28w4d - Bienvenido a "Third Tri"

I've been a neglectful blogger. Sorry bout that. My friend urged me to write more and I said I would and then I failed. I have been feeling sooooo overwhelmed. Work has become a bear. Much more so that usual. I believe I've mentioned that I work in property management. Here's what happens to properties when a once-in-20-years polar vortex (could that sound more dramatic?) occurs: all hell breaks loose. Pipes freeze, ice dams on roofs, water leaks into interior spaces, heating systems have a complete nervous breakdown. Here's how emotionally, intellectually and physically equipped I feel to deal with arctic disasters at the beginning of my third trimester: not at all. Right now, I wish I worked in an Indian call center. "Hi, my name is Roxanne (obviously not). Have you tried cycling your router? Oh really? Well, try again." See, I'd ace that shit. Indian call centers are warm, might potentially have reasonably comfortable seating, and might have decent shift hours (probably not). I'm just complaining. I'm sorry. Constant complaining is currently my crutch. Just ask my husband. Enough of that.


28 weeks in review (I just typed "38 weeks" which actually would be the most telling typo ever): I am a small pregnant lady. My weight gain was slow to start but is now staying on track. It is, however, centered on three places: boobs that look as though they'll be able to end hunger in a smattering of east African nations, a small-to-medium-sized low and compact belly, and a constantly growing ass. I don't understand why or how my ass has taken the lion's share of the responsibility but Nordstrom Rack's underwear department has been happy to comply with my never ending need for larger and larger underthings. In fun news, my uterus is measuring on schedule (low tech obstetrics) and baby boy is bouncing around as though I'm feeding him crack. This is hands down my favorite part of pregnancy. In the past week or so I've reached the point where I can feel a heel attached to a leg swinging around my upper right abdomen. I can feel that little leg and rub it for all of ten seconds before he squirms away. I can find a butt somewhere just south and right of my belly button. Confirmed by my OB at my last appointment, my guy is head down now! He still has room, could flip breech, but for now seems to alternate between head down and an angled transverse position. The miracle is that I can feel all this at all. Pregnancy has ceased to me a mysterious "condition" and now has become this very literal experience of carrying around an articulated human being wedged between my lower ribs and pubic bone. This may seem obvious to those of you who have been pregnant before but I really can't believe that later pregnancy feels so literal. I know, overuse of that word. But there it is. I am not merely swelling, I am carrying around a person.

I have become desperate to meet said person. As I get to know that one leg and mini butt, I just want him out and with me.  Perhaps this is a thinly veiled desire to start maternity leave this very moment (see first paragraph and "polar vortex"). I know, he's not at all done cooking. 10-12 more weeks. But how bout 10? 10 sounds good, right? I am insane and am completely thrilled and excited by the idea of going into labor. When I go into labor, it means I get to meet him. How Giselle Bundchen am I? I'll remember that it hurts at some point. Our child birth class takes place in 3 weeks. Maybe I'll reconsider my excitement then.


I've gone from wanting the nursery to be done in the next two months to wanting it done this very second. Because now he feels real. People who have legs need a bedroom and they need it now. Embroider that on a pillow if you wish. It's J's job to do all the physical work as he is A) a furniture maker and finish carpenter and B) he is not pregnant. This morning I maybe flipped a little bit because I determined that he was tackling projects in the wrong order. I have since apologized and blamed hormones. It's not hard to be too critical when your job is surfing the internet for adorable nursery décor while others slave away doing physical labor. Poor J. Wait, no, he gets a baby out of the deal, too.


"Third trimester" and "baby shower" are terms that I was not sure would ever be uttered in the same sentence as my name. Unless, of course, someone said, "That Amy, she'll never have a third trimester or baby shower." Yet, here they are upon me. This weekend I am headed to Boston with my besties where my friend and I will share honors at a mini brunch shower. (I am one of three of my best girlfriends expecting between February and July. All of us are having boys. All of us will learn about tiny penises together.) Then, later in February, I am having another shower thrown by my mom's best friends, known affectionately as The Cowgirls. These ladies have known me since I was a little girl and each has played a really special role in my life. I asked the Cowgirl hosting the shower if it could be a Jewish deli themed shower because generally I'd prefer to eat bagels, cream cheese and capers rather than play painfully awkward games. She was thrilled with the idea and is obliging. My registry is done (I need/want all of that?) and I've started to get gifts here and there. My little infertile soul wonders if the senders know that they might have wasted their money by sending gifts to a baby that will never actually exist. Then I get kicked in the ribs and work to banish all such thoughts. People with legs are real and need things. They need a nursery, clothes, a stroller with specs that rival my Toyota's, an activity gym for tummy time and pumping iron, pacifiers with stuffed animals attached, and swaddling blankets nicer than anything I've every put on my own bed. It is all excessive and thrilling.


I'm currently working on a post of my pregnancy essentials. Things that have kept me comfortable and diminished the complaining to a low roar. Forthcoming. Until then, mucho amor. I stalk all of your blogs, FB pages, etc. and am thinking constantly of your smiling faces and the state of your uteri.

25w5d - Plague, Kegels, and Nesting

My holidays were more exciting than yours. More exciting IF you consider a familial case of plague-like stomach flu and an infant hospitalization exciting. And I do. You clicked on me, remember? First thing first, Niecelette is totally fine now however I will say that she started it. Along my brother-in-law. Simultaneously. At about 11 PM on December 22nd, Niecelette nursed like a champ and then proceeded to vomit it all up. Twice. Then slept and slept and slept which, as rule, newborns do not do. They sleep, wake up, feed, then sleep again. Not Niecelette. Unbeknownst to my sister, she was starting Baby's First Hunger Strike. In a bathroom down the hall, at the very same time, my sister's husband started vomiting as only a 6' 5" Canadian can. Niecelette kept on sleeping and my sister just stayed up staring at her, willing her to wake up and get her boob-on. At around 11 AM the next morning, my dad (a pediatrician) called it and took Niecelette to the emergency room. She hadn't eaten in 12 hours and was very lethargic. At the hospital, it was determined that she had a run of the mill stomach virus, just like her dad, but because she was only 13 days old she needed to be monitored for dehydration and kept on an IV. She and my sister spent the night at the hospital. The next evening (Christmas Eve), after feeding in very small amounts every 4-5 hours, she was allowed to go home.

 

In a medical crisis, I am your go-to-gal. I think it comes from growing up in a medical family; I'm the only one in the immediate family not currently or formerly in some branch of the field. (I like buildings.) I understand the lingo and can typically see past the symptoms to the bigger picture. However, when your 8.5 lb niece is lying there in a toddler hospital gown (Really children's hospital? No infant-sized apparel?), not eating and unable to stay awake, I promise that your cool, sensible Google-medical-school-educated head will fail you and your heart will just melt all over the floor. We were told the whole time that she was okay and would get better but still. Gah.

 

Niecelette revived and thrived, as did her dad. On Christmas morning, we all gathered at my mom and dad's house for presents and general merriment. My mom bore a slight resemblance to a green puddle and proceeded to get the same virus. Thinking myself of heartier stock than these weaklings, I washed my hands 74 times and went on my merry way to J's family's celebration. The next morning I woke up to bowel-churning, head-spinning nausea and remained more or less in the fetal position for 36 hours. I feel bad for my judgement of Niecelette's lethargy and refusal to eat. Here's what I did while sick with the same virus: did not eat and slept for the entire time. So, she had kind of a good wellness plan. I'll give her that.

 

Everyone was seemingly in the clear, virus gone, by Friday. The whole family - my mom and dad, Juice, her husband, baby Niecelette, J and me - packed into our respective vehicles and spent the next few days at the family cabin in Wisconsin. It was glorious until J got a belated strain of the virus and was banished to the bedroom. With the exception of that hiccup, it was a generally fabulous trip. I got to hold and play with Niecelette constantly. She is possibly the cutest baby ever. I also found that my relationship with my sister had slid back into normalcy after oh, say, 9 months of torture. Even once I was pregnant, the childish strain of "but her pregnancy is bigger, better, farther along, more naturally conceived than mine" played constantly in my head. It only took two or three weeks after the birth of my niece. Sigh. It gets easier, it just takes a birth, stomach virus and the general easing of emotional insanity to make the pain start to fade.

 

Ok, enough of that. I've written tomes on my emotional response to my sister's pregnancy/my miscarriage/my current pregnancy/yada yada. I shall write more, I'm sure.

 

Another milestone occurred while I was in Wisconsin. One morning, while wearing light grey, thin cotton pajama pants (you'll need that detail for later), I was standing around laughing with my sister and her husband. Of all things, we were talking about pregnancy brain. We joked about something mildly funny and, appropriately, I laughed a little bit. Not a lot. Just a little. And then I peed. Not a lot. Just a little. Juice then made me laugh again. Just a little. I then peed an equivalent amount. So now I've peed a little twice which means I've peed a medium amount in previously described pants. Under my breath I murmured, "Omigod I just peed my pants," turned, and walked to the bathroom at which point my sister saw my copiously pee-stained pants and announced that I had peed my pants. Fair enough. It was true. Once in the bathroom, I sneezed and peed again. So that happened. I became incontinent at 25 weeks pregnant. As I may have mentioned before, I have this bizarrely long torso that I inherited directly from my simian ancestors. My uterus has tons of room to expand before lifting and hitting my ribcage. As a result, little guy is riding low and at times wedges himself between my hip bones and smashes my bladder. According to the websites, he now weighs about 1.5 lbs. According to the science experiment described above, my bladder can accommodate under but nothing equal to or greater than 1.5 lbs of crushing pressure. I may have to accept that when he settles in that low wedge position from which he will not be moved, I will just pee myself. I knew this might happen. I just didn't realize I would have to buy maternity Depends this early in the game. 

I don't use hashtags frequently. I reserve them for my twitter posts about tween pop stars. But here, I feel that a hashtag is required. #timeforkegels.

 

In general, non-bodily fluid related news, I am nesting. It has hit with a vengeance. I have gone from being perfectly content with the future nursery looking like a hoarder/heroin addict's den to selling almost everything we own on Craigslist. Want a decrepit piano? Check Craiglist. A well-intentioned Christmas gift of a leather, memory foam full-size massage table? Ditto. Bar stools from an unused bar? All yours. Also the bar. Take it. I might sell my bed, refrigerator, sofa and anything else that takes up room. This is addictive.

 

Here's a stupidly adorable pic of me and Niecelette. True, I am possibly the most irresponsible aunt ever but, in my defense, it was 40 degrees, she was wrapped in fleece and down, my mom took the photo and my sister watched and approved whole-heartedly. I intend to retake this photo annually as a completely accurate measure of her growth (and mine). As her mother is 5' 8" and her dad is 6' 5", I figure she'll be taller than me by age 7.

 

Never too early to learn to make snow angels.

 

Happy 2014! May you stay blissfully free of viruses and incontinence.

 

 

  

 

 

22w4d - The Family Grows

Holy emotional shit storm. Yesterday, December 10th at 10:10 AM, I became an aunt to a beautiful baby girl. 8 lbs 1 oz, 21 long, long inches.  7 months and 9 days after the announcement that sent me reeling for so long. 2 days after my first due date. I wish I could say that in the moment, none of it mattered. I am not proud. My mom and I paced the hall outside of the delivery room until we heard her first cries. Immediately, we both bawled. We cried, while she cried, for the total miracle of your own daughter/sister having her own healthy baby. I cried too for the distance this pregnancy put between us, even while I was in the midst of my own. I flipped back and forth between elation and this difficult feeling of longing, a childish response of "this should have been me." I hate to admit those feelings. It was not my time. It was a miracle, my family had grown by a whole perfect human being.

Those feelings dissipated entirely once I got to meet her. Really, she is possibly the most beautiful little girl in the world. She has a shocking amount of thick, dark brown hair and rosebud lips. I couldn't stop touching her impossibly soft cheeks and belly and holding on to her feet. She will know me as "that giant that won't stop poking me." I spent the day my newly larger family. Mostly we stared and commented on how much she looked like a member of our immediate family. Halfway across the country, my brother-in-law's family commented on how much she looked like their family. They are wrong. She is totally one of us. Smushy, rosy lips are our trademark. It's hilarious how narcissistic newborns make us. We are so quick to claim their every feature as our own. I really do think she looks like a hybrid between me and my sister as newborns because me-me-me-me-me. That's what babies do to us. We become so vainly introspective as we gaze into their every-baby-could-have-been-switched-at-birth faces.

My sister was a total trouper. Her water broke on Monday afternoon with nary another sign of impending labor. Once at the hospital, they started her on Pitocin which led to a completely sleepless night. At 6:15 am she was 3 cm dilated. Only 2.5 hours later she was fully dilated and evicting that kid. No sleep, no pain meds, 1.5 hours of pushing. She's like a Navy Seal of childbirth.

I stayed until early evening and then drove back home to the city. I gushed on the phone to friends (hands free, safety first) and then sat in traffic and allowed anxiety set in. Seriously, I hate that I did this and that I continue to let myself go to these dark places. It seems so selfish. I am sometimes incapable of reason and seeing the big picture. My heart started aching. Surely, it would not go so perfectly for me. Bad things happen to me - this is my default, stupid, dark place mantra. I will never get my boy. I will go into early labor. I will lose him. April will never come (unlikely). Maybe he will be born but not healthy, not beautiful like his cousin. Will my family gush over him as much since he's a boy and not a rosebud-lipped girl? Send in the men in white coats. I'm sure there's a perfectly lovely asylum where I can convalesce for the rest of my pregnancy, preferably in a medically-induced coma. These are the fucking thoughts that circled my mind last night and this morning. I hate them. I hate those thoughts. They represent the worst of me and the worst of two years of infertility. I am ashamed that I can't just revel in the love and awe I feel for my niece and enjoy this wonderful, healthy pregnancy that I've been blessed with. To clarify, I do get those moments of peace, wonder and happiness. I experienced that nearly all day yesterday with my niece and sister and didn't fall apart until I was alone in the car. On weekend mornings, when I sit around reading, sipping a cup of tea, and feel and see my boy bopping around inside, I am there: totally in love and in the moment. He and I feel natural and meant to be. I just can't always cling on to that. I bought a Christmas ornament for him and hung it on our tree. I visit it as my reminder of how good I have it and how real he is. Fake babies do not have Christmas ornaments, right? We call our boy "Pindakaas," the Dutch word for peanut butter, because...because why not? Pin for short. We remain miles apart on names and I am a bit concerned that he will forever be known as Pindakaas. I suppose there are worse names. Pin's ornament is a piece of toast with peanut butter and two banana slices on it (J and I are clearly the bananas - one of us more than the other). Impossibly cute, like my fetus. Handcrafted affirmations in felt.

TGIE - Thank God for Etsy

I am going over to my sister's house after work to welcome them home and eat my mom's home cooking. As soon as I'm there, I'll be madly in love again. I will feel like that the whole time I'm there. I will possibly/probably melt down in the car. And then I'll pull myself together, feel my baby boy squirming, and will be fine. And then not. And then fine again. Possibly until April.

I'll leave you with a photo of my family's new perfect love.



Look at those sweet lips and that head of hair. Could you die?

A Belated Bloggy Thanksgiving

Wednesday, my day was book ended by incredibly fabulous news. With my morning decaf, I read this by Stupid Stork. Rejoice.Then, I went about my day, doing boring work things, generally rolling my eyes, practicing mediocre posture and pondering the merits of baby play yards-bassinette combos. Riveting. At the end of the day, I checked my blogroll once again and found yet another holiday miracle BPF story from Cork & Stork. This mixed in with Amanda from Beloved Burnt Toast tepidly celebrating the end of her first trimester. Honestly, I felt like my computer screen was set to the infertile Hallmark channel. My heart simply sung. If pregnancies were earned through wit, sarcasm and enviable writing skills, these girls would be octomoms several times over. Alas, they are not. And so through lots of science, patience and determination, they finally have what they deserved. This year, may we all be thankful for petri dishes. I know I am.

Blogging as a part of the online infertility community has been such an affirming, therapeutic experience. I don't know but I can't imagine the same level of camaraderie among knitting or home improvement bloggers. Some of my readers are my pre-blog, real life friends (IRL, as the kids say). They check my blog to see what's going on - IVF treatment status, the sitch in my underpants, etc - so that I don't have to write countless emails or go over the more painful details over and over again. In part, that's why I started blogging. Mostly, I began blogging to purge all of the stuff rattling around in my head, built up over this bizarre experience of having major lady organ failure. While the purging has been a blessing, the community has been the real boon. Call me creepy, but I think of many of my fellow IF bloggers as real friends. I think I can sympathize with Nev's sad-eyed participants on MTV's Catfish. You make me feel loved. It really doesn't matter whether that's crazy or not. I haven't invited any of you to move into my parents' house despite never having skyped with you. Your video chat has been down for 3 years, I understand. You only have 3 photos of yourself on Facebook and 10 friends with suspiciously unusual names. That's because you're an army brat from Guam. I get you. You get me. Our uteri are shaped like popcorn, our eggs are poached, and our husbands' nuts are filled with pop rocks. You are my (IRL and interweb) peeps. Thanks for being here. I'm not signing off, just having a little belated Thanksgiving gratitude fest.

20w3d - Relief-a-palooza!

This post includes an ultrasound pic. Feel free to skip if you're not in the mood.

First, I have reached the Bon Jovi portion of this pregnancy. I'm not going to bother with typing out the lyrics.

Breathing. Sighs. of. Relief. Kid just ACED his 20 week anatomy scan.

Four chamber heart? Check.
Kidneys? 2
Fingers and toes? Five per appendage, totalling 20.
Eyes? 2 gaping black holes (apparently how they're supposed to look)
Legs, arms, bladder, all that good stuff. He's a properly forming baby. Amazing.

J and I opted out of any early risk assessments - nuchal translucency, MaterniT21, and the like - at 12 weeks. I was on the fence and welcomed reassurance (though terrified of bad news) while J felt very strongly about not doing testing. His reasoning? We get what we get and we'll love who we get. Let's not spend the next 6-7 months worried about something we can not change. We will deal with whatever it is when the baby is born. We knew that we didn't want to terminate unless we found out without a shadow of a doubt that the baby's condition was incompatible with life. How do you find out without a shadow of a doubt? Through CVS or amnio, both of which carry very small risks of miscarriage. We just weren't game for all of it. J's strong stance on the issue made me gradually feel more comfortable. Lingering in the back of my mind were those "incompatible with life" syndromes. A hell of a euphemism. As this pregnancy has progressed seemingly normally and Kid is now big and strong enough to make me feel him moving around (despite a stubborn anterior placenta), I've been in a pretty good place. I really have trusted that he's healthy and normal. All that said, whispers of horror stories danced in my head leading up to today's scan. What if, what if, what if... And then, nothing. All good. A happy (I project), squirmy boy nestled right where he should be. My cervix is nice and long and my OB announced my risk of preterm labor "as low as anybody else's."* 

I feel a little weirdly relaxed. Very happy. Like I just had a glass or two of wine. It's the warming juju of relief.

Without further ado, here's my boy...

Looks like he's smiling, doesn't he?

*I admittedly had a freakout of a cervical nature that I shan't go into on these pages. Long story short, I had images of babies, keys and cell phones falling willy nilly out of my short gaping cervix. I don't know why I do these things to myself.

19w3d - Of Milestones and Stupidity

The pregnancy milestone that I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for has finally happened. About a year later than everyone else, I've started to feel lil' guy moving around. It's been very subtle - a few thumps here and there. My friend likened those early sensations to that of a balloon hitting a ceiling. Yup, sounds about right. Something small, blind and slippery keeps on bumping around. Occasionally, I'll feel a distinct and sudden movement. That's pretty rare so far. I've spent the last week or so wondering whether or not my sensations were due to gas (honestly they still frequently are) or to the kid. On Friday evening, I lied down on my bed with my doppler (best friend for life!) and placed it on my lower right abdomen where I kept thinking I felt something. Like magic, kid kicked hard and moved the doppler! I felt it inside and saw it outside. Confirmation. Since then, I've been trusting myself more and paying more attention. There's movement in there and it's weird and completely awesome. J is completely obsessed. He places his hand on my belly and swears he can feel something. I don't really think he can since the sensations are so subtle for me but it makes him happy. Why mess with it, you know?

And speaking of milestones, we're running into another. J and I have started looking into daycare. It would be lovely if one of us could stay home full time to take care of kid. Unfortunately, our finances simply won't allow this. The cost of a nanny is prohibitive so we've been checking out daycare centers. This may seem way too early however we'll simply be placing our name on the waiting list for July. Chicago parents are a rabid bunch of planners. I'm convinced some of them are putting their names on the lists before they even get pregnant. How can you get a leg up on these folks?

The child care search is terrifying on several levels. First, cost. It is cray-cray expensive to send your kid to daycare full time. Think private college tuition expensive. The places we're looking at - not fancy in the slightest, mind you - cost as much or more per month than our mortgage. Second, you are leaving your super tiny infant with a stranger. I don't even know this kid yet. I worked so hard to get him. I have to hand him off to strangers before he's even able to sit on his own? I know that everyone does this and it will be fine, it just gives me a bit of a sad. Third... I don't think there is a third. I'm sure there is, I just can't think of it yet. Contagious disease or something. So perhaps there aren't several things to be worried about, just two big ones. If you think of more, please keep them to yourself. I'm sure I'll come up with them soon on my very own.

Back in the first trimester, my sister asked me if I was "stupid yet." She, apparently, was dealing with classic pregnancy brain. (A scary note: she's a nurse in an impressive sounding department at a large hospital. I won't tell you which one.) I was all, "Why no! I'm sharp as a tack!" Fast forward to now. I am, on many days, dumb as a bag of hair. It hurts. My brain gets covered in this thick layer of green mold and I forget things and bumble around like I'm blind-folded. There's nothing I seem to be able to do about it. I fake myself out with a decaf coffee (living on the edge). I take the occasional walk. Helps slightly. It comes and goes. Yesterday was a really moldy day. Today is not. My job, while often intense and stressful, does not involve life or death decisions or the fate of nations. For this I am grateful. I apologize for any doubt I have cast upon other pregnant women who may or may not be battling the gradual molding of their brains. I'm sure they're all fine. It's just me. Or not.

Final note: anatomy scan on Tuesday. I'm a leetle bit nervous. Please be ok. Please be ok. 

17w6d - The Mother of Invention

Necessity is the mother of invention. Some genius said that. Ah yes, wikipedia says it was Plato.

I have an invention that is not really an invention that could revolutionize maternity pants. You see, those vaguely elastic panels don’t actually hold anything up, they just cover and smooth the belly. I’d say they do about 3-5% of the pants-holding-up responsibilities necessary. Your own hips and ass are responsible for the rest. Also problematic is the fact that the waist of the pants must be large enough to fit over your ass and thighs therefor, on most women, being slightly larger than that small but crucial stretch between bump and the spread of your hips.

 

Fact: this not-actually-pregnant model hiked her designer maternity jeans up between every frame.

Depending on the stretch of the material and your girth, the panel + gravity combo is often not enough. Leggings are a rare exception. I find myself scotching up my pants 7 times a day. And that’s just because I don’t care about the other 28 times when I need to. At first I thought under-the-shirt suspenders were an option but then considered my lopping mammaries. Then I remembered those adjustable tabs that were on hideous carpenter pants. You can adjust them to be tighter and cinch in your pants at the waist. In my perfect world, three maternity pant tabs would be placed on the pants - one at each hip and one at the back (located your tramp stamp). These tabs could be adjusted throughout the day as necessary to accommodate meals, gas, etc. What do you think? Genius! Now someone should manufacture them for me. I can't really sew and do not own a sewing machine. Also not in the market for one. Thanks for the offer.

 

 

I figure my options to solve the problem of ever sagging pants are as follows:

1. I actually figure out where to get real pants tabs and sew them on by hand. I'm exhausted just thinking about this but it might be the only way. 
2. 
   Don't solve the problem. There's nothing wrong with low-riding the crotch of your pants at mid-thigh. (To answer your question, yes, I am wearing the correct size pants.)
3. Use giant diaper pins to cinch the small amount of fabric that needs cinching. Do they even sell these now? Will I get stabbed twice a day? (This was my supervisor's suggestion. He has been dragged into the issue against his will. I feel he has an inherent interest in my pants staying on at the office.)
4. Suspenders. See boob issue and general fashion concerns.
5. Dapper Snappers. These are super awkward, bulky and of questionable value. I would squeal with delight if any of you have actually used these. Clips are available for pants without belt loops (98% of maternity pants).



 

What is the solution to this? Why is this a problem that we as a society have not addressed? Can I just wear maternity overalls and is that a thing?