happy, healthy baby and since the same people constantly comment on how happy and calm she is 24/7 I think we are probably doing something right. This works for us. Something else works for other families. That's the way life is. We are all different, that's what makes us great!

C at 5 months

2011-03-21T09:44:00.002-04:00

Nicknames: Face-face, Butt butt, Eeeps.
Favorite things to do: Roll like a ninja, blow raspberries, stare and touch at our faces, chomp on Daddy's nose, babble, try to steal our glasses and drink from them.

Go fish.

2011-03-10T15:28:00.002-05:00

This time 5 months ago I was just checking into the hospital. I had been labouring at home for 3 days and I was exhausted. I'd had an ultrasound that morning to make sure she was alright and she was and at 2:30pm I'd had another round of monitoring and things were looking odd. So we decided to check into the hospital at 3:30. A bunch of stuff happened and then at 7:53pm she was born.
Now I'm sitting here watching her chomp on the tag of toy(seriously what is with babies and tags?) How it's been 5 months since that day is baffling. The days melt into each other and BAM it's been 5 months.
I'm still battling those last few pounds of baby weight. It doesn't help that I've been baking all winter. Just yesterday I made sponge toffee, tarragon lime chocolate truffles and a chicken dinner. Just because.

The biggest change though happened last week.

The company I worked for closed down it's Canadian entity. Over the last year my company had been slowly working towards closing down. Without getting into too much boring detail they had said that as long as they had a Canadian entity they would wait to give me and another woman on mat leave our notice once we were done mat leave. After our office shut in January this year there was one lone wolf Canadian employee that hadn't been involved in our business. Then I got a call last week. That lone wolf was gone and that meant there was just us maternity leave women on the payroll and the tax year was ending so we were given notice.

Now I had already planned what we were going to use my severance for. A nice trip(the honeymoon we never had.)pay off debt and then I was going to be able to stay home for another 6 months or longer.
I was mad and stressed. Mad because since I will be receiving a bit more money than the remainder of my mat leave I'm sort of being screwed out of my leave and stressed because this was being thrown at me with little notice(1 day to be exact) and the whole plan was out window.

I cried.

Then we sat down and figured out a plan that would allow us to still do 2 out of 3 things. Debt and staying home longer. No big trip this year, maybe a little one instead to Montreal(where else?) Things will be tight but the two most important things will stay the same. I'm still mad at my company for screwing me but sometimes you just have to deal with the hand dealt to you the best you can.

I have to be all "Go Fish" with my life(uh yeah that's the only card game I know.)

Dog years

2011-03-01T09:25:00.002-05:00

12 years ago today my dog was born. She's a lab greyhound mix, people stop us all the time to ask us what breed she is and people are shocked that she is a "senior" because she's so active and still acts like a young pup. She can run circles around dogs half her age and when there is fresh snow she leaps around like a bucking bronco.

She's good with C and C is fascinated with her. I can't wait until they become friends.

Fingers crossed

2011-02-16T11:01:00.002-05:00

I like to enter contests. I can't tell you how many I have entered but I can tell you how many I've won.
One.
Jonathan pokes fun at me for entering but as I tell him "You can't win anything if you don't enter." So I enter and enter and hope that one day when I win I don't flub the skill testing question.
This week I'm entering a makeover contest. One of the things you have to do for the contest is send in a photo of yourself in your worst outfit. I tried to think of my outfits and which was my worst. I currently own two pairs of non maternity pants, both are ill fitting and I own two long sleeved tops that were cheap and look it. THOSE are my good outfits. My worst outfit is probably my old grey work out pants that I have been known to wear to bed and wake up and keep wearing and one of the many white stained tees that used to be Jonathans. Shoes? Um...do socks count? I have really nice winter boots, some old running shoes and a good amount of heels that I probably will never get to wear again but they cost so much that I can't get rid of them.

Other than winning the lottery I'd really love to win a makeover.

The great fallout.

2011-02-06T21:26:00.003-05:00

I knew it was going to happen but I have to admit I wasn't really prepared for it. My hair is falling out in clumps. CLUMPS. Seriously I knew it would happen but dude....in clumps for real?
At first I noticed a few strands here and there and then last week in the shower I pulled conditioner threw my hair and my hand was full of hair.
I kept finger combing it and soon had a big ball of hair in my hand and my body had a bunch of stray hairs from all over as well.
I haven't cut my hair since last February when the woman hacked my hair into hideous layers. Then during pregnancy my hair was wonderful.
Now that it's falling out I don't know what to do. My fear of stylists makes me dread going and getting it cut but the fear of choking on my own hair ball might outweigh that.

Baby book worm

2011-02-04T10:29:00.002-05:00

C seems to have inherited my love of books. I was an early reader. I'm told I started reading random words from the newspaper around age 3 making my parents realise that I hadn't just memorised my books when I read them out loud.

I clearly remember in grade 1 the teacher asking me why I was I wasn't reading and telling her that I was but I was doing it in my head and not out loud. She then had me read the book out loud to prove it. Shortly after that I was allowed to pick my own books for reading time and around then started the Little House series. I was happiest with my nose in a book.

C seems to love books just as much as me. She likes to turn the pages on her own and seems to study the pictures and words. She also doesn't like it if we try to read the same book too close together letting out an angry grunt and pushing it away. Maybe I'm reading too much into it and it's just normal baby behaviour, I don't know, but right now she is happy with books so were reading a lot of books and there cannot be anything wrong with that.

Easy like a Sunday morning.

2011-02-03T21:13:00.004-05:00

I am officially the proud mommy of a 4 month old that sleeps 6-7 hours through the night then gets up for a feed and sleeps another hour or two. She also now naps for an hour or two a couple of times a day.
In other words I'm the mom every other mom hates.

I feel bad.

Before we had C everyone told us how rough it would be. How much their babies cried, how little they slept, how challenging breastfeeding had been.

Then C was born. Sure the first few weeks were rough but then suddenly it wasn't. Suddenly we realised we had a very laid back baby.

We have stretched the truth to friends of ours who have a baby born weeks after C. They are still having a really rough time. We tell them that we know what they are going through but we don't. We have no clue.

Although she still spits up a lot but I'll take being covered in spit up and a good nights sleep anyday.

Winter blahs.

2011-01-29T16:00:00.002-05:00

I loathe winter. Which is funny since I live in Canada and well we get winter every year, except last year when I finally bought winter boots that were warm to -40 then of course it was unseasonably warm the whole time. Sigh. I should have bought a snow blower this year and then there would be no snow.
I think I mainly hate winter in the city. I imagine if I lived in a big farm house in the country that had wood burning fireplaces and/or stoves I would somehow magically love winter. I think I might because I love a good roaring fire. The first year we lived in our house used the wood stove that was in the basement, I loved putting in paper and kindling and logs and watching the fire shape and mold them, it was like watching art being made.
Warm, cozy, marshmallow toasting art.
We used it so we didn't have to crank our electric baseboards and our bill was still outrageously high.
I imagine a big country kitchen where friends would gather and we would eat big bowls of homemade soups and stews alongside hunks of crusty homemade bread. Enjoying glasses of good red wine and after dessert we would all go into the living room where there would be a stand up piano and various instraments for people to grab if they wanted to and we'd play music and gab and the children would play on the floor or shake tamborines. After a while the kids would fall alseep near the fire under wool blankets and then we'd carry them up to their room and tuck them into a big feather bed. Then the adults would go outside to the porch to have some spiked hot chocolate and stare at the stars. Maybe make snow angels. Then we'd go back inside for some midnight snacks and more hot chocolate and I'd show my guest to their rooms with big feather beds under wool blankets where they would sleep until the smell of pancakes and coffee wafted up to wake them.

Then I would enjoy winter.

Makeover Monday -week 1

2011-01-24T21:46:00.003-05:00

This past week I have cooked more meals than I usually would in a month. Go me!

I made several recipes from this website as I tune into the show quite often. We don't have cable but we get 3-4 channels and the CBC is one of them. I've made several chicken recipes using the cheaper thighs instead of the usual breast, eggplant Parmesan done in the oven which was amazingly good, a quick quiche, turkey piccata and mushroom risotto(which I wish I made more of because it was soooo good.) and today I whipped up some tea biscuits(some cheese and some raisin) In the past when I made a meal I would choose something elaborate and fancy, no use putting all that time in for something without wow factor I thought. But the simple, fast recipes I have been making lately are instantly rewarding and just as delish with less clean up. Having an infant makes finding meals that are quick and easy to make a must.

C really likes(or puts up with)being in the kitchen while I cook as long as I show her everything and talk about what I am doing. She really likes to inspect everything, I show her a mushroom and she grabs my hands to bring it closer to her face looking at it with such curiosity it's funny.

We have started making the bed. Nothing fancy just literally pulling the sheets back up and fluffing the duvet. I have never made my bed, it just wasn't something I thought was important. Then I started thinking about all the times I've stayed places where the bed was made and how nice it felt to pull back the covers and climb in. It's simple and it makes me feel nice so why not? Although this afternoon when we couldn't find the cat a lump in the middle of the bed let us know that he approved as well.

Went to the doctor and the doctor said...

2011-01-20T19:18:00.002-05:00

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

Well no she didn't say that at all.

C is above average in height, weight and noggin size. She's gained 4lbs in 2 months!
Then came the talk about vaccines. Which is when I started tearing up. The doctor was nice though and gave me some material to read. There was no pressure to get them all right then and there and no one made me feel bad for going the extra month and a half without them. Since I knew that I was going to vaccinate but just didn't know what sort of schedule I wanted to go with and since just the night before Jonathan was telling me about all his sickly co-workers I decided to get them.
The first one she didn't even react and the second one she cried for about 30 seconds. A full blown red faced scream that made me clutch her tight and whisper in her ears about being brave and how I was there.
I waited for crankiness and fever or any sign of a reaction and got nothing. She did sleep for 7 hours straight last night which is two hours longer than the norm these days. But she tends to do that on days that she has big adventures.

I'm thinking I'll probably stick to roughly the same schedule as I was given when I was born and investgate further the need for all these "new" ones. Theres too much information to sift through that always seems to cancel out other information right when I think i have found the right path.

To the doctor's house we go.

2011-01-19T11:10:00.002-05:00

Confession. C hasn't been to the doctor yet. When she was two months old I was still recovering from the surgery, my GP was an hour away by public transit and then well the holidays started and then winter and suddenly she was 3 months old. Those are all the excuses I had if anyone asked. But honestly I wasn't that keen on bringing my tiny 2 month old to the doctor to get stuck full of things I wasn't really comfortable with. I've had a hard time wrestling with my feelings about vaccinating her. I don't believe that vaccines cause autism but I do believe that they could do something. It just cannot be that good to fill someones tiny body with that sort of chemical stew.

Yes both Jonathan and I got our vaccines many years ago but the total we got was around 11. If I gave C ever vaccine on the list I would be subjecting her to around 35-38. Now they get a vaccine for chicken pox. I had chicken pox when I was six I also got shingles when I was 18, both weren't the most fun I'd ever had but for both of them I stayed home, ate soup and watched tv.

So today at 3.5 months of age she is going to the doctor for the first time. We were able to get a pediatrician close to home due to divine intervention(getting a pediatrician is like finding the holy grail.) so today I bring my happy, babbling, snugly baby and subject her to something I'm not 100% down with. I'm so anxious I could vomit. The fact that she's going to be in pain and it's my fault makes me hyperventilate. I feel like with vaccines I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I don't want to her to get sick because I didn't and I don't want her to get sick if I do.

Can't I just whisk her away to an island and raise her away from other people so we never come into contact with any of those viruses?

Makeover mondays

2011-01-17T09:31:00.003-05:00

As of this morning I weigh 168lbs. On July 31st 2009 I weighed 154lbs down from 166 in Feburary of that year. I know I weighed under 160 when I got married and between getting married and getting pregnant I went up to 164. You still following?

So right now I'm 4lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight which is 10lbs above my lowest recent weight.

Obviously in 2009 I was doing something that was working for me.

So I'm going to start up "Makeover Mondays" because really my whole life is somewhat in need of a makeover. My wardrobe is pathetic at best, my house is in a state of disarray, so when I say makeover I don't just mean a lick of makeup and a new haircut(although I certainly need one of those since I haven't had since last year when I got a horribly bad cut.) I'm talking about making many small tweaks to my whole life to make it more. More organized, more easy, more polished, more effortless and over all more enjoyable.

So I figured I'd start with some goals.

Lose 10lbs(or more) by June(my birthday!)
Organize bedroom closet.
Get art work up on the walls.
Get hair cut
Make more meals and freeze some.
Finish decorating C's room
Plan Jonathans 4oth bday party
Read more
Make bed every day.
Make every room inviting.
Have summer bbq party
Cut more flowers from garden for arrangements
Stretch more
Buy new clothes that aren't throw away.
Become the me that I believe I am in my head.
Do more art.
Go to bed with clean kitchen.
Grow more in garden.

I'm sure I'll add to this as I think of new goals. So there it is internets hold me to it!

Birth story part 2.

2011-01-17T08:54:00.000-05:00

This has been sitting in my drafts forever.....

I made sure that it was understood that I didn't want anyone other than Jonathan at the hospital with me. He would contact my sister with updates. We arrived in our room and I changed into a hospital gown and propped myself up with my pillows as they strapped more monitors on me. Jonathan brought me some juice and I downed it so he brought me more I suddenly couldn't get enought juice. I might have also ate a protein bar but all I remember is the cups of juice.

I don't know how long I laid there before I asked for something for the pain, truthfully up until then the pain had been fairly easy to work through by walking and rocking, but being forced to lay on my my back made everything incredibly uncomfortable. At some point before the epidural I was checked. As my midwife finished the check and left the room I felt a little gush. Around then the number on the fetal heart rate monitor started to plummet. I watched it slide down to 40, I instictively started moving around. I know it was only seconds before my midwives came back in but it felt like hours. Suddenly there seemed to be 30 people in my room, someone put an oxygen mask on me. The OB said something about my water breaking and meconium. All during my pregnancy I had thought about meconium, I had this feeling that there would be meconium. Any time I envisioned her birth it would pop into my head. They inserted an internal monitor.

There seemed to be a lot of people down in my business. Any modesty I had was thrown out the door. I wasn't even embarrassed in the slightest. I got my epidural which was completely painless and administered by a woman who I swear was in her early
20's.

Once the epidural took I was blissfully happy. Actually happy isn't really the word, truthfully I was high. I was high and babbling on about milkshakes and how much I loved everyone. Jonathan said that it was pretty funny watching me go from focused to completely rambling in a matter of minutes.

They decided to give me a round of oxytocin. I was all "lets do it!" all my natural birth plans joined my modesty and left the room. I wanted to meet my baby and if some oxytocin helped me birth vaginally then I wanted it. I ate ice chips like they were going out of style and I watched the monitor tell me about my contractions which were becoming even finally! The first round of oxytocin ended and my midwives came in with the OB.

The baby was under stress still. The oxytocin had dilated me to 5cm but they couldn't give me anymore oxytocin. We could continue to try to do it on our own or opt for a c-section. Everyone felt that after 3 days with little progress and the baby's refusal to come down lower than -3 station, the meconium, the dips in heart rate that I could continue but still end up at the same place. Jonathan asked the OB if we continued if the baby would be in danger. The OB was awesome and said that there was a chance that she could be but that in a lot of these cases the baby is just fine but there is always a chance. We took a minute to talk it over.

Jonathan just looked at me and said "There is no debate here, get the c-section, you've been doing this for too long." I agreed. Then I burst into tears. This was the opposite of everything I had wanted and exactly what I wanted to avoid. My midwives told me that I had done amazing and that sometimes babies have different plans. I felt betrayed by my body and foolish for planning a home birth. I felt like I was mourning and in a way I guess I was.

My midwives would come with me in the OR.

I was wheeled into the OR and they had the radio on, I joked that it was just like the t.v shows.

They turned the epidural up to 11 and when I couldn't feel ice in a glove just below my boobs they let Jon come into the room. He was wearing a yellow smock and no shirt so he could do skin on skin. It made me laugh because he doesn't even wear shorts in the summer.

I couldn't feel pain but at one point I could feel them pressing down and then shaking my torso, at least that is what it felt like. The OB said something about the cord and her leg but we didn't quite catch it.

At 7:53pm she was out and we waited for what seemed like forever before we heard what sounded like a kitten mewing.

Jon heard someone say "her" and we both started crying. We had a daughter.

I'm not sure when but I started shaking uncontrollably, apparently it's a common side effect but I felt like I was having a seizure. They put warm blankets on my arms while they put me back together.

Then I saw her. It pained me that I couldn't hold her, she was screaming and I just wanted to hold her and make it better. They took her to the special care nursery, Jon followed her.

We found out later that she was covered in thick meconium and her cord was short and wrapped twice around her leg so every time she tried to move down she cut off her oxygen. She was so stuck in there that they needed to vacuum her out. She has a bump on her head from the suction.

3 months

2011-01-08T23:25:00.003-05:00

It's hard to believe that around this time last year she was a clump of cells dividing. That seems like a million years ago! Now I have a three month old who loves to examine her books and slaps the page when she wants the page turned! She flashes us huge smiles all day long as she tells us stories. She loves to meet knew people and socialising and in general is really laid back and happy! She doesn't like it when we do something too many times, she just cannot be fooled into thinking we are reading a new book about baby animals and starts grunting and looking around.
She's pretty amazing and I can't imagine life without her.

Please ignore my pj's, theres a reason my head is cut off!

She loves the Bumbo, we put it on a towel and pull/push her around the house. She seems to think it is amazing and we think it's pretty funny! We call it space car.

When she's smiling like this we say she's showing us her half moons because her eyes and mouth look like little half moons.

I resolve to not resolve.

2011-01-06T13:20:00.003-05:00

So it's 2011 which means everyone and their dog is making resolutions. My own dog told me that she is resolving to have more naps and eat more cookies. Which sounds good to me!

I personally have never been big on the whole resolution thing. Sure I want to better my life, it would be ridiculous to say otherwise, I need to lose like 30lbs which is the exact same 30lbs I have been saying I need to lose for ages. I think this is the year I will do it though because I will be home and being home means less food court temptation, that alone will probably allow me to drop a few. Plus I have to start setting healthy eating habit examples for my daughter. My own mother didn't and both my sister and I suffered when we were finally on our own. It took my a long time to make friends with food although during the holidays food and I party likes it's 1999. Although not truly or else I would be melting Cheese Whiz over a bag of nachos and watching Days of Our Lives.

I want to get out more with C. Now that she's 3 months old she is easier to bring out, only because she seems less breakable really. I know I can bundle her up and bring her out and not harm her in the process. I seem to be finding my mommy footing although I still worry, which I think will probably continue for the rest of her life. In fact in 16 years I will wish my worries were of bundling her up and bringing her out.

I also resolve to get my hair cut and not be talked into something I don't want. I might even actually style it sometime this year. Maybe.

The coffee shop

2011-01-05T12:32:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I threw C in her carrier and set out to meet an old friend at a coffee shop. It was the first time I ventured out between feedings, usually I time all our adventures from feeding to feeding this buys me anywhere from 3-5 hours depending on the day. I admit to pushing the time if she's sleeping which she does a lot of while in her stroller or carrier, sometimes this means that I have a very hungry daughter when we arrive home and she wakes up.

She started her attempt at getting both fists in her mouth not long after my scone and latte arrived. These days it's not a sign of hunger until she starts making this obscene slurping noise. Suddenly she's a drooly baby who wants to gnaw on her hands, blanket, bib etc.

Of course in my hurry to get out the door I had forgotten my breastfeeding cover and the coffee shop seemed to have only men in it. It's funny because I had just been talking about public feedings the other day and I'm all for them, feed anywhere I say. But the combo of men folk and stupid top that I wore(in retrospect I could have pulled it up instead of the top down. duh.) made me feel timid. Plus we were sitting right by the door so it wasn't even a quiet corner.

My friend lent me her sweater and I threw that over my shoulder and C fed. It wasn't a big deal and just like that I became a public feeder. Now I need to get some proper breastfeeding tops so I don't have to get half naked in public as I think the cover draws more attention to me than a feeding baby. I'm not sure I'm quiet ready for the middle of a crowded mall feeding but a quiet coffee shop or something on par with that is comfortable enough even when full of men.

Then she had a diaper blow out. So I changed her outfit(we always travel with extra due to the puke factor) and as we left the washroom she puked all down the side of me and some of it landed on the coffee shop floor. Most of it though was caught in the crook of my arm.

When it was time to go I put her back in the carrier(the Ergo, I prefer the Moby but the Ergo allows her to wear a warmer bunting bag type outfit.) and this one woman kept smiling at us. I totally was like "yeah my baby is adorable and making you want one." of course when we got out of the shop I looked down and realised that my top was pulled to the side exposing my bra.

Awesome day out!

What I got for Christmas.

2010-12-29T13:26:00.002-05:00

For Christmas baby C slept for 8 hours straigh, woke up ate for an hour and had another 2 hour nap. I think part of the reason for this epic sleep was the over stimulation of Christmas. The other reason is she slept on top of me for the whole time. She normally sleeps in a co-sleeper straddled next to me on the bed, like a sidecar. When she wakes up in the early morning(anywhere from 4-6am) I then take her back into bed with me and she snoozes for another few hours on my chest. And on Christmas night when she fell asleep on me while we were watching a movie I didn't move her we finished watching the movie and went to bed and I just kept her on my chest because she had been napping for so long that I figured she would wake up shortly anyhow. Except she didn't.
Jonathan was a bit freaked out with letting her sleep on my chest, what if I rolled over? What if she rolled over? Well I don't move when I sleep and if I do I actually wake up to move. I've never fallen asleep and woke up in a different position without knowing that I woke up in the middle of the night to move. If she were to roll off me she would land on the bed on one side or be plonked into her co-sleeper which is about an inch lower than the mattress.

I knew from the begining that we would co-sleep. We would let her make her own schedule and routine and figure out what she needed and wanted. It works for us. For a while she was going to sleep at 2am and cat napping during the day, usually in my arms or on top of me if I was napping too. Sometimes she would have a nap in her crib, sometimes in her cosleeper. She can sleep anywhere with anyone. I'm so happy that she got the gene from me that allows her to be able to sleep anywhere. I'm not even joking when I say that I can sleep anywhere with any amount of noise. I have slept at rock concerts. No joke.

Crazy little thing called love

2010-12-14T12:35:00.002-05:00

People warn you about it. This overwhelming rush of love you feel when you meet your baby, a cocktail of hormones that rush out to your brain to make sure that you take care of this helpless new human. It's now hard to imagine that this time last year C was only a thought and now here she is snoozing in her Moby a tiny hand holding the collar of my shirt the other tucked into my arm pit. I rest my cheek on her impossibly soft cheek and inhale her baby feather hair. She smells like the organic baby body wash we use, that newborn scent sadly gone.
She smiles now. Big gummy smiles. Her eyes turn into little half moons as she coos and squeals at us, sounds that are almost laughs. She really noticed the dog yesterday and couldn't contain her glee. There was leg kicking and smiles so big she had to close her eyes. The dog could care less, she sniffs C sometimes and becomes concerned if she is crying but otherwise isn't bothered. Sometimes C rests her feet on the dog while she nurses, her tiny toes doing a little massage into the dogs fur.
I admit that sometimes I wish that my life was the way it was before. That I could have a shower whenever I felt like it, sleep in on weekends, get housework done all in one go or leave the house without it being a broadway production. I know that I'll get there again(ok maybe not the sleep part.) and the feeling is only made worse by the weather keeping us housebound. I wouldn't trade her for any of these things. Not even the sleep.
Everyone warns you about the instant love but feeling it is like no other. You are dazed and confused and trying to keep this tiny person alive and wondering if you are doing it right and worrying. Oh the worry. The insane "is she breathing/cold/hot/hungry/wet/sick?" worry that makes you rest your hand on her chest while she sleeps. We stare at her in amazement. We made her we say to each other like we are the first two people to procreate. I think about all the minuscule things that had to happen at just the right moment to result in her. A change in any of those resulting in someone else. We made her and she's perfect.

She wasn't here this time last year but it feels like she's always been a part of me.
I can't believe how much I love her.

I hate Mondays

2010-12-13T20:57:00.003-05:00

For some reason Mondays always seem a bit harder. Maybe it's the shock of not having her daddy around or maybe it's just that she knows Mondays suck but man oh man she puts me through my paces.

Today was the day of diaper change mishaps. That moment between getting the dirty diaper off and the clean diaper on is short but apparently long enough for her butt to unleash a fountain of poop. Luckily I heard it before it started and was able to grab her legs up so that the poop only hit the change mat and not her. I used my other hand to fold the change pad to contain the liquid. The whole time she looked up at me smiling and cooing.

The second time she was kicking her legs really fast which she likes to do when I take her diaper off, a sort of freedom dance I suppose. Suddenly she's peeing it's shooting up in an arch completely soaking the mat, her onsie and the recieving blanket close to her. I threw down a cloth diaper to soak up the mess and stripped her down and gave her a quick dunk in the bath.

Since she had just woke up from a warm nap in the moby she was hungry and suddenly cold. This was not cool and as I tried to get a diaper on her her face twisted into melt down mode. I quickly dressed her, took off my own wet shirt and plonked down to feed her.

Then there wasa knock at the door. Luckily for me thr bitter cold fogged up my front door window so the delivery man didn't catch a glimpse of me walking into the nursery with a baby latched on and I doubt he noticed that my shirt was soaking wet. Phew.

2am

2010-12-11T01:50:00.004-05:00

its almost 2am. im nursing a semi awake infant who is giving these little sighs. we havent gone to bed yet. i feel like iam covered in thin layer of sweat and vomit and most likely i am. i might also have alayer of pee on me from earlier today when i was carrying her in the moby wrap, i felt damp after coming in from outside and even after changing both of us remain unsure about the damp. i am pretty sure i smell like a port o potty. also my feet are insanely dry. they have been since her birth. my theory is that because they ballooned up so much that when they shrunk back to normal my feet freaked out and decided to take on the texture of coarse grit sand paper as a defence mechanisim, like a porcupine. i'd get a pedicure buti'm too embarrassed to, i know the ladies would be talking in korean about how i better tip good because of my gross feet. i always over tip because ladies be scraping death off my heels and they deserve it.

i'm suppose to be thinking of what i want for christmas and i really want moisturiser. it seems so lack lustre to ask for but its's what i need my skin is so dry and i ran out of my last bottle months ago and then i had C and sleep trumps dewy skin. except now it's winter and i can feel my skin being sucked dry.

today i bought my first two gifts. online. this is me starting early. i'm a last minute shopper but i figured i would get a head start since everything else will involve leaving the house with a baby in the winter. this makes me feel anxious because what if she freezes or is too warm and sweats which is equally bad.

i think she is asleep.
shhhhhh

Things I thought

2010-12-06T21:39:00.003-05:00

In a moment of pre-baby madness we decided that we would host the annual holiday party.

Insane right?

I admit that I want some sort of normalcy back in my life. I want to talk to other adults about anything other than the colour of poop. For some reason hosting a party made Jonathan decide that the kitchen needed an update. It was the only room left that still was decorated by the old owner. So he tore down the 80's wallpaper, we picked out a colour(a pale yellow), baby and I went away for two weekends. Except the yellow highlighted the fact that the 80's cupboards were disturbingly beige. So now he's painting the cupboards. My tiny house is in an extreme degree of disarray and every surface is covered in dust and dog fur.

I'm a bit OMGWHATHAVEIDONE???

I had delusions of Martha Stewart grandeur when I sent out the invites. A house that smelled like gingerbread, everything glowing in candle light and beautifully decorated. Now I'm wondering if I can wear nice pj's instead of real clothes.

The lbs

2010-12-04T20:08:00.004-05:00

I am 4lbs away from what I weighed right when I got pregnant. I gained about 40lbs. This put me just about 200lbs. Somehow in the 3.5 months between getting married and pregnant I actually gained around 10lbs(I'll blame newly wed bliss and the holiday season.) at the rate I'm going I'll be at that weight by Christmas. And then winter will fully set in and I'll be house bound. With snacks.

Canada gets cold. It's really the one thing I could do without. Well actually I could handle winter if I had a fireplace, a pile of wool blankets, thermal pjs, sheepskin lined slippers and an unlimted supply of hot chocolate, red wine and And I never had to leave the house. In the summer when anyone asks "Is it hot enough for you?" I honestly can answer "No" sure it gets sweaty and gross but I will gladly take the hottest day of the summer for any day below zero.

Multi-tasker

2010-12-02T20:48:00.003-05:00

Right now: I'm eating ice cream, patting C on the back as she lies across my pj clad lap, typing with one hand, with one boob hanging out, singing a made up song to the tune of "Don't cry for me Argentina"

This is the new multi-tasking.

Easy like a Sunday morning

2010-11-24T14:17:00.003-05:00

I'm alive! Typing with one hand but alive. We are 6 weeks in and I have to admit we have it pretty easy. She sleeps each night for 3.5-5 hours wakes up for an hour and then sleeps for another 3-4 hours. She rarely cries, she prefers to growl or grunt. Breastfeeding her has been easy, after the first week I had no need for nipple cream, it has never hurt and she gains about an ounze a day. I love watching her go into a milk coma, eyes half closed and glazed over. Sometimes she puts one of her tiny hands on my breast and gently pats it or if the flow is getting slow she pulls back gives it an angry look and slaps it, sometimes she just stops and smiles.

Talking to other moms makes me realise how giid and easy she is.

Most of the time.

For one she's a puker. Not enough to be considered reflux but enough that I have to change her outfit several times a day. I have tried everything the internet has to offer and still the laundry piles up. Sometimes she pukes on an outfit before I'm done snapping her in.

I admit that the first puke free day I'm going to have a party.

She also hates being put down, she can handle a few minutes in her bouncy seat but that is it. I don't mind though because snuggling her is awesome BUT I would like to get things done around the house. I could do stuff when she naps IF she napped. The trade off for all that night time sleep is that she only cat naps during the day. I'll take night time sleep over a messy house.

Part of the puking problem is she gets excited and gulps air and burping rarely produces a burp and if it does it's usually followed by puke.

But I'm lucky. So, so lucky. And I'm in love, so, so in love. Even if I am covered in puke.

Birth story part one.

2010-11-05T16:26:00.006-04:00

I have no clue where the last month went...I had a baby and suddenly time went haywire and suddenly it's a month later. This time last month I was on my second day of labour. I want to write down her birth story before it becomes hazy.

On Thursday October 7th the midwife student did my second stretch of the week at around 3:00pm. I felt crampy almost right away, nothing crazy though. By 8:30pm they were ramping up in intensity and frequency I was fidgety and needed to walk around, laying down wasn't going to happen, I could sit but every now and then I had to get up and walk around. I called the midwife but since I could talk through a contraction she decided that I was not in active labour. By 4am I woke up Jonathan so he could set up the pool. I was certain that I would have a baby sometime the next day and I wanted to relax. The pool was filled half way and I got in and it was glorious, Jonathan lit some candles and I floated in the water until morning.

I got out of the pool and around 8am decided to call the midwife. This time she came over and they checked me I was 2cm and 60-70 thinned. They told me to call again when the pattern and intensity of the contractions got more intense and to get some rest they advised me to take a tylenol and some gravol. I could still feel the contractions while dozing and I could hear myself ohhing during them. It was surreal. By 10pm that night they were coming more frequently, an online app said they were 2-3 minutes apart and a minute to two minutes long. They came over and there was no change in dilation but I was pretty much 80-90% thinned. The midwives that said once I was 100% thinned things usually started moving along.

Saturday was more of the same. I attempted to eat and drink, I had hot showers, I paced the house rocking and swaying and leaning. Around 9pm the midwives came back and did another check. I was 100% thinned but still only 3cm and they decided to stay around for an hour and monitor me. After an hour or so they wanted us to go to the clinic for a non stress test. We went and it was hell laying on my back. H-E-L-L. Everything was more intense on my back. The test went well and we went home and waited for things to ramp up. Sometime during Saturday the midwives wanted me to go for a bio-physical test. Of course it was Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend so no clinics were open, but they managed to get me an 8am appointment on Sunday for one at the hospital they worked with.

It must have been Sunday morning when the midwives brought up the option of going to the hospital for induction. I think it must have been before we went for the bio-physical test that they called. We went for the test and got a perfect score. As of 8am Sunday morning she was doing just fine. We arrived back home and the midwives wanted me to go back to the clinic for another non stress test at noonish. By this point I'd 3 days of contractions coming anywhere from 2-3 minutes apart to 5-6 minutes apart and lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. No pattern what so ever and ranging in intensity from "meh" to "whoa" by Sunday not only did it feel like someone was prying my hips apart but there was a burning low in my pelvis that I descibed as feeling like the worst bladder infection ever, my midwife tells me this is my cervix opening. I'd had 3 days with little sleep and even less food. I was trying to eat, Jonathan was bringing me food and water and anything I wanted. In the 3 days I laboured at home I ate half a protein bar, one and half peaches, a bowl of raisin bran and a slice of toast with almond butter. I drank some water and some coconut water.

Needless to say I was exhausted. I was also convinced that I had to be close, all this work had to be doing something.

I talked to the midwives about going to the hospital. I needed to still be under their care. I felt that if I had to be at the hospital then I had to have them with me, they had been there for 3 days with me and doing the last leg without them didn't feel right. I had called my sister and asked her to come watch the dog and cat, she suggested calling my dad who actually works near me so he could drive us to the clinic while my sister and mom travelled. We went to the clinic and I was given my first dose of antibiotics since I was GBS positive. This was not fun as I have tiny valvey veins in my hands which makes getting a needle in my hand really hard and very painful, they tried both hands numerous times and once it was in I had to keep my hand at a certain angle or the IV flow would stop. They monitored me for an hour. From what I understand there are suppose to be certain accelerations and dips when being monitored. I wasn't getting any accels and the dips were tiny and in the wrong spot. The midwives wanted us to go to the hospital to be monitored there. This meant that I stayed in their care but also meant that I was going to have the baby in the hospital. We left the clinic at 1:45 and went home to pack up to get to the hospital for 3:30.

To be continued....

Baby C

2010-10-27T14:43:00.002-04:00

17 days ago my daughter was born. It's a bit surreal to think that I have a daughter, honestly it might have only hit me last night. This baby who has been depriving us of sleep, who seems to be attached to my breast all.the.time, who has a head that feels like peach fuzz, who has vomitted all over me almost daily isn't JUST a baby, she's my daughter and I'm her mother.
This is her world and we just live in it.

Day 10

2010-10-21T01:00:00.004-04:00

Having a newborn in the house is a lot like taking care of a really drunk person.

The bodily fluids, the late nights, the lack of sleep, it's like a crazy out of control party. Except I'm in my pajamas and those pajamas are covered in stains and I smell.

Even though the actual birth of my daughter was difficult(I'm still processing it.) the feeding of her has been the easiest thing ever. She is the breastfeeding champ. She latched herself on minutes after we met and with some minimal direction she has latched on perfectly.

She was 8.1lbs when she was born, she went down to 7.11lbs by the 14th. Then on the 17th she weighed.....8.8lbs. That is 13oz in 3 days. Whoa baby. She is probably more than that now, although the whole "what goes in, must come out" saying is totally true. Nothing like changing a diaper, sitting down and hearing a baby butt trumpet. Sigh.

I already am noticing the changes. She suddenly is a bit rounder, her frog legs are less froggy.

We are obviously still adjusting to our new life. The other day Jonathan put cat food in the coffee grinder(he caught himself before grinding and making it.) and I have called the baby by the dog's name a few times.

best laid plans

2010-10-13T20:35:00.002-04:00

quick update:

3 days of labor at home.
some tests failed
meconium
c-section
baby had short cord wrapped around leg twice
shes perfect
im sore
shell shocked
tired
amazed
and happy

mmmmmmm

2010-10-08T13:24:00.001-04:00

iam in labor. have been since last night, midwife checked this morning 3cm. typing with one hand sucks.

Day 5 in the baby stand off.

2010-10-07T10:14:00.003-04:00

Today I go for another stretch and sweep. Yeah! I have it in my head my midwife is going to tell me that I'm magically a stretchy 4cm dilated and 60% thinned. I don't know why. I was looking at a measuring tape to visually see how big 2cm was, which means I also glanced at 10cm(hint don't do this at 40+ weeks.)

Ok this is waay too much info but I just lost my mucus plug, like right now. I had to pee and when I wiped BAM there was a bit, another go and well...gross. For some reason I thought it would be more plug like and less mucus like. Honestly if I wasn't pregnant and something like that came out ANY orifice I would rush to the ER.

I had a nice chat with Jonathan's mom the other night. She let me know that they weren't planning on rushing right up after we called them, she knew that we'd need a few days to settle in and having a house full of people was the worst after giving birth. I could tell she felt slightly bad telling me but I thanked her repeatedly for being so awesome. I already know that my parents will be breaking the speed limit and at our front door shortly after we hang up the phone even if we told them not to come up for 24 hours. My mother has very selective hearing.

Day 4.

2010-10-06T12:57:00.002-04:00

I remember a time when I could write something that didn't involve being pregnant. Sure it was a long, long time ago but I did! I swear!

Now that I'm past my due date it's all anyone seems to be able to talk about. Every email from friends, every time the phone rings, it is someone wanting to know my status.

The stretch and sweep wasn't horrid. I used my hypnobabies tools and it was no worse than a pap. She stretched me to 2cm and said my cervix was soft and 30% thinned. I had lots of cramps that were more intense and frequent but they seem to have petered out as of this morning. Dang.

So I'm back to guzzling red raspberry leaf tea taking some homeopathics and going for walks.

Stetch and sweep

2010-10-05T11:22:00.002-04:00

Today I am going to have my membranes stripped. My midwife called it a stretch and sweep which sounds more like I'm doing some yoga while cleaning. Even though I'm only 3 days over due and the stretch and sweep isn't really in line with my whole natural childbirth thing I figured getting some help would be alright.

It will also be the first time that my midwife sees my business. That is one of the awesome things about having a midwife, no internals. Several of my friends have said that this is a big reason that next time they would want to go with a midwife!

Two days.

2010-10-04T10:44:00.002-04:00

I need to NOT go into labour today. This statement probably ups the chances of going into labour by like 47% or something but I really, really need to wait until at least 6pm tonight.

I have to get my family doctor to fill out this insurance form. The HR peeps at my work are based in the US and just emailed me the forms and told me I filled them all out, nope, I fill out one page. The rest have to be filled out by my doctor, manager AND HR. gah.

I thought about going to a walk in clinic and getting it filled out but I didn't want the insurance company to come back and say that wasn't good enough. I'd much rather make the trek to his office before I have a newborn infant than after. Even if I do go into labour today I still think it would be much easier to go today! He has a new office which is slightly further than his old office BUT it is not across from a bagel place that is suppose to have Montreal style bagels.
Fingers crossed.

Due day

2010-10-02T11:01:00.003-04:00

Well it's October 2nd!

And I'm still currently pregnant! As far as I can tell there are no signs of me being one of those rare women that have their baby on their actual due date. But what do I know? I've never had a baby before! Maybe it will be one of those crazy births you hear about where the water breaks and an hour later there is a baby! Although that sounds a wee bit intense.

I'd like enough time to set up the birth tub seeing as I paid for the rental of it! I guess if I didn't get to use it I could fill it up after and just hang out it in. Pool party!

Jonathan is spending the day making beer. Which means if I do give birth today the first thing the baby will smell is brewery. Although it might be part of Jonathan's evil plan to raise a beer connoisseur I'm not sure.

I still have two things left on my list. I finally got the My Brest Friend earlier this week leaving only the pail for the cloth diapers and a fish net for the birth tub. I also need to find my thermometer and figure out what type of batteries it uses, probably the kind that cost just as much as a new thermometer.

Footballs!

2010-10-01T11:56:00.003-04:00

We used to live in another part of the city, which when we first moved there wasn't really "happening" but we really liked it. We lived near a ravine with a long trail to walk our dog, it was close to a huge grocery store and the subway. We started really discovering the area in the last two years we lived there and fell in love. Then we decided to move and were priced out of area.

We bought during the peak of the housing market in Canada, it was frustrating as we were out bid on several houses, one house went 50 grand over asking. There were lots of frustrations.

We finally bought a house but where we currently live has not yet become hip. Even though there are tons of young families in the area and store front rental is cheap very few new places have opened in the last 3 years. Just in the past year have several places opened that have given us glimmers of hope. So fingers crossed.

But this post isn't suppose to be about houses. No it is about cravings.

Fooled you didn't I?

One of our discoveries in our old hood was a place we walked by a bunch of times but never went in because it didn't "look" like a place we'd like. Then one day Jonathan brought home these eggplant parmesan sandwiches that we dubbed "footballs" due to their size. One bite and we were in love and they became a weekly treat. We have tried other eggplant sandwiches and none have come close.

The last two weeks all I have wanted for dinner was a football. I tried to figure out how to get up to the old hood but it just wasn't in the cards. Then Jonathan had an appointment up there last night, which was my dinner with friends and I was sad that there was a way to get a football but I wasn't going to be able to get one.

Then I came home stuffed full of Greek food and there in the fridge was a gift from my wonderful husband. A football of my very own AND a box of sweets from the bakery we used to go all the time.

Hooray!

T-minus 2

2010-09-30T16:42:00.003-04:00

I don't feel two days away from my due date.

But I am.

I know that a small percentage of woman give birth on their due date and first babies tend to go past that date so I'm not holding my breath.

The standard for going past due here is ten days with an OB and 14 if your health care provider is a midwife before being induced. Ideally I would want to have this babe before the ten days past mark, although having the birthday of 10/10/10 would be pretty awesome. Just saying!

Wednesday...

2010-09-29T15:53:00.002-04:00

I had my assessment today with a psychiatrist that specialises in post partum depression. A local hospital has a department that deals just with that and it was important to me to set up a support system before I gave birth. Just in case.

I have never actually seen a psychiatrist. I have battled depression on and off since I was 13, I got help for it finally in my 20's. Today I was diagnosed as being type two bi-polar. I have had several of what I now understand were hypomanic episodes. Hence the bi-polar diagnosis.

What does this mean? It means I am what is considered high risk for developing post partum depression or becoming hypomanic.

So what did the doc say? Well for starters I have to get at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep when the baby arrives. This will probably be the hardest thing because I hear babies don't tend to sleep for 5 hours at at time and since I plan to breastfeed it will be pretty close to impossible. I'm going to see how it is though, how much sleep I do get in one stretch. On top of that I am to sleep whenever the baby sleeps and basically that's it. She stressed that cleaning, cooking and anything that is not taking care of the baby or myself is off limits.

I was tempted to get her to put that into writing so I could photocopy it a zillion times and post it on my front door.

Still Monday...

2010-09-27T13:30:00.002-04:00

Today brought the arrival of my Moby wrap! One of my bff's bought it for me and today it arrived via the mail man! Yeah!

Also I'm still in my pjs right now. Last week I feel like I did so much running around that today I just needed to relax. I did have grand ideas of maybe making some oatmeal cookies with dark chocolate chips and dried cherries or something of that sort. But instead I've watched Hoarders and lounged on my sofa stroking my dogs ear.

Although looks like that is all going to change! While I was writing this my midwife called and changed my appointment tomorrow to 8:30am from 6pm AND then I got another call for an appointment at 10am on Wednesday. So much for staying in my pj's this week!

It's Monday!

2010-09-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

Very early in my pregnancy I had a bit of a breakdown. It hit me so hard that this baby would change the dynamic of us and that I liked it as just us doing our thing and what if a baby ruined that? It was a good few days of not being able to think straight and bawling my eyes out. Then I snapped out of it(or probably more correctly hormones snapped into overdrive.) and I have been blissfully happy since. Then last night I started crying again. Jonathan and I were watching a movie and afterwards I said something like "It's weird to think that shortly there will be another person in our house." and the tears started.
Things will change, it is a fact that can't be. I came to the conclusion that being sad that this bit of our lives is coming to an end and the next part is beginning is perfectly normal. No one probably talks about it because who wants to sound that selfish? We are all told that babies are amazing and awesome and life changing in so many different ways but no one ever says it's ok to feel sad that it won't be just the two of you anymore.
It's not even a feeling of depression or resentment, just sadness that a really good chapter is coming to an end and even though I know the next chapter is going to be awesome coming up to that last page is a really big deal.

Week 39

2010-09-25T23:23:00.003-04:00

I've been having some mild cramps, nothing with any sort of pattern or intensity. I told the baby to hang out in there for a few more days because I have a lady's dinner on Thursday and I also still need to do a few things. I'm looking forward to the lady dinner because it is at a Greek restaurant and even though I live on the edge of the city's Greek Town I have never actually ate a Greek restaurant. I know that they have flaming cheese and well...FLAMING CHEESE! So obviously that is what I'm getting followed by a hunk of feta in something and baklava for dessert. Mmmmmm.

Other than the mild cramps there are no other signs of baby, other than the obvious giant bump.

I still need to pick up some things like a fish net for the water birth. Yes, this is probably exactly what you think it's for. I'm really hoping that I don't poop in the pool but also realise that well I could very well poop in the pool, these things apparently don't matter at all when a baby is about to be born.

I still need some breastfeeding supplies. I've got the two main ones attached to me and a small stockpile of breast pads and some samples of nipple creams but I don't have any breastfeeding tops or bras which I might need. I really want My Brest Friend as well..I'll take that over bras.

I know it sounds totally silly but I also really want some super nice pj's. The kind that I don't mind people seeing me in. Because getting dressed in actual clothing rarely appeals to me on days I don't go to work and I can only imagine that it will appeal even less after the baby.

I also want a few other silly things. Things that are purely wanted based on vanity. I would like to get this thing called Shrinx Hips, which apparently works with the relaxin in your body to smoosh your hips back into place. And The Belly Bandit or something similar which does the same thing as the Shrinx Hips except for to your belly. Apparently North America is one of the only places that doesn't really practice post partum binding of the tummy. I know some woman just used Ace Bandages so I might go that route because spending $$$ for these things makes me a little ashamed.

Nursery furniture is here!

2010-09-24T08:41:00.002-04:00

My in laws came yesterday with the rest of the nursery furniture. They thrifted a beautiful vintage dresser that is just our style that will double as the change table AND a solid wood rocking chair they stripped, sanded, and repainted them white. They also brought us a new dresser for our bedroom, this one a curb side find, it was suppose to be the change table but was too small so we are replacing our bedroom dresser that is probably the ugliest dresser ever known to mankind.

You would think that living in a major city thrifting great things would be a cinch but it's not. The cool retro stores have pickers whose job it is to score the great finds so they can resell them. Lame.
My in laws live in a smaller city and they literally FIND beautiful vintage dressers just hanging out on the curb!

The nursery is almost complete it just needs little finishing touches. Like a little table beside the rocking chair, a diaper pail, curtains(there are blinds), art, hooks, laundry bin and probably a few other things that I can't remember.

I am so lucky that I am not a type A personality. I'm so laid back that I'm just about lying on the ground.

What day is it? Where am I? How did I get here?

2010-09-22T19:24:00.002-04:00

Today I did something I rarely do. I went to Walmart. Not just any Walmart but one of those giant super ones. I have no clue how long I was in there(an hour? 5 hours?) as after a while of pushing a cart with a wheel that made it impossible to turn my brain shut down and my eyes glazed over. When I finally got to the check out line I put but 3 things that I must have put in my cart but don't really recall doing so. Walmart can suck it though because they didn't have about half the things I went there for stocked. Apparently newborns aren't suppose to wear clothes because everything in that store was 3-6 months and up. I did manage to find some infant hats, the only pack of two in yellow left, which I only found because it was lying under some wash clothes. They didn't even have neutral receiving blankets. I was all WTF? There was a woman and her husband grabbing every Winnie the Pooh item on the shelves, she was grabbing things and putting them in his already overloaded arms as he kept asking if they really needed it. She was snippy with him and kept on going. They left the aisle with baby stuff falling out of their arms. I felt like the world was ending outside and no one told me.

I finally checked out and needed a drink so I sat in the attached McDonalds and drank about a gallon of iced tea while listening to the two women behind me talk. They had both been married to the same guy who was also married to two of their other friends AND some other women as well. The one woman had gone to court with another woman regarding this man. It was amazing and bizarre.

Every single one of my Walmart visits is exactly like this. Strange and draining. I somehow thought it wouldn't be as much so during the week but it turns out that the doors of Walmart are always the doors to an alternate universe that I have no business being in.

Still pregnant.

2010-09-22T10:54:00.003-04:00

My house is super clean right now. I wish I could say that it was due to that mysterious burst of energy that women get right before birth but alas it was not. Instead it took me 3 days of slowly puttering around and about one hour of madness to clean before my midwife came for the home visit. Nothing like having a new person in your house to make you clean like your life depended on it. I even bought a new Lampe Berger scent for the occasion because heaven forbid that my midwife thought my house didn't smell like lemon flowers on all of the time.

The best part was that my dog behaved so well. She's 11 and well...she LOVES people. There are certain friends of ours that are her BFF, they come over and she wants to sing them a song, bring them a toy, sit on their laps, basically she acts like a nut case until she realises they are going to stay a while and then she settles down. So it's always a bit of a gamble when new people come over. My midwife recognized right away that my dog smiles. Some people don't and it freaks them out even after I explain what she is doing. She was so well behaved though that she got TWO treats after the midwife left.

Being on mat leave so far has been boring. I went out and bought some protein bars and cloth diapers on Monday and today I'm going to get the last few remaining items that need picking up. Now that the house is clean I haven't got much to do other than wait. At this point I don't feel like I'm about to have a baby at any moment. I've had some mild cramping here and there but nothing that would suggest that a baby is coming. I still don't have that "I just want to have the baby already" feeling. I keep waiting for it but it hasn't happened.

One year ago today.

2010-09-19T11:30:00.002-04:00

This time last year I was still getting my hair done. In a few short hours from now we will have been married for one whole year. We eloped in Montreal shortly after our 10 year anniversary.

It was perfect.

38 and feeling great.

2010-09-18T13:01:00.003-04:00

THIRTY FREAKING EIGHT!

Remember how I said I wanted everything finished 4 weeks before the due date? Let's pretend I really said by my due date because uh...yeah...still not finished.

Today though was productive and it's only half over! Today I picked up the birth pool. It is now sitting in my hall in a big bin. It has awesome warnings like "Do not dive into pool." and "Do not use electrical appliances in pool." guess I'll have to rewrite my whole birth plan.

Then my sister and I drove to the fancy pants baby store and picked up my stroller. I did indeed get the Phil & Ted Smart. I got the bundle which comes with the bassinet, which is adorably called "The Peanut" I also managed to get a free seat padding thing, it wasn't suppose to come with the bundle but no one seemed to know that so I didn't say anything. It was suppose to be 30 bones so huzzah! I also got the car seat adaptor and a cup holder. Then I got some cloth prefolds so now the baby officially has it's butt covered. The other day I did buy two covers online that super cute and on sale. I am such a sucker for a sale. I did some research and people rated them pretty high so I figured might as well.

This week in midwife appointment news...well I failed the GBS test. I got me some Group B Strep hanging out in my private areas. 10-30% of women are positive and all it means for me is that when I reach active labour I get a hep lock put in my hand and an IV bag of antibiotics administered every 4 hours. My iron is higher at 109 from 106 but still a bit short of the 113 they want to see me at. So now I'm taking a dose of Floravit on top of Palafer and the bit of iron in my pre-natal. I am surprised the magnets aren't coming off the fridge for me.

Hyper taster.

2010-09-16T13:02:00.005-04:00

I am going to miss my heightened sense of taste and smell.

It just isn't fair that soon I'll be able to eat and drink whatever I want again and my taste buds will go back to normal. Although my normal is still rather heightened compared to others. Normally I'm a super taster/smeller but pregnant me = super hyper taster/smeller.

A bite of an artisan cheese reveals slight notes of hazelnuts and sweet grass, a sip of one of the beers waiting patiently for me in our cellar and my brain explodes with glee, chocolate, toffee, hints of smoke and malt. I find myself holding things on my tongue even longer, moving morsels around my mouth to spread the love. Peach season arrived and I nearly passed out from how good they were. Was it the growing season? Were they always this good and I just hadn't bothered? They were like eating summer in a messy, juicy mouthful.

I ate so many my pee smelled like peach juice.

It is not fair that my senses are like this when there are so many things banned from my diet. Ok so I have had some unpasteurized cheeses and sips of wine and beer here and there. I even had a whole glass of white wine at a friends house. It took me two hours to slowly sip that glass dry. Combined with a fresh loaf of crusty white bread slathered with salty sweet cream butter, it was one of the best non-meals of my pregnancy.

I read restaurant reviews like novels, dreaming of the day that I can afford to go to such magical places like El Bulli or better yet roaming the streets some small town in Italy and stumbling upon the most amazing authentic home cooked meal that will leave me wondering if I could sell all my worldly goods and move in next door. Where ever we are we are always looking for something new and undiscovered, something that we can spread the word about. Every time we travel we spend 95% of our time eating. If we didn't walk everywhere we would probably be several hundred pounds! Walking from place to place seems to justify the over indulgence of travel.

It's no surprise to anyone that I already have my first meal after giving birth planned out. Bagels from St.Viateur which have been squirrelled away in my freezer since our last visit in June. Topped with whipped cream cheese and maybe some avocado. Freshly squeezed orange and tangerine juice, perhaps with some champagne. I still have to take a gander at the beer cellar to decide which of the special stash I am going to celebrate with. There is the long awaited for Wells Banana Bread Beer. A beer that we read about but never saw and had assumed that we had missed out on until I spied it on the shelf during the last cross border shopping trip. It's probably my top pick as I have been waiting forever to try it and it's not too high octane so I won't get smashed off of my first full pint after 9 months!

Mowing the lawn.

2010-09-13T22:51:00.004-04:00

Somehow I didn't notice that I'd hit 100 posts. Woot!

Maybe it's because I was busy mowing the lawn. I wish that was some sort of euphemism for a bikini wax but it isn't. I was literally mowing the lawn today after work.

Here is the thing...I am the garden person. I tend to the yards. Except this year, well this year I was pregnant all summer and it was hot. Now you would think that Jonathan would be embarrassed by the over grown meadow in our front yard, I am sure the people trying to sell their house on our street were secretly cursing us because we were THAT lawn. The one that was bringing shame to the street. I know I was embarrassed. He cut the lawn twice this summer. I cut the lawn a few times as well and trimmed the edges with the weed whacker. One of the times he cut the lawn he cut the whole thing with the weed whacker. It looked real good.

He has been doing other things with the house. But on occasion he has been just playing video games or something and all I can think is "OH MY GOD THE LAWN!! CUT THE FREAKING LAWN!!!"

I have a lot of conversations like that inside my head. I don't want to be the naggy wife, in my head I think he should just know but obviously this is something that is completely stupid of me to think. He did however clean the sliding glass door yesterday without me even hinting that it was dirty. Sure, there were several other things higher on the list coughTHELAWNcough but it was something.

So today after work because it was cool out I cut the lawn. A task if done weekly or even bi-weekly that would take maybe 10 minutes. I was out there for an hour or more. One height to start and gradually going lower, then using the weed whacker which kept breaking because there were weeds with woody stems...oh how I wish I was kidding. I had to get my hedge trimmers to cut them. I kept thinking "If I go into labour while cutting the lawn he is never going to hear the end of it."

My last week....

2010-09-13T12:54:00.002-04:00

This is my last week at work.
I officially start maternity leave on October 1st, next week I'm "working from home" and the week after I'm taking as vacation.

It feels weird knowing that once I leave the office on Friday that I won't be returning for a year.

I've worked full time pretty much non-stop since I was 18.

That's 15 years for those counting.

I'm feeling great! I'll admit that my hips have been hurting and that I cannot wait until I can sleep on my back again but other than that I feel like I could be pregnant for a while. Everyone told me the last month would suck and I would just wish I would have this baby already but, truthfully I quite enjoy it.

This past weekend was my family shower. It was alright. I have some mixed emotions about it. My bff sent out the invites and 3 of them were returned or not having the right address, only 4 people rsvp'd to her(my mom knew who was coming but still, don't people know what rsvp means??) my dad's side of the family all brought their boyfriends/husbands. They all sat in the back yard and drank with my dad. My mom knew one of them was coming but there were 3 men folk, two of whom I had never met. The shower started at 2pm, I arrived at around 2:20 and was the second person there. My mom had just started putting out the food. The sink was full of dirty dishes. Most of my relatives didn't show up until close to 3pm. My mom played with my niece in the basement while I opened gifts and didn't really talk to anyone until my sister and niece left.
All my dad's side chain smokes so I could barely talk to them.

I know I sound like an ungrateful brat. I'm not really, I'm not. Over all I had a lovely time and I know that this is how my family gatherings go. They are not foodies, they are not into the same things I am and honestly I think a lot of them think I'm a snob. Actually I'm pretty sure most of them think that. I don't think I'm better than them just different.

The highlight was definitely the watermelon lemonade that my bff made me from scratch. She is a super star and kept me from flipping my shizz. We hung out before hand and did our usual routine of eating chips and dip and talking. I hadn't officially asked her if she would come to the birth, so I did then and she was like "DUH!"

My mom also wrote something really sweet in a card that surprised me and she gave us money towards the stroller and told me that she would also be buying us a cloth diaper kit we wanted. Although she did say "You are calling us when you go into labour right?" and I again told her that we were not going to call anyone, she balked a bit but it's not like were calling everyone BUT her!

I was also shocked that no one freaked out about my home birth plans. In fact only my dad's nephew(who is closer to my dad's age than mine.) seemed a little freaked. His wife thought it was amazing and he seemed to let it go when I told him that I lived 5 minutes from the hospital.
I also found out that my Nanny had her twins here in Toronto at home. This was back in 1942 and she didn't know she was having twins AND the second one was breech. She was also 4'11. My aunt who was the breech baby(her twin died a few weeks after they were born of a heart defect.) told me that my Nanny had more trouble giving birth to my father 8 years later at the hospital.

I did of course get some "child birth hurts more than you can imagine." I tried telling them that my pain tolerance was abnormally high but alas "I just didn't know" I will say that there were more "you can do it" talks than "you are crazy" talks. Which was nice.

36 weeks.

2010-09-08T15:17:00.003-04:00

Who said horizontal stripes weren't slimming? Not pregnant me would never wear horizontal stripes but it doesn't really matter when you are 36 weeks pregnant. No one is going to tell you that the stripes make you look fat. No one will look at you twice when you wash down a giant cone of cotton candy with an electric blue slushie.

I think it's because they are afraid that I will sit on them.

I did some slapdash colour correction on this pic but my friend is doing proper editing on the ones I liked.

You know what is funny? That I really thought I didn't look THAT big until I saw the pictures.

I'd ROTFLOL but I would never get up, I'm sort of like a human turtle these days.

Oil for that bit there.

2010-08-31T21:46:00.002-04:00

Today I bought a bottle of "birth & baby oil" from a company called Motherlove. I thought I knew what it was because of the whole "birth" part in the name but I wanted to make sure.

It is a very weird thing to ask another woman if this oil I was about to purchase was indeed meant to be used to stretch out my perineum. It's not like I bought it at an ice cream store, it was from a hippy baby store so I'm sure they have women talking about weirder things than that but it felt like I had gone into a library full of little old ladies and children and shouted something about ass stretch oil. Naked. Covered in feathers.

I didn't even say the word "perineum"! I eluded to it but never said the actual word.

Ikea is actually Swedish for "you will swear loudly."

2010-08-30T11:20:00.004-04:00

We spent the weekend putting together the crib, which must be the easiest thing to put together that Ikea has ever made. At least it was the first thing we have bought from there that didn't have us swearing and wanting to kill each other.

Although the wall shelves we bought from there more than made up for it.Apparently a degree in engineering was needed to assemble them. No matter how many times we measured things something would be slightly off. It didn't help that one side of the shelves was being anchored into plaster walls which involve using plugs that look like little mini torture devices and if you made a mistake with them you had to punch them into the wall and then patch the wall. The design of the brackets and how they had to be hung was incredibly frustrating. During the shelf hanging the temperature in the house also sky rocketed and at one point I almost passed out, which made me super cranky especially when I realised I hadn't put on deodorant that day. I was hot, pregnant, smelly and frustrated. Not a good combo. We had three shelves and we got 2 and a half hung up before we decided to just leave the third one for the next day or take the chance of one of us throwing a shelf out the window. We really don't have the extra cash lying around to replace a window.

Yesterday we finished the shelves and I FINALLY took out all the gifts from my friend shower and placed them on the shelves. I have a really good collection of blankets and swaddles. I placed the wall decals around the room, I need more birds which I'll pick up this week. I also decided to make some felt oak leaves to hang as a bunting on the one wall. In my head this is a tiny little project and I'm hoping I'm right!

We need art work still and some curtains but as it is right now the baby has a room to call their own.

I totally forgot to even mention(or did I? My brain is only functioning at like .5% of capacity these days.) that we scored the much coveted mini co-sleeper. The craigslist gods finally smiled down on us. Jonathan placed a "wanted" ad for it and someone contacted him and we got it for 80 bucks! It came with 3 sheets and the extension legs as well! The extension legs are 40 bucks on their own and the sheets are 30 each so it was a big time score! I was so happy we got it. The family we bought it off told us that even if we didn't buy it from them that we should get one because they thought it was an essential item for them.

I had never bought anything off Craigslist and it was sort of odd to go to someones house. Jonathan Googled the woman selling it and she was a lawyer and then we Google mapped the house, it was a nice house in an upscale neighborhood so we decided it was safe to go there. Because lawyers with children who live in nice houses never murder anyone.

Thirty five!

2010-08-28T10:10:00.002-04:00

I am 35 weeks today. THIRTY FREAKING FIVE!

Excuse me while I run around in a circle flapping my arms and howling at the sky. Well maybe I'll just walk slowly in circles...running isn't my forte at the moment.

One of the things I had really wanted to do was have a maternity photo shoot. In the end it came down to money. Owning a house in a big city really sucks it out of you. This city is a vampire.

Thing is I am really a freak when it comes to photography. Maybe it's due to all the darkroom chemicals I inhaled over the years or maybe it's my paranoia that the photographer is going to make me look fat or will tell me to pose in a way that I know will look stupid. Because I know how to pose dammit. (I was smizing and giving neck long before Tyra started ranting about it.)
In the end I decided I'd rather spend the money on other things because the photographers I really loved in this city would have cost me my first born and that would have been awkward.

So I was mentioning how no photos was giving me some sad face to one of my good friends and he was like "I could do that if you want." and I was all "Heck yes!" he has a nice camera and a good eye. Plus I get to have creative control. Those words are like a heavenly choir singing in my ears. So next Saturday evening we are heading to the CNE. I want photos that are less posed and more "That time I was a small hippo and went to the fair." There won't be any hands forming heart over my belly is all I'm saying. Not that I'm against the heart hands thing it's just not "us".

I had grand delusions of wearing heels and a hot little dress. Then I got to the point where shaving the backs of my legs became a Cirque du Soleil act and just the thought of wearing heels for more than a nano second is on par with bamboo shoots under my nails. I couldn't wear any of my heels anyhow my feet just wouldn't fit in them and if they did they would look like I stuffed marshmallows into straws. My feet would have muffin top. Not a nice look.

Weekday Pancakes.

2010-08-25T19:58:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I had a midwife appointment, this one I met me 3rd string midwife. The one that would show up if the other two somehow are missing in action.

She confirmed that the babe was indeed heads down and anterior. Yay! This makes me happier than weekday morning surprise pancakes! Mmmmmmmm pancakes.
I have told the baby if they stay this way for the 6 weeks or so then I will actually make them weekday pancakes one day. With real maple syrup and butter even.

Dang now I want pancakes.

I'm all set to go to a party.

2010-08-24T21:01:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back we purged our wardrobe.

This is a good thing. There was really no reason to still have that pair of jeans that I bought before I met Jonathan...11 years ago.

I get this sort of high from getting rid of stuff which means I have a tendency to over do it.

Which of course is what I did. I now have a very small wardrobe full of really nice party dresses, 2 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of cords, 2 t-shirts(both white) and maternity clothes. Errr....oops.

I don't feel bad getting rid of so much, most of it was what is considered throw away clothes, cheap stuff from cheap chains. I fully admit that my husband dresses way better than I do at all times, he looks stylish walking the dog. I have been known to wear my pj's around the block.

I swear I used to be fashionable all the time. At times I was even a trendsetter. That was back in the day when it took me more than ten minutes to do my hair, back when I had an actual hair style. I have no clue when I started thinking that pj's in public was ok, long before I got pregnant that is for sure.

A rite of passage.

2010-08-23T10:49:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend I went and watched my sister play her first roller derby game. My sisters team didn't win but I was told by various people that the refs made several bad calls and that points were given to the wrong team at one point. My sister got knocked down a couple of times, she told me yesterday that she wasn't feeling too bad but she couldn't more her left leg and she has a big ass bruise on her knee. Yeah, she is a tough cookie.

It was an interesting crowd of people. Behind us sat some parents and someones grandmother who was too cute in her pants suit and her hair all done up! In front of us a group of transgender women. It made for some good people watching that is for sure!

I also finally got that preggo rite of passage where some stranger asks me if I'm due any day now. When I replied that I wasn't and still had 6 more weeks to go she then asked me if I was having twins. For a brief moment I wanted to ask her if she had ever actually seen a woman pregnant with twins because I have and they are abnormally huge, the type of huge that makes you gasp because you didn't realise that human skin could stretch so far. I let it slide though because right after that she started telling me all about how she couldn't pee until after her baby was born or something and I tuned her out with smiles and nods. She was one of those women who think that telling a pregnant stranger all about their own labour is perfectly alright.

I actually had two women tell me all about their births that night. The second one was a friend of my sisters team mate and it was one of those horror stories that involved C-sectioning and a vacuum and all sorts of other stuff that I didn't pick up because I was too busy telling her to STFU in my head. But because I'm nice and polite I just made the appropriate faces of concern, horror and amazement while she rambled on.

I suppose women do this because they think they are preparing the currently pregnant women for battle. Like if they don't warn the newbie they JUST WON'T KNOW. It is probably also somewhat therapeutic to tell someone their stories. I don't know. Why is it that the women who had drug and intervention free births never offer up their stories to strangers? You know the ones you hear about where the woman is laughing and ahhing and suddenly there is a baby? Those are the women I want talking to me while in line for the bathroom!

My bumps...

2010-08-18T21:46:00.003-04:00

When I found out that I was pregnant I fully intended to take a photo every week to show my progress. I think I took one photo before 20 weeks, when I thought I finally looked pregnant. I saw it the other day when I was frantically putting all our pictures onto a USB stick during our old laptops last gasping moments. I look more like I really enjoy cake and beer and not so much pregnant. I am pretty sure I look pregnant in this photo which I took today after work.

I'm 33w4d in this pic. I'm not trying to hide my identity but I stopped wearing makeup a few weeks back and I will be damned if there are pics of me makeupless out there! I'm wearing the same outfit as the pic below because I wanted to compare the difference ten weeks makes.

I remember thinking I was soooo big in Montreal. Hmm lets see...well for starters the shirt fits in the older pic, oh and my boobs still look somewhat perky still and although you cannot see it in the older pic I do believe that the top of my pants are located pretty much underneath my bra..the same pants now land just above my belly button, so about 6 inches lower!

33 weeks.

2010-08-18T10:20:00.003-04:00

I seem to be one of those lucky so and so's who has somehow avoided all of the horrible things women talk about experiencing during pregnancy. For some reason even though we are told that every pregnancy is different some friend or family member will say something like "Oh just wait until X Y Z happens, no one tells you that it will happen but it will." so far I'm still waiting for the insomnia, the crotch pain, the vag discharge, peeing my pants, constipation and a million other things that I haven't had happen yet. Of course I'm probably cursing myself and the next month and a half my body will just decide to do it all at once for kicks.

I have had some pregnancy related twinges though. My sciatic nerve has been a big jerk. I think this is more due to the whole sleeping on my side thing rather than actual pregnancy though. My cousin who is due a week after me cannot walk around the block without horrific shooting pain up and down her legs. My complaint about walking is that I'm slower than usual and I get tired quicker. Boo freaking hoo right?

Then there are my feet and ankles. By the end of the day I can press my fingers into them and leave dents. They feel like they are full of silly putty. Of course the extreme heat of the summer has not helped one bit. Compared to friends of mine who were pregnant during other summers though mine don't look too bad.

Today I got a call from my midwife and apparently my iron is every so slightly lower than normal. It is at 106 and it should be 115. She told me to pick up an over the counter drug called Palafer and they will retest me in 2-3 weeks.

Sunday we took the hospital tour. I wanted to take the tour so I would be familiar with my surroundings if we should need to transfer. The birthing suites were very large and nice. I'm not sure if there is a law about hospital rooms always being somewhat drab and dated though. Even though the labor and delivery floor is fairly new it still looked like it was done in the 80's or early 90's with it's dusty pinks and blues and weird geometric patterns.

Monday we went to the home birth information night. Which really was more for Jonathan than me. There were 3 other couples there and none of them were crazy looking hippies. We were the only couple who had already decided on a home birth by the end of the night there was an other couple who had decided it was also for them. They went over all the myths surrounding home birth, showed us a room with all the equipment they bring with them, discussed statistics and studies and served us snacks. There were also two guest speakers who had home birthed. One was particularly interesting because she had two births in the hospital with an OB and two at home with midwives. She said she had a good experience with having a natural birth at the hospital although she said she seemed to throw the nurses into a bit of shock by going the natural route! She figured after her two natural births at the hospital the next would be at home, since she was from the Netherlands where home birth is pretty much the norm for her the hospital births had been different from what she had grown up knowing. It was nice to hear from someone who had a good hospital birth who also had a home birth.

The info session definitely made Jonathan feel better. I knew once he saw that it wasn't just the midwife showing up with some towels, boiling water and some bits of string that his level of comfort would increase. It also helped that they had cookies. It's pretty easy to win my husband over by giving him free cookies.

I don't hate hospitals.

2010-08-17T10:53:00.003-04:00

If you are not already reading the writing of Marie-Eve over at her blog then you should be, trust me. Sometimes "mommy" blogs can be a bit trite or flowery or down right annoying and judgemental. Marie-Eve is the the sort of talented writer that somehow can state her opinion and not have it come across as an attack on anyone whose opinion differs, in the world of blogging that is something that seems to missing a lot. So when she wrote her most recent post Being Born about her opinion on hospital births vs. home births I didn't come away with a bad taste in my mouth. I did however start leaving an epic comment that I realised I should just make into a blog post........(I added to the original comment but it was still pretty long!)

I think we are both very lucky to live in Canada and have our amazing health care system. As you know I am planning a home birth. I live a 4-5 minute drive(going speed limit with stop lights etc.) from the only Baby Friendly designated hospital in the GTA, as of 2006 there were 5.5 million people living in the Greater Toronto Area, I'd be willing to bet it is closer to 7 million now. The fact that there is one baby friendly hospital for that many people is, to me, quite disgraceful. From my friends various births at various hospitals in the GTA I have gathered that they aren't as "bad" as some of the ones I have read about in the States where they still have baby nurseries, won't let you walk around, eat/drink and refuse to let you push in any other position than on your back etc.

But not all of them have actual lactation consultants and push formula from companies they are getting kick backs(hint: freebies = kickbacks) from and there are still OBs who like to push interventions and C-sections on mothers who don't actually fit the bill for needing them. Like my sister, whose OB started telling her to just schedule a C-section months before her due date because she was so short and on the day of her induction(she was a few days past her due date.) told her that if she hadn't given birth by the time his shift was over he was giving her a C-section. Nice.

I should stress that I am not against hospital births or modern medicine. There seems to be a bit of a myth that midwives and women who choose to give birth at home think hospitals and OBs are evil, intervention loving thugs. I know that there are amazing OBs and nurses out there and I know that hospitals play an important part in most births in this country.
I like hospitals, just not for me.

So why, if I am not against hospitals, would I choose to have a home birth?

Well as I mentioned I live really close to the hospital I would choose to go to if I was so inclined. If I did need to be transferred the response time for an ambulance averages about 5 minutes, I live 2 blocks from an ambulance dispatch station so I think it would probably be even less. So that is about 10 minutes to get to the hospital for say an emergency C-section. Which is about the same time span it would take them to prep the OR if I was in a hospital. This means that if I were in the hospital and needed the same emergency C-section the only difference would be that I was wheeled out of my room there.

In Ontario the only two things that midwives cannot do are give epidurals and intubation(Midwives in BC can though.) they are trained(and retrained every 1-2 years) in the same emergency procedures as L&D nurses. Only 1% of home births in Canada need intubation or emergency procedures that require transfer. Even if I was going to go to the hospital I would not be getting an epidural. I had a spinal tap once and I'm never letting a needle near my spine again. Intubation is incredibly rare and the midwives are trained and have the equipment for all other ways of resuscitation.

The equipment that the midwives will bring to my house is the same as a rural hospital would have, so basically if I didn't live in the city I would have access to the same equipment. The only extras would be medicinal pain relief and access to an OR. Because of my proximity to the hospital and the transfer time as I mentioned above that is not an issue for me.

Statistically a low risk pregnancy has the same outcome at home as it does at the hospital. Only the risk of interventions goes up if you are at a hospital. I am a believer in the cascade of interventions. I witnessed it with my own sister and have heard story after story that mirrors her experience.

Those are the logic based reasons I decided on home birth. I could get into the studies and statistics that are out there but basically that is it. I should confess that I have been researching birth and home birth for over three years now. After my sisters experience two years ago I got really into finding out everything so I could make an informed choice.

So what are the personal reasons for my choice?

I have to admit a lot of it has to do with being in the comfort of my own home. If I want to get naked and walk around my house I can, if I feel most comfortable dancing in my kitchen I can, speaking of kitchen if I feel like eating something I can eat what I have in my fridge! Instead of walking around in circles on the l&d ward I can walk around in circles in my neighbourhood, with my dog. I can't control my birth but I can control my birthing environment and I like that. For me I believe my comfort will help with my birthing. If I feel uncomfortable with where I am I am more likely going to tense up and start feeling anxious. I don't think a single one of my friends had the OB they saw for their whole pregnancy at their delivery, it was whoever was on call. At least two of my midwives who I have been rotating seeing during my whole pregnancy will be at my house. Familiar faces who I have a personal relationship with and who will stay with me for the whole time AND for 3 hours after and then come back 12 to 24 hours later. This is incredibly comforting to me. I know they say that you don't care about things like the attending OB when your pushing but I don't really want to have someone introducing themselves while I'm giving birth.

I have heard it said that hospitals are for sick people and pregnancy isn't an illness. Although I agree with the statement I do feel it is a bit of a stab in the back to women who make the informed choice to birth in a hospital. Some women may feel safer and more comfortable at a hospital, some women may feel they live too far to safely transfer to a hospital from home if there was an emergency, some might be freaked out completely by the thought of home birth. It is the women who go along with whatever they are told without question that worry me, but that is the sort of behaviour that worries me in general and not just with birth and pregnancy.

Although I am a strong supporter and very passionate about home birth and natural birth I am even more so about making informed decisions about birth and being comfortable that the ones being made are the right ones for you and your situation.

Marie-Eve had a fabulous hospital birth with her first born. With staff that were supportive of her choices and did not pressure her to get any interventions to hurry things along. Why would she want to mess with something that worked so well for her before? I know I probably wouldn't. She feels safer and in control at a hospital, she has personal reasons for these feelings but also knows that what she wants for herself is a natural birth in a hospital because she has armed herself with the information to make an informed choice about medical interventions.

Not all Canadian hospitals are so wonderful though and it seems that even fewer American hospitals are. It worries me that a lot of American hospitals are still working with the 1950's model of labor and delivery and to me that seems really wrong. Given the stats on skin to skin, breastfeeding support, delivery positions and a million other things that are proven to be beneficial to the mother and child it is unbelievable that some hospitals refuse to practice them even though such simple things could produce better outcomes and save tons of money.

I can understand why some women feel dissatisfied about their birthing experience and why they want to take back control. I hope that these women are also trying to change the system from within wherever they live and bring to light how mothers are being treated. I think that it is important to try to fix the problem and not just rage against it. Not every woman wants to give birth at home and not every woman wants to give birth at a hospital but every woman should have access to the information they need to make that choice and without a doubt I can say that every woman wants a healthy and safe baby no matter where they deliver.

I'm sorry that this post is so long and full of what is essentially verbal vomit. I have actually re-read it(something I don't often do with posts.) and in my head it doesn't sound too much like crazy talk, but I'm 8 months pregnant so my brain can't really tell what is crazy and what is not.

32 weeks.

2010-08-12T12:17:00.003-04:00

I am at this weird point where where I feel like I haven't been pregnant for that long(seriously how has it been 32 weeks already?) but at the same time can't really remember not being pregnant. This week as we purged our closet I looked at pairs of jeans and tried to remember the last time I wore them and couldn't. I also donated 98% of my wardrobe to charity. I might regret this later although it will give me an excuse to go shopping for nice things.

I had a midwife appointment this morning, it was the first one Jonathan has been to. This whole time I have been telling people how one of the greatest things about midwife appointments is that I have never had to wait. So of course this morning is going to be the first appointment that starts late BUT only 15 minutes late. I have waited almost an hour for my family doc and I won't even mention walk in clinics. We got there early and about 3 minutes after we sat down Jonathan was already looking at his phone. 3 minutes past our appointment time he was asking me if I was sure about the time of the appointment. See, he doesn't go to the doctor EVER so he has no clue about waiting times and even though he is off work this week doing house renos with his dad apparently he had somewhere to be because he was being very impatient.

When we had been waiting for ten minutes he said something about giving it another ten minutes.

I had to stare very hard at a book shelf in order to not jump out of my chair and hurt him. I'm sure the other lady in the waiting area could hear my jaw clenching. I don't think he realises how close he came to having every book from that shelf violently thrown at him.

15 minute after my appointment time my midwife came out and I introduced him. I had really wanted him to come to this appointment because my main midwife will be on vacay for the next 2 appointments and he hadn't been to one appointment yet. Since every appointment is basically the same I really didn't feel the need for him to attend them. I did however think he should meet my main midwife so when he was freaking out about a baby coming out of my vagine he would be familiar with the other woman who was not freaking out. Plus he would finally hear the baby's hear beat.

I know he is holding on to some fears about childbirth, fears that he probably doesn't want to tell me about because he's a man and men think silly things sometimes. I get it. The fact that I am so at ease about the whole birthing thing probably freaks him out. All he's heard his whole life is that you go to a hospital, get an epidural and then a baby is born. So to go against what is ingrained in his mind as a "normal" birth is probably causing all kinds of conflict. I know he is worried that I won't be able to handle the intensity of giving birth or that I will chain myself to my house and refuse to go to the hospital or that something will go terribly wrong. Two of those three things could happen but the only difference though would be where they happen, at home or at the hospital. Because if they are going to happen they are going to happen, being at the hospital won't prevent something.

I will be having a frank talk with him tonight.

Hopefully I won't throw a book at his head.

Everything was fine and dandy at the appointment. My midwife told me I have amazing stomach muscles that they are so strong that it makes it hard for her to tell 100% for sure where exactly the baby is, head and butt are feeling the same. I asked if strong stomach muscles was a good thing for birth and she said that they are and that they are great for pushing. Yeah!

The best part though is always hearing that crazy sounding heart. First we listened with a stethoscope, it sound like a faint underwater drum, more like a heart beat than with the doppler. Then she measured my and I'm still measuring a bit big (33.5 instead of 32.6) and then she used the doppler. The wooshy beat came out over the speaker. I looked over at Jonathan at this point and the look on his face made me want to forget his behaviour in the waiting room. Pure joy and love and awe. It was awesome.

I got OCD, yeah you know me!*

2010-08-06T10:17:00.002-04:00

I have a bit of OCD. Nothing worthy of television or anything it's just another funky bit of dna that my parents have so nicely passed down. It takes my father a very long time to leave the house or park the car. He also barks a lot and turns a sneeze into the word "horseshit!" among other things. That might actually be tourettes though.

My OCD manifests itself by making me crazy about my hand writing. I kid you not. I will write something and half way through not like the way a letter looks and have to start over. It's incredibly painful and I have probably killed an entire forest of trees all by myself.
This makes things like writing thank you cards extremely stressful. I have to find cheap but nice looking cards because there is no doubt in my mind that more than half will end up in the recycling bin with the exact same words written on them. Right now I have 5 cards out of 14 left.
I will write something and think it sounds awkward and weird or that the handwriting is off kilter or changes or anything really. Something at some point will make me place that card on the pile of cards destined for the bin.

I have always been this way. My bedroom floor in high school looked like an explosion at a paper factory. Some sheets would have only one word on them. I would try things like using the first page to just write down the alphabet over and over and over. Sometimes that would work.

When a computer finally became my main writing device I was so thankful. No longer would I have to stop writing something because it looked different. Font is my friend.

So now I am faced with the mentally draining battle that is writing thank you cards for my shower. I know they have to be handwritten and signed. I know that no one cares what my handwriting looks like no one has ever complained about receiving a thank you card no matter how hideous the penmanship is.

I have even thought about telling my friends about my little bit of OCD in hopes that they will understand. Oddly enough I can freely talk about my battles with depression and anxiety but to admit that handwriting makes my brain freak out is something a bit weird even for me, like it just sounds like an incredibly lazy excuse for not writing them.

I know I have to suck it up though because not only am I going to have to write this batch I'm going to have to write a whole other batch after my next shower and I will have to do it like the day after the shower since I will be 37 weeks pregnant and as much as I'd like to imagine that I would somehow have the time and energy after giving birth to write 20 or so heartfelt thank you cards I know that I won't even have the time and energy to shower and showering trumps thank you cards.

*Kudos to anyone who gets this play on a song title. Yes, I am old, shut up.

Trying to stay zen when I want to have a temper tantrum.

2010-08-05T10:42:00.004-04:00

My sister warned me it would happen. She said "You think mom annoys you now...just wait...soon you will want to yell at everyone." But since I am incredibly laid back and can let stuff just roll off my back I thought it wouldn't happen to me.

Well, it's started to happen. I don't know if it is connected but I've got that 3rd trimester exhaustion I've heard about so sometimes I feel like a cranky toddler who hasn't had a nap and ate a bag of sugar for lunch.

It started with a comment about the cloth diapers I want. See I research the shizz out of things. Seriously, I spent 9 years reading wedding related stuff before deciding to just elope. If you ever need 5000 or so wedding ideas let me know, I've got several fully detailed weddings planned out in my head. I started researching birth over two years ago. Yes, I am fully aware that might make me insane. I like researching, some days I feel like I probably missed a calling for sorts.

So after my recent shower my sister, bff, mom and MIL all went to the fancy baby store I had registered at because I had to pick up something that had been bought for me. I was looking forward to showing them the various things I had registered for in person. Like the cloth diapers I had chosen and the co-sleeper.

First my mom balked at the price of the cloth diaper starter kit. 175 bucks gets you everything you need to start diapering. Sure it seemed like a lot of money but I'm pretty sure I'd spend more than that in disposables really fast. Since they had the covers and pre-folds on display I showed them that. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe a "Oh cloth diapers have changed since I had kids."(Not that either of them used cloth.) instead I got "I don't like them. That velcro fastener will just stick to everything." which I guess it would if it was facing outwards I considered this acceptable criticism though and it rolled. Then they both felt the prefold and said "Oh that is so rough, I don't like the feel of that at all. It's too rough for a baby." I gritted my teeth and informed them that this particular brand of prefold was one of the most popular and highly rated and that they did become softer after you washed them which you have to do 4-5 times before you actually use them. My sister who probably heard my teeth being worn to nubs confirmed what I was saying and told them that organic cotton becomes super soft after one washing. She then squeezed my arm which is our secret sister sign for "OH MY GOD! I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND...NOW BREATHE!" we can also talk through our teeth while smiling, we are a talented duo.

I also showed them the co-sleeper. The one that turns into a playpen and can be used as a travel bed. I can't recall what they said about it but it was nothing negative or else I would have no molars left. So earlier this week when Jonathan was talking to his parents and they asked what we still needed for the baby, he stated co-sleeper because he knows how important it is. There was a weird silence on our end. After he got off the phone I asked him what his mom said about the co-sleeper because obviously she had said something.
"Well they won't be getting that because she thinks its a waste of money and said it is something we will only use for the first month or two."
I explained that it wasn't, that it was multi purpose, we would use it for much longer than a month or two and that it was really important to me. Obviously his mom had no clue, she was from the generation where they just put the baby in the crib from day one. She didn't know anything about co-sleeping. It really irked me that she thought it was a waste of money. Like it was a personal attack on me. I didn't hear it was a waste of money I heard I was stupid for even thinking I needed something like that.

Then I started letting that thought snowball. Was that the reason she didn't get anything organic for the baby shower? 99.9% of my registry is made up of organic stuff. Did she think I was stupid for wanting it? That organic products were just a fad? OH MY GOD did she think that Global Warming was a myth? Was she going to show up after I have the baby and douse them in Johnson & Johnson's baby oil and tell me I was doing everything wrong? Would Johnathan take her side and tell me I was wasting money? For the first time in this whole pregnancy I felt anxious.

After the bout of crazy lifted I decided I did not care. I let the snowball melt. What she thought about my hippy ways was her problem not mine. I know she isn't keen on the home birth or even natural birth(I don't think we told them about the water birth part.)and she wasn't keen on us not finding out the gender either. But it's not up to her, these are our choices. I am confident that I am making the right choices for Jonathan, me and our baby and that is what matters most.

I know that soon I will be bombarded with advice and told how to do things the "right" and "best" way. And if I want to have any teeth left in my head by the time my child is one I'm going to have to really just let it slide off me.

The missing card.

2010-08-04T13:33:00.004-04:00

I have a sister in law. I don't think I have ever mentioned her though.

Here is why.

She has never congratulated us on having a baby.
I should clarify that: She has actually never even acknowledged that we are having a baby.

Jonathan even emailed her our first ultrasound pic and she never responded, not even a comment on facebook when I announced it there. People I haven't talked to since public school congratulated me!

Instead a week after finding out we were having a baby she went and adopted another dog. Which is fine and all, but she can't take care of her dogs because of a health problem so my FIL walks them. I won't even get into her health issue, lets just say that its so bad that she can't work full time but not so bad that she can do other things like take more trips then we do. Yeah.

I shouldn't have expected more from her though. She never has acknowledged our engagement or marriage so why would she acknowledge her niece or nephew?

So what awful thing did Jonathan do that has made her so mad that she can't forgive him and be happy for us?

Apparently 9 or so years ago when she had surgery he didn't send her a get well card.

Yep.

That is what we have been told anyhow.

I personally think it's because she feels sorry for herself and doesn't like it when the attention from her parents is diverted from her.
Honestly she can adopt all the puppies she wants were the ones with the grandchild.
We have basically decided to see if she bothers acknowledging our baby once it's born and if not then our kid is down one Aunt. If they ever meet she will be just introduced by her name. She wants to cut herself out of our family then so be it.

Although I am mighty tempted to send her a Get Well card hoping she gets over her severe case of bitchitis soon.

The big deal about not seeing ones toes.

2010-08-03T15:35:00.006-04:00

You always hear women talk about not being able to see their toes when pregnant. Which really, your toes? So not a big deal, put your legs up and there they are. Screw my toes! I'm more concerned about my vagina. I have no clue what the state of my bikini line is. I can only guess and my guess is somewhere around 70's Playboy. I am blindly taking a razor to the edges which is sort of like using the weedwacker on the edge of your yard but not bothering to mow the actual lawn...it isn't fooling anyone.

I know I shouldn't care. I'm not one of those women who is embarrassed by such things around medical professionals. I like to keep in mind that chances are they have seen bushes that put mine to shame. Not that they even notice such things I'm sure. AND really is an out of control bikini line the most embarrassing thing one will see during child birth? Ive heard that pooping often happens during pushing, if I was going to worry about anything it would be the pooping. Also I heard that the whole pushing a baby out of your body sort of distracts from the pooping. Its the only time in your life that you could poop in front of people and not care.

I have been thinking about getting some maintenance about 3 weeks before my due date. Nothing vagazzly or anything...although wouldn't that be sort of hilarious? Although I have a feeling that 3 weeks before my due date I'm not really going to feel like having a stranger put hot wax near my bizniz.

STUFF!

2010-08-02T10:22:00.004-04:00

Last night Jonathan said something about how he didn't want all this baby stuff in the house like I was hoarding exersaucers or some shizz. This whole time Ive been talking about how I want to basically throw 98% of our house in a box and put it on the curb but somehow all he heard was I WANT TONS OF BABY CRAP FILLING OUR TINY HOUSE.

So I wrote down what I believe are the essentials that we need.

1) Somewhere to sleep. Which means a crib and a cosleeper. Have I mentioned my lurve for the cosleeper that saddles up to the side of your bed? It turns into a playard and has its own carrying case for travelling. (Remember my love for the cosleeper because it is part of a story in an upcoming post.)

2) Eat. Since I plan on breastfeeding Ive already got the essentials so I want this crazy pillow called My Brest Friend. Women seem to like it more than the Boppy even though its name makes me cringe. I already have two fancy feeding covers loaned to me.

3)Change. As I mentioned before we plan on cloth diapering. So obviously we need some of those. A pile of wipes that will look crazy but probably only last like 4 minutes. Change pad and cover. Dresser that doubles as a change table, but really everyone I know changes their baby wherever they are. A costco sized amount of detergent.

4)Travel. Stroller and carrier. My sister has an Ergo carrier which I would just have to buy the infant insert but I really want to get myself a Moby Wrap.

5)Bathe. I already have a tub on loan from friend. So we need some more face cloths, towels, soap etc.

6)Clothes. Last night Jonathan asked me how many pairs of socks babies needed and I realised we had none. WE HAVE NO SOCKS OR SHOES! I had a minor moment of anxiety until I realised that baby shoes are like dog bandannas, they serve no purpose other than looking cute and baby socks are cheap. Its not like I'm going to have to bring a naked baby to the mall because we have no clothes. Plus I have the crazy family shower in September so I'm sure we will be getting more clothes there. Maybe even some socks.

Any one see the word exercauser in there? Bouncy seat? Tummy time surf board blanket thing? NO? Ok, just checking.

Am I missing something, some vital thing that baby will need?

Midwife visit

2010-07-29T20:53:00.003-04:00

Since I had a midwife appointment this afternoon I decided to work from home or WFH as those in the know call it. I have to say I love working from home, first of all I always get more work done because I'm paranoid that someone is going to find out if I just sat in my pj's and watched Youtube all day, secondly I get to drink my own coffee which is about a zillion times better than any coffee I pay too much for by my office. Yes I'm pregnant and drink coffee. I drink on average less than half of what they say is "safe" which is a big freaking deal for someone who used to drink 3-4 coffees a day (when I was 19 I worked at a coffee shop and would drink 8-10 a day. No, it didn't make me feel jittery. Yes, I did have a problem.)

Oh and the one hour nap I took in the middle of the day was all sorts of awesome. Those countries that observe afternoon naps really know where it's at! My nap was cut short though by a call from the pregnancy mental health program that I signed up for. Since I have a history of depression I thought it would be wise to get into a program that would be available for me if I experienced any signs of postpartum. Instead of going to my family doctor I would go to see the doctors at this program who specialise in postpartum. My midwife said that sometimes just knowing you have a plan in place in case something happens helps a lot.

As per usual I went to my appointment and peed on a stick. Last time there was a wee issue with my protein levels, this time it didn't even change colour. I peed on another stick just to double check and it was the same! High fives for eating more protein and drinking gallons of water!

Cream Puff vs. Aged Parchment.

2010-07-27T10:58:00.003-04:00

I really like Cream Puff but Jonathan doesn't and is leaning towards Aged Parchment.

Ah paint choices.
We have one last room to paint(not including the kitchen which is still covered in 1980's wallpaper and will be for a while.) it is a north facing room that you walk straight into when you enter our house. We will be putting the smaller flat screen in there as well as some chairs and some sort of sofa bed turning it into a lounge of sorts.
Aged parchment is well...beigey. Even though I picked it out from the paint chip palette looking at it makes me what to crazy glue my eyes shut. I am not a fan of beige.
Cream Puff was the first colour I picked and is a colour that is sort of custardy or a slightly more yellow cream colour. To me it is the perfect colour.

But he doesn't want yellow. Because were going to paint the kitchen yellow and the nursery is yellow. Funny thing is I am not a big fan of yellow in general but if left to my own devices I would pick one colour and paint my whole house different shades of that same colour because our house is tiny and similar colours in each room would make it flow better and seem bigger. It's a fact.

I grew up in a house that is still painted a maddening riot of a million different colours even though the main floor is fairly open concept. A rag painted burnt orange room opens into a high gloss electric blue room that leads into a butter yellow room that extends to the hall where it meets a powder blue stairwell. I recently dropped off paint chips with my parents and told them to bring their house out of the early 90's because visually it hurts.

I am hoping that it comes down to paint sample being put on the wall. I think once he saw how bland Aged Parchment actually looked(Even the name is snore inducing!) and realised that as usual I was right things then the walls would become Cream Puff. Obviously it is the better choice based on the name alone. Who wants to surround themselves with Aged Parchment when they can be embraced by Cream Puff?

Strolling for strollers.

2010-07-26T21:51:00.004-04:00

Two post day! Woot!

Marie-Eve asked which stroller has won my heart and I thought instead of just replying in the comments Id just whip up a little post about it.

I had a very short but specific list of what I needed in a stroller.

Light weight. I use public transit a lot and some of the subways do not have elevators and people rarely offer to help.
The right height. I'm 5 foot 7 inches, which is apparently taller than average. I need adjustable handles and something I don't kick while taking a long stride.
Compact. We live in a tiny bungalow, it has a lot of storage..in the basement.
Smooth movement. 3 point turning a stroller in a crowd just isn't something I want to be doing.
Under 500 dollars. Which in this day and age of super German engineered strollers seems to be the rarest of them all.

I also wanted one that had the bassinet option and of course the car seat compatible option. Because I like options.

I ended up finding two that fit the bill. Yep, two. I am sure that if I had a several grand to spend on a stroller my options would have been practically unlimited but with a budget of under 500 it was pretty limited.

The loser of those two ended up being HUGE in person, I could barely lift it and it only came in a dollar under budget. I was secretly relieved that I didn't fall deeply in love with it for that reason alone.

The winner was Phil and Teds Smart. Which is appropriately named. First off it weighs just under 16lbs or roughly the same as my cat when he was a bit fatter. I lifted it off its pedestal with ONE HAND! Swoon! It is priced at 250(Canadian) but is offered in a bundle with the compatible bassinet for 379. The car seat adaptor will set you back another 40 bucks though. I pushed it around the store taking silly long steps to see if it would hit me in the shins and if anything felt weird. Nope, it was smooth as silk, on par with any fancy stroller. It almost folds completely flat. BINGO!

Sure it does have a few cons. The regular seat only has two positions and isn't reversible, something I would have liked and the basket is small. If those two things were fixed it would probably become one of the best selling strollers out there.

It is perfect for the city, anyone lacking strength or with back issues, people who travel a lot(seriously nothing more painful than watching a parent try to stuff a giant folded stroller into the tiny space allotted for strollers on airplanes and trains.) Germaphobes, that antibacterial seat really made my bff (who is a self professed germaphobe) do a happy dance. Anyone who wants something cool looking but doesn't have the extra 2 grand laying around, because lets face it sometimes things are judged by looks.

*Even though this is a gushing rave review it is only based on spending a few minutes with it in a store. As well I am not being paid in any way by Phil & Teds, but if they happen to be reading this and want to send a Smart my way I would happily accept. Just saying.

** Also if you are a parent who can see a glaring flaw in this stroller or someone who is an actual owner of it and want to let me know more about it, please do!

I survived my shower.

2010-07-26T10:35:00.002-04:00

I survived my baby shower (mostly) without incident. There was a lot of "looks" between my sister and I. Our eyes were tired from all that rolling.

The shower was wonderful. I am so lucky to be so loved by such wonderful ladies who all seem to possess amazing taste. My friends like to keep these events simple, with good food and no games. Just ladies chatting and laughing and enjoying. It was sublime.

The bebe was gifted with such an amazing collection of items, sleep sacks, swaddles, hand knit cats and birds, crib sheets that are nicer than the ones on my bed! Sure we still have nowhere to store any of this, although we do now own an organic crib mattress courtesy of my parents so at least there is something to put those nice soft sheets on. I can just put the babe on the mattress on the floor right? JOKING. I'll totally use a drawer.

I also didn't blurt out anything horrible or have to pretend to like any of it. Phew!

After the shower we went to the fancy store I registered at to pick up the gift from my bff.
They had just brought in the stroller I had wanted to look at two days before so I finally got to see it. I loved it. I took big silly looking strides and it didn't hit my ankles, I could easily lift it and the wheels glided quietly. My sister thought the seat which is made out of a sort of Croc like material(it's antibacterial and breathable apparently.) was genius because she told me that her stroller stank because you could only really wipe the material down because you couldn't detach some parts of the seat to wash. She also liked the sun visor(is that what it's called?) because it was made of a spf lycra type material. I was able to compare the two I had shortlisted and everyone agreed that the one was far better and not just because it was 200 dollars cheaper!
Booya!

A post about my mother.

2010-07-22T10:52:00.002-04:00

My mother.

I wish I could just leave it at that and everyone would nod their heads and go "I hear ya sister!"
Growing up I had heard women get along with their mothers, I used to think that these women were like unicorns. Then I met one and then another and suddenly my world where everyone could at least bond about their crazy parents came crashing down.

My mother was the "cool" mom in high school. I didn't have a curfew so all my friends spent most weekends at my house doing what teenagers with no rules do and my mom joined in. She was desperate to be seen as one of the gang and somehow in her head this involved lying to and manipulating my friends. Stuff that didn't come out until years later when we were all adults and talking about how crazy my house was. Funnily enough I was the "good girl" out of my friend even though I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted there just isn't that thrill when your not breaking any rules.

A couple of years ago my bff and I were having a girls night in with her two sisters when she joked about the time my mother offered to adopt her son. This was something I didn't know and kudos to my bff for remaining my friend after that went down. She was a teenage mother and we lived across the street from our school so my mother offered to babysit while we were in school. My bff first caught my mom telling people that my friends son was hers and calling herself "mommy" then one day she offered to adopt him from her. Seriously.

When my niece was born 2 years ago my sister caught my mom calling herself "mama" several times my mom claimed "to just do it out of habit." my sister was thisclose to hurting her.

Mainly now she just lies. Lies about little things, lies about big things, really she lies about most things. People were shocked that I was pregnant because my mom has spent over 15 years telling friends and family that I hated children and wouldn't ruin my life having one. She used to tell my sister and I over and over to never have children because they will ruin your life. I'm not sure what kind of person tells their own children such things but I am fairly sure that person should not actually hold the title of mother.

I do love her, she is my mother after all but after bringing me into this world she really hasn't bothered that much. I raised myself and my sister tells people that I raised her. Admittedly our mother, I believe suffers from episodes manic depression and probably some other issues, but she is unwilling to receive help. Most of my sisters memories of her own childhood involve our mother sleeping all the time. After I moved out my mother started getting violent with my sister, who is the only family member smaller than her.

Now that I am pregnant she has decided to act all motherly. Something that rubs me the wrong way being that it is too little, too late. Some might say it is because she feels guilty about how she raised us but I don't think that is it, she denies anything we confront her with and instead spins fantastical stories about how amazing she was when we were growing up.

A pregnancy book I read said that around the 6 month mark one should deal with any issues they might have with their mother. After started breathing again from laughing so hard I wondered if I could or should try to deal with them. Lay it all out for her to either apologise for, admit to or shrug it off and say she as doing the best she could. Any of those would be a salve of some sort. But I know she wouldn't do any of those things and I would quickly become the bad horrible daughter. Instead I vent on a blog or to my sister or to my friends. I release some steam to avoid boiling over, because it's the only thing I can do right now.

It will be interesting to see how things change once I give birth.

Flying the freak flag.

2010-07-20T10:27:00.003-04:00

Growing up I considered myself a city girl. Then when I was 14 I met a mohawked boy who lived in the country and we became friends and I would spend time with his admittedly eccentric family who all played music, had books lining the walls up the stairs and made pumpkin soup and served it in pumpkins. They also had chickens, two sheep and grew an amazing array of vegetables. This family changed my thinking. I didn't have to be a country bumpkin to love the country which for me was more shocking than finding out that my parents were actually Santa Claus.

I now consider myself an urban hippy, I live in the city but have some pretty new age hippy leanings which bubbled up to the surface when I started researching babies and birth and all that jazz.

My first choice was to have a midwife. Not a hard choice for me to make after witnessing my sisters OB in action during my nieces birth. All but one woman in labour during his shift gave birth vaginally, the rest were c-sections after inductions. Plus he was a complete dick to her the whole time, even the nurses were shocked by his behaviour.

After the midwife came the question of where to give birth. I was pretty sure I wanted a home birth but was afraid of what other people might think and that it would be too weird for Jonathan. Then I remembered that I was the one pushing a baby out of my body and where would I be most comfortable and was I really willing to give up my own comfort for social acceptance? So one night while out walking I told Jonathan that ideally I would want a home birth. Since he didn't divorce me right then and there I knew it was ok.

From there I decided I wanted a waterbirth. Because I like to space the bombs out I didn't mention this to anyone for a while. Instead I watched a bunch of YouTube waterbirths until one night as Jonathan walked past the computer he paused and said "Is she giving birth in a kiddie pool?" I confirmed that she was and he told me "That is just weird....wait..do you want to do that?" and I told him I was thinking about it. The next day I found some studies that said that water births were awesome for a few reasons and relayed the information to him. The whole bit about shorter labours and more relaxed mothers seemed to sway him.

From there it didn't seem too crazy to add things like not cutting the cord until it stops pulsing and attachment parenting. Then there was the article in Mothering that made me 100% decide to cloth diaper. All I said to Jonathan was "It saves a lot of money" and he was on board. We like saving money. Breastfeeding isn't even considered a weird option so it was obvious that we would go that route. Making our own baby food also seems pretty standard these days, at least in the city where the Whole Foods offers a class on it and William Sonoma sells a machine that does it for you!

Now I'm going to admit something that I have only said out loud to one friend(who is way more new agey than me so I knew it was safe ground.) I am thinking of having my placenta encapsulated so I can take it as a supplement.

There. I said it.

I swear I'm not saying it just to make people vomit.
I have a history of depression so I am already susceptible to postpartum which scares me. Everything I have read seems to suggest that consuming your placenta really helps with this and if it keeps me from jumping off a bridge or filling my body with chemicals then I'm letting my freak flag fly high. I have been on various anti depressants in my life and without fail the first few months of being on them always seem worse than the depression that I needed them for. If I can avoid them I will.

It's not like I'm making it into a smoothie, because somethings are even too weird for me.

Shower time!

2010-07-19T11:41:00.002-04:00

I have my first of two baby showers this weekend. It is the one that will be just friends(and Mothers/mother in law) then I will have a family one in September. Usually when dealing with large masses of family I like to stay drunk, of course in my current condition that really is not an option. I am arming myself with two friends at the family one who can save me when my chain smoking aunt gets all up in my grill about not visiting her(Remember how I don't drive? Well when you live 3 hours away by bus I am not about to visit so you blow smoke in my face. Just saying.) or when my cousin tells me about the time she used a sandwich bag as birth control.
I am so not kidding.

I'm looking forward to my first shower. I feel sort of weird though having a party thrown for me. Sure I have had birthday parties but that feels different somehow. Maybe because it is actually a party that is in celebration of successfully procreating. I'm also sort of uncomfortable when given gifts. I have this deep rooted fear that I am going to open something and blurt out "What the jiff is this?" or worse or that my gratitude will seem phony. I know that's insane but I have a real fear that I will say something and people will side eye each other and then behind my back talk about what an ungrateful bitch I am.

Yes, I had a rough time with other girls in school for a few years, why do you ask?

Ch-ch-changes

2010-07-15T14:04:00.003-04:00

As of today my midwife appointments are going to be every two weeks! Everything was good, baby is facing down so that bump that I was feeling is a bum and not a head, way to go baby!

Every time I go to the midwives I have to pee on stick and then check if the little squares change colour. They measure my glucose and protein levels and up until today those squares have never changed colour. Today the protein one did, it went to the colour just above the "trace" levels.

Since my blood pressure is that of a teenager and my weight gain is normal my midwife is taking a wait and see approach. So I'm following a much more strict diet and see if I can get that level back to the normal. Of course if I notice any major swelling or any of the symptoms of high blood pressure(dizziness, nausea, blurred vision etc.) I have to call right away.

I know that the one thing I haven't been eating as much of as I should is protein, so I am upping my protein and cutting out the things that I have been eating that I shouldn't be. Last thing I want is pre-eclampsia, that is the bad shizz.

Walls

2010-07-14T14:30:00.002-04:00

My friend calls the third trimester "That time you didn't get anything done and suddenly you had a baby." and I think she is onto something.

We were going to splash out on this really beautiful wallpaper for the nursery, it was like 60 bucks a roll and they only sold them in 2 roll packs and we only needed 3 rolls so it would have been like 240 dollars for wallpaper, not including all the tools and time needed to put it up(apparently fancy wallpaper is the kind you paste yourself.) so we were probably looking at close to 300 dollars for ONE wall.

So we scrapped that idea.

I started looking for alternatives to expensive wallpaper, which of course led me to wall stickers(decals, murals etc.).

All along I've wanted a woodland themed nursery and OH EM GEE wall stickers are the answer!

I don't know why I hadn't thought of them earlier, probably because my mind was clogged with visions of Disney wall stickers.

There are some pretty dang cool ones.

Blik has a lot of really nice ones that fit into my theme...like this one from Wee Gallery, THE FOX HAS A HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE! Total win. Then I saw these from designer Amy Ruppel and owls are my thing. I love the owls.

Totally want.

The fear.

2010-07-13T09:48:00.004-04:00

I was trying to think of things I'm afraid of and the only thing that I could think of was heights. Except I'm not afraid of roller coasters, at least I wasn't the last time I rode one which was something like a million years ago. Once though I had to cross a suspension bridge and if my bff wasn't with me I would have laid down in the middle of that bridge and started crying until someone came and stuck me with a tranquilizer and carried me off. I may or may not have told some German tourists that I would dismember them in a painful manner if they didn't stop jumping on the bridge and hurry up to the other side. It was just not cool.

The one thing that I'm not afraid is pushing a small human being out of my va-jay-jay. I know this puts me in a category of crazy all of my own but no matter how much I think about it I just don't seem able to fear it. I think some of my friends are more scared of me giving birth than I am.

I get it though. I am the only woman they personally know that is planning a home birth, I understand that as women who have all gone the hospital route what I am doing is unknown and strange to them and generally people are a bit afraid of the unknown.

I get that it's going to be the most intense thing I have ever experienced. I am not under any illusions that it isn't going to be. I have reassured Jonathan that I am not going to try to be a martyr for the natural childbirth movement, he's worried that I will put myself through hell just to stick to my guns. I know I have an abnormally high pain tolerance. Things that I am told are suppose to hurt a lot have for me only registered as a minor irritation. I once dropped a wooden box full of metal on my toe, it broke, I inhaled and exclaimed "That sucked." mostly because I was then going to be late. I slide down a metal cable at a playground, in shorts, slicing open my vag. There was lots of blood. I was more embarrassed then in pain. I didn't even cry. I've badly twisted and sprained my ankles a zillion times and nothing. During my tattoo I fell asleep, the guy doing it had told me that one of the places that hurt him the most when he got his there. I got a spinal tap, the migraine after kicked my ass pretty badly but again it falls under the "That sucked" category then the "I am dying from a horrible thing."category.

I'm not bragging, it's probably abnormal to have that sort of tolerance. I probably should be in some secret government lab having my dna tested for mutations or something.

The noise annoys.

2010-07-09T12:47:00.003-04:00

Several times a night Jonathan gives me a shake. I wish I could say it was an awesome strawberry milkshake but no, it's a shake because I am snoring. I usually wake myself up with the noise I'm making or the fact that I can't breathe. This morning when I apologized(what can I say I am Canadian, you bump into me? I am the one saying sorry.) to Jonathan for the snoring he tells me it is ok because he Googled it and pregnant ladies totally snore. Which I had told him, but I guess he doubted me and had to get a second opinion from the internet.

The internet totally says to give your wife foot rubs and to clean the house top to bottom.

TOTALLY.

The other night he also enquired about how much bigger the bump will get. To him it is huge but for me I don't even think I look REALLY pregnant yet. My stomach doesn't rest on the kitchen counter yet. Almost, but not quite. The babe is already 2-3 lbs and will most likely come out between 7-8 (or more.) so yeah the answer to his question is YES I WILL LIKELY GROW TO EPIC PROPORTIONS. I'm sure he took this information and realised that I might not be the happiest of campers in the upcoming months so he better clean up the basement so he can hide from me down there and make his beer. I'll be upstairs throwing out 94% of our belongings in a the name of nesting.

I did make it all better by adding that my boobs will also need their own time zone soon.

Dream time....

2010-07-08T11:52:00.002-04:00

Last night I dreamt that I was going to Disney World. I had this giant sparkly gold ticket and when I entered there was this woman with a fancy horse drawn carriage who was doing a magical fashion show of all the different costumes I could buy there. I wanted the cool looking Alice in Wonderland one that had a cape. The woman then showed me the details of the carriage and told me that it was "The carriage of the first republican."
Ok first there is the Sarah Palin fudge dream and now I dream about Republican carriages? Seriously I'm not Republican! I live in Canada so it isn't even an option!

Earlier in the week I had a dream that I was getting some sort of exam and they had to take the baby out and check, it was a girl with dark hair and they did all these measurements and checks and said to me "she's nearly perfect." which for some reason makes me freak out and start shouting "what do you mean nearly?" and the doctor/midwife/tech calms me down and puts the baby back inside me(which doesn't hurt at all) and tells me she just needs to finish up her time in there that is all. At this point I wake up.

Heat wave and fancy baby crap.

2010-07-07T19:07:00.003-04:00

My deep tissue massage left me with two bruises, yeah I get the hardcore massages. I will take the bruises over the sciatic pain that was keeping me from sleeping though. No one sees the bruises but people would see me sleep deprived which would lead to at best falling asleep at my desk and at worst freaking out on a stranger in public.

Right now were in the midst of a heat wave which is awesome. The heat I can handle, it is the city smog that is like breathing in pea soup that makes me shake my fists in the air. When you can see the air your breathing its just not a good thing.

I registered at a fancy baby store here in the city. I touched a stroller that was 1500 dollars and I may have caressed a crib that was 3000. There is something wrong with a baby having nicer furniture than me.

I registered for things I really didn't want, which today I had them remove.
A fancy bouncy chair that doesn't bounce, instead it has settings that mimic how parents would rock, an ocean(because baby's love riding the waves?) a kangaroo and a few other things that apparently sooth babies. It played several soothing sounds or could be hooked up to an mp3 player. It was fancy. It was 250 dollars. I didn't remove it because of the price tag(I registered for an organic baby crib set that was 400 bucks.) and it wasn't the slight absurdity of it.

We don't need it and we don't have room for it, so why register for it in the hopes that someone buys it for us? Sure maybe it is foolish of us to think that we could just hold the baby and if need be rock like the ocean, but we can surely live without a machine that we put the baby in(after we kick the cat out of it, because it is just begging to be a cat bed.) and then go about our business.

I also took off an expensive white knit baby outfit because I didn't LOVE it.

The best thing about registering at the fancy baby store was that it was right across the street from a gelato place I had been wanting to try. I got a small cup with roasted marshmallow and something called peanut butter chocolate wafer which I think might have been peanut butter and crushed up oreos and it was soooo good. I ended up drinking the last bit of it because it basically evaporated the second I stepped outside.

Kicking my ass.

2010-07-05T11:52:00.004-04:00

I am tired, I spent a lot of last night flipping around trying in vain to find a sleeping position that didn't cause my sciatic nerve to stab me in the hips and ass. I finally found some relief with a pillow stuffed under my back so I was on a weird angle with one knee up in the air. As soon as I got up this morning I knew I had to get a massage therapist appointment today or I would cry, not so much from the pain but from the lack of sleep that I cannot ply with copious amounts of coffee to get out of.

Seriously though, that is it on my list of things I'm not digging while pregnant. Occasional sciatic pain. Pain that subsides when I get a massage and chiropractic care. Yeah I know...tough.

The baby moves around a lot. I've had a few kicks that were literally in my ass, which was sort of a weird feeling. I've also had a couple that were direct hits in my belly button. Which I still amazingly have.

(some time later....)

So I went to my massage. I go for the deep tissue massages, the kind that sort of hurt. My massage therapist is pretty kick ass and today she literally kicked my ass. Ok so maybe she didn't kick it but she did use her elbows and massage it. There was one spot that felt like she was pressing a hot iron into my skin. I almost got her to lighten up, but really it wasn't too bad, just sort of like someone pressing on a badly sunburned bruise with a hammer.

I feel much better now, although I could totally use a nap now.

Spinach!

2010-07-02T17:01:00.002-04:00

Did you know that if you pour boiling water onto weeds they smell like boiled spinach? They weren't even dandelions which I would sort of understand since you can eat them.

We've been doing home stuff. By we I mean The Mister, who going forward I will call Jonathan because half the time when typing out "The Mister" I type "The Miser" and one of these days I'm not going to catch myself.

We were pouring boiling water on the weeds that grow in the cracks on our driveway. Since we don't own a car they get out of control FAST. My bff told me that pouring boiling water on them would make it easier to pull them up as it kills the roots. Since I'm all green and granola about those sorts of things I figured we'd give it a shot. Half way through though we decided to just go and get some weed killer. Ontario has a pesticides ban so whatever we will be using won't be too harsh.

Right now he's finishing up painting our muskoka chairs. Last year when we built them we stained them a colour that claimed to be cedar. Instead they were orange. So it was decided that if I couldn't have a glossy white deck like I wanted(although I have now changed my mind because OMG that would be such a pain in the ass to clean!) I wanted glossy white deck furniture. I figured this way I could add colour with crap like cushions and place mats.

I really would love to be on one of those shows where we move out for a few days or a week and then return to home that is renovated, perfectly organized and amazing. Where a team of 100 has turned my backyard into the hang out spot of our dreams and replaced our falling down giant shed with a cute little shed that fits everything perfectly and has little covered area for sitting and having tea under. I can see what my finished house looks like in my head, but getting there, well that seems to make the quest for the holy grail seem like cake.

26 weeks

2010-06-27T18:06:00.001-04:00

26 weeks.

My belly button now looks over to the side. Maybe it always did but now it's just more apparent. There is a band of skin across the top of my stomach that always seems to be mad at me. It goes from tingly, to stingy, to numb and then itchy. No amount of creams sooths it, I'm guessing it's something to do with nerves and skin being stretched.

Other than that everything is normal as can be. Sometimes I still forget I'm pregnant, like if I'm bending over to get something and realise that I cannot really bend at the waist anymore.

I am slowly filling out what seems to be an unending amount of forms. Even though were planning a home birth we still have to register at the hospital just in case of transfer. Then I have to fill out my maternity leave forms, I haven't even printed them out yet but I am sure that there are probably a zillion pages as it is a government form. I haven't even decided when I'm going to start maternity leave. I'm due October 2nd and was thinking maybe two weeks before that. Right now the thought of any more than two weeks before makes me anxious, like what would I do for those two weeks? But I might change my tune as I get closer.

The Mister has a dream

2010-06-26T10:27:00.003-04:00

Last night The Mister fell asleep with his hand on my stomach, something he doesn't normally do as he is a weirdo stomach sleeper and I face away from him on my left side. Suddenly he sort of gently shakes me awake asks
"Do you remember the baby flavors?"
"What? What are you talking about?" I say because really, what is he talking about?
"The baby flavors from this morning, remember?"
I'm searching my brain trying to remember if we had talked about something that day that had to do with flavors, then I realise that he is probably actually asleep.
"Are you dreaming?"
"NO! Never mind ask me in the morning to remind you about the baby flavors." he says sort of frustrated that I cannot remember some really important conversation we had about either the flavor of babies or flavors for babies.

So of course this morning I ask him if he remembered the baby flavors? Of course he had no clue what he had been on about. Now baby flavors has been added to our list of inside jokes.

New rule!

2010-06-25T10:28:00.002-04:00

There are no mirrors in our house. The one we bought for our bathroom reno didn't fit and we still haven't found a replacement. Then the BIG one we had in our bedroom got taken down when we were painting and we decided to get rid of it. Somehow I hadn't realised that we didn't have any other mirrors in our house. Oops. So now I'm parting my hair using the reflection I can see in the shiny black plastic of the tv.

When leaving the house for work I can only pray that I am not committing some heinous fashion crime. I probably am and would probably still be committing that same crime if I had a mirror but right now my excuse is that I have no mirror, therefore no clue.

I am getting restless to get my house in order. I feel like I have a zillion things to do before I have a baby and getting a mirror or two or three is on that list. Art work on the walls. A BIG purge of every nook and cranny. Seriously all the drawers except one is a junk drawer. The Mister will put things in drawers and not even think "Hey maybe the dog brush shouldn't be stored with the large cooking utensils." not to mention that he refuses to get rid of any utensil even if we have ten of them. I have attempted to get rid of this one vegetable peeler for 4 years. FOUR YEARS. I am tempted to bring it into work and throw it out there. Heaven forbid we get rid of the rusty pizza cutter or the part for that espresso maker we no longer have, the earth might get thrown off it's axis if we do.

So I'm going to purge like a woman possessed(or pregnant which might be the same thing.) and then make a new rule that limits what is contained in this house.

ONLY BEAUTIFUL AND/OR USEFUL THINGS MAY ENTER THIS HOUSE AND IT MUST ALREADY HAVE A PLACE.

I want to come home and go "ahhhhhhh" not "arrrrrrrrgh"

I've got 3 months to get this house in the order that I need it to be so that when I am sleep deprived I don't have to worry about cutting off a finger while reaching for something in a drawer. Which totally reminds me that we should probably get a first aid kit or at least some bandaids.

I felt the earth move under my feet...

2010-06-24T09:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk and I felt like I was vibrating. At first I thought I was unconsciously rocking to and fro, then I realised my cubicle walls were also swaying so I thought maybe a coworker was going to town on his computer YouTube styles. I stood up and removed my headphones(I was watching 16 and Pregnant at the time.) No coworker. Instead I noticed that the blinds were also rattling. Other coworkers stood up from across the office, confirming that I was not going crazy. We ran over to the window to see if anyone was panicking on the streets, nope business as usual. My office is over a subway line so for a moment I thought about a subway bomb. Then an IM popped up from a friend in the north part of the city

Him: Did your office just shake?
Me: OMG yes! WTF? Earthquake?

Earthquakes don't really happen here. My sister was working in the mall for the last one she said the decorations hanging from the ceiling started swaying. I had been in a car so I hadn't noticed. It was the same with this one anyone on the ground floor didn't notice a thing.

I have to admit it was really cool. I probably wouldn't think it was that cool if I lived somewhere where they happened all the time or brought buildings down. But a little shake every now and then to remind you that you are living on a living orb wouldn't be too bad.

The best part was on the news last night, they were interviewing people around the corner from my work and they were greatly exaggerating how much the place shook. One woman was saying her computer monitor moved down her desk.

Then last night there were tornado warnings and one touched down a few hours north. Here it just poured rain, the kind of rain that makes me wish we had a metal roof. Literally the earth moved and the sky came tumbling down! Guess mother nature likes Carole King.

Today the sun is shining and everything smells clean and fresh. I'm working in my pjs and drinking our new favorite new coffee. The Mister woke me up by playing Kate Bush and now were listening to the Placebo covers album. The breeze is coming in from the deck. I want to work like this every day.

Being a snob.

2010-06-23T11:39:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I registered for baby items. Since we eloped I didn't get to do the whole wedding registry thing so I was giddy with excitement about being let loose with one of those scanning guns.

I went with my sister because the Babies R Us in my hometown is a deluxe one that carries a wider range of stuff. I am pretty sure I scanned every single organic item in there. I did this in hopes that even if my relatives don't buy stuff of the registry they look at what I have registered for and I don't end up with the weird praying stuffed bunny with the satanic voice or the dress made of a material that quite possible was banned from Canada in the 70's for bursting into flames or causing blindness(or both) that my sister did at her shower. Did I mention that everything my extended family gave my sister stank of smoke, as in when she unwrapped it I'm pretty sure we got a nicotine high from the fumes.

I realised as I was walking around trying to muster up the courage to scan the first item that I am not really comfortable asking people for stuff I want. I worried that people would look at my registry and say things like "Oh she must think she is special asking us to buy this 80 dollar diaper bag." I know that some of my relatives will think I'm being a snob for all the organic items on there. I have actually been confronted by my Aunt about thinking I'm too good to visit them. Sigh.

Then I thought "Screw that, this is what I want for my baby and so what if I want nice things?" and I started scanning like a woman possessed.