crabby baby

germalicious!

Aside from babies, I have been waylaid by the weirdest cold that I have ever caught. JH had it first, and I suspect he got it from biting the handle of the shopping cart at the supermarket. He started to have these weird boogers - they were like little snot plugs, and they looked like at one point his nose might have been bleeding. Then suddenly Joe started to get nosebleeds and similar snotty residue, and I started to feel extremely achy and my nose also started to bleed, though not with the same frightening spurtiness as Joe's. Then there was much running of the nose and exhaustion. I'm feeling a little better now, though I'm still pretty baby-tired. I still have some nose issues, but I find often than not I can breathe through it, which is a charming new development.

i guess it was inevitable

JH is very mobile now - not quite walking - but by using a crawling-cruising combination he can get pretty much anywhere in the house he desires. This includes the place where we keep the cat food. I'm sure you all have come to the same conclusion...mmmm, Whiskas. We caught JH with a mouthfull of little fishy shapes, and I had to do the mommy fingersweep and clean the deck. I can almost say I was okay with him sharing the kibble, except this particular brand has little filled bits in it that I can only imagine the chemical and by-product magic needed to create them. Oh well. As long as they aren't his main source of nutrition...

baby 2.0 update

Max is doing well - he's a little gassy and constipated, as we decided that it was probably best for my mental health to formula feed. In order for me to be a fully functioning and somewhat rational member of society (and also a good Mommy) I need my sleep, a little more so than the average person. Max wasn't a "good" nurser - he would nurse off and on for an hour then want to start fifteen minutes after I put him down, pretty much ruining any chance for meaningful sleep. This might be okay if a)I didn't also have a 14 month old who is now going through an "I need my Mommy" phase, which kind of puts the kibosh on naps for me and b)I didn't have, uh, largish bosoms and I was very afraid that if I dozed while night-nursing I would wind up suffocating him. So, Max is a bottle baby.

Oh, and he has the stinkiest gas ever. Great Caesar's ghost is it smelly.

Other than gas and poopy problems, he's great! He's growing, opening his eyes and looking around, and he can already do little push-ups if he's on his tummy. The doctor said he has excellent muscle tone. That makes one of us...

introducing max!

He's here! Max was born last Thursday, February 24 at 10:20 AM. He was 9 pounds even at birth, and 20 1/2 inches long. He has an amazing head of hair! I'm doing ok, a little tired and sore, but everything looked good at the last check...I get my stitches out tomorrow. More later...I have an armful of baby and typing one handed is a little too much for my tired, shriveled brain. There's a couple of pictures in Max's own little album over to the left, if you'd like to see all the hair for yourself!

36 weeks, 10 pounds 2 ounces

Well it's a good thing that I'm having the baby tomorrow, as apparently murder is the second leading cause of death among pregnant women. I'll take a c-section over murder any day!

So, tomorrow is the big day. Baby 2.0 will make his debut sometime in the morning. When we went into get the amnio on Tuesday, his weight was estimated between 9 pounds 12 ounces, and 10 pounds 2 ounces. Holy giant baby! He also has quite a bit of hair. I'm excited to meet him, but I'm a little apprehensive about the surgery. And not having my little bed bug JH around for three days. Sniff. Once again though, better than murder. So, I'm going to finish watching the Project Runway finale, take a shower, and tomorrow give birth to Baby 2.0 - Maxwell Thomas Edward. Woo hoo!

and then there were four

Next week, I will probably be having a baby.

Due to what my the ob/gyn feels is "poor control" of my gestational diabetes (yet what my endocrinologist and the midwives see as good control) he wants to do an amnio next Tuesday to see if the lungs are ready. If they are, I will be sectioned on Thursday. Yes, sectioned. Since my last caesarian was so recent, they can't do anything but a straight pictocin induction. My last induction lasted three days, and everyone was obsessed with the machine that goes 'ping' instead of what was going on with me. I had envisioned JH's birth as a quiet and joyous event, with me and my husband in a whirlpool at the birth center, with one of the midwives and a doula in attendance. Instead, I was in the hospital practically strapped to a bed, and at one point I think there were twelve people in the room. Since JH was posterior, there was practically no chance of him coming out without me being able to move around the room a little, and there was also the problem that once they turned off the pictocin my contractions stopped.

Ugh. Anyhow, looking back on how crappy my birth experience was last time, I deicided just to go with the c-section. I just don't see the point in having to go through all that crap again only to probably wind up with a c-section. I'm just a little surprised that it's so soon...36 weeks. If the lungs are ready. Which one of the midwives assures me is full-term, and she used lovely cultural examples to prove her point. So I learned that Asians give birth at approximately 37 weeks, and us white girls usually go late.

The other thing I've learned is there is no uniform standard of care for gestational diabetes. My endocrinologist says one thing while my ob/gyn says another. Actually, my ob thinks I was diabetic before the pregnancy, but my A1C test shows I was not. In fact, it shows that the GD came pretty late in the pregnancy. But that's neither here nor there as I have to take insulin, which is where the apparent danger lies. Yesterday the ob basically told me there was no communication between endos and the ob's, and that they weer both working from different standards of care. Which made me furious. I mean, what's the point in sending me to the endo if it won't affect my care at the ob? And searching the internet brings me no closer to answers...everyone has a different story as to how their GD was handled.

So, next week I will probably be having a baby. Hopefully he will be as happy and healthy as my lovely little baby-pie, John Henry. Hopefully I will recover as quickly as I did with the last section. And hopefully, this will be our last child so I can wash my hands of the giant, messy, over-intrusive machine that passes for maternity care in this country. If not, we're hightailing it to The Farm.

pregnancy 2.0

So, this pregnancy has been markedly different than the first. "They" always say that is the case, but it seems almost ridiculous...I mean, you're the same person, and your body is doing the same thing, so why does it go about it so differently? Compared to last time, I've only had one vomiting incident, and instead of not wanting to eat anything, I've had distinct and powerful cravings. The worst has been grape tomatoes, which has been very expensive, as a pint is $3.99 here in CT and at the height of the craving I could've eaten a pint a day. The second worst has been yogurt. Also salad and those hamburgers you make with onion soup mix. Earlier it was assorted chocolates (like Whitman's) and corned beef hash in a can. Yeah, I know the hash is disgusting, but I love it. And I eat it with ketchup on top. Eeeeew.

I've managed to avoid the carpal tunnel problems this time. Last pregnancy I had to wear a brace to bed as I was gradually becoming unable to use my right hand. However, this has been traded for the feeling that at any minute I could get a charley horse. My calves are constantly tight, and while that's been the main site where the spasms happen, I've had a couple in my thigh and quite a few in my shins.

The most different thing though, is the way my body has grown. With JH I never really looked pregnant, just really, really fat. I didn't have that pregnant bulge. With this guy, I have the bulge so badly that I dread having to tie my shoes. Or put on socks. Or get up off the couch, for that matter. I can barely reach the back of the kitchen sink, and I have to stand on my tiptoes to turn the washing machine on. If I didn't have confirmation that there's only one baby in there, I would be sure that I was ready to pop a litter.

As mentioned previously, I do have the GD again, and I'm having the ketone problem, so I have to shovel food in my face practically 24 hours a day. All I want to do is have a souper burger and some tomatoes and take a nap. Oh well.

aieee!

After making that last post, I came accross Link: this article, which is, frankly, a little terrifying. At least to the pregnant. I have to wonder how this woman wasn't so top heavy that she didn't just topple over during the last month!

baby(ies)!

It's been pretty quiet around here for awhile, and for the 3.8 of you who check here, I apologise for lack of updating. My silence has been mainly because...well...I'm about eight-and-a-half months pregnant. And I've been soooo tired and busy with JH that I haven't really had any time or anything to say other that za-zaah! and dada da da! which is the bulk of JH's vocabulary these days. And I have gestational diabetes again, which I kind of pretended not to have for awhile, but then they made me take the blood test, so there you go. This time I'm "getting" the diet a little more, so I'm not having bizzare combinations like slices of turkey and a cup of yogurt.

Otherwise, it's been pretty good around here. We got through our first Christmas here in the house (and JH's first Christmas ever!) with aplomb, and though we did get a ton of toys for John Henry, I think we managed not to go overboard. Which was hard, as shopping for toys is soooo much fun! JH's first birthday went great as well, and he got through the day with some traditional cake smushing and the glazed look of a kid who has just had his first sugar overdose.

Now we wait for March, when baby 2 will make his debut. Yep, that's his. I'm having another boy. They will be the Battling Prestons, according to Joe. I hope I survive.

kerry kerry kerry

Joe sent this along to me - 35 reasons John Kerry will win. I certainly hope so, but I expect some sort of dirty pool ala Florida. See Black Box Voting for depressing information along these lines.