I know I’ve been absent, but check out what I’ve been up to over here.
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Lillian has always wanted to be freely mobile, and now she’s gotten her wish. She crawls everywhere, and pulls herself up to standing on anything, no matter how unstable. Then she climbs on top of whatever she pulled herself up on and tries to pull up on whatever is above it. The weather has turned bearable but not cool here in Texas. I’m really looking forward to some cooler weather so we can break out her unbelievably cute fall wardrobe. She’s got an adorable sweater from Grandpa and Grandma Oster, and a bunch of super cute outfits from Auntie Michelann. I would change her clothes three times a day, but she’s not so fond of it and protests loudly. She has the cutest Halloween costume ever! Pictures soon.
Have you ever heard of soy lethicin? Neither had I until this happened. It’s in EVERYTHING. And so is soy oil. Crisco, margarine, and vegetable oil are all made from soy. It turns out soy is way harder to avoid than dairy. On the plus side, we’ve re-upped our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture – weekly organic vegetables) subscription and have started shopping at the farmer’s market on the weekend. I’ve also become a huge fan of Jamie Oliver’s Food Nation. He’s right – there are way too many ingredients in most of the food we get at the store. Everything at the farmer’s market is made locally and doesn’t have ingredients you don’t recognize. It’s nice. We’re subsisting mainly on rice, vegetables, and meat. And that’s not a bad thing really. Because bacon is meat. Bacon is my new cheese. Meanwhile, the baby is doing great. Her skin looks great, she’s sleeping great. She’s cute as a button. Well, cuter because who ever said buttons were cute? But she’s dang cute. She’s 10 weeks old, is hopefully approaching 10 lbs, and is 10x more fun than she was a few weeks ago. Lots of smiling, happy shrieking, scooting, and general trouble-making. And mama is having a hard time not buying her cute new clothes every day.  Hanging out with Daddy  Rocking the Bjorn  Modeling the latest in Carter's Coture  Hospital beds: not as comfy as they look The 48 hours ish we spent in post-partum at the hospital were not great fun. People come in and wake you up all the freaking time. Nurses, doctors, other random people. They just knock and walk in. Even if I had wanted to sleep I was so wired up from the birth that I only slept about an hour at a time, even with drugs. I had a couple of nice nurses, and several annoying, incompetent, or belittling nurses. Sometimes all in one! I’m not sure where some of these ladies got their make-you-feel-like-a-stupid-asshole skillz, but they must have learned from the best. I had one night nurse both nights who did everything she could to show me how little I knew about anything baby. She’d spout of statistics or numbers after a checkup with exactly no explanation of what they meant, and smile at me ingratiatingly. Her nursing technique sucked and involved squeezing my breast painfully without authorization. That was a recurring theme. Nothing in there yet ladies, thanks. Our final nurse who checked us out was totally lame. Lackadaisical doesn’t begin to cover it. She forgot to stop at the pharmacy for my meds, didn’t feel like answering questions, and would disappear for long periods when we were trying to get out of the room and get home. I still had a port in my hand for the first 24 hours, and I had to get 4 more doses of antibiotic through it. This was supposed to take about 20 minutes, but sometimes it stretched out to 1.5 hours, because apparently nobody had taught the nurses how to administer a fucking IV. They’d flush out the port with saline, which hurt like hell, and then start the drug. And invariably fuck it up – it wouldn’t pump, or the line would be jammed. The bitch nurse fucked the last one up really badly at like 1am and acted as if I was just being whiny. It took like 2 hours to finish it. Did I mention how much that shit hurt? I did however talk to the charge nurse about it. Go me. I also called the charge nurse to ask for feedback forms on all my nurses and guess what? She never showed. The OD consultant in me was not impressed. Trying to learn to breast feed, which is wicked hard anyway, was impossible with the awful hospital pillows. Plus I didn’t seem to be producing anything which was stressful. I had one day nurse who was great and I at least got an idea of what a good latch felt like. Lillian was all about the boob, but she chewed with her surprisingly strong gums and it hurt like hell. I guess I lucked out with the latch, but OW. David was in a world of pain from the horrible bed in L&D, and the one in the recovery room was far worse. Fortunately, that nice nurse got him a cot which was a bit better. It royally sucks that you can’t sleep with your husband when you need snuggles incredibly badly. The food was really pretty good. Who knew? They had a killer veggie burger, and decent breakfast tacos. Of course, I would have eaten a tire happily at that point, but it really wasn’t bad. Yeah, so I couldn’t wind down. This did not bode well for when we got home. There was serious boding. We wanted to get home so badly, but at the same time, how were we going to take care of this tiny being without anyone qualified around to help? How are we allowed to take her home without a medical degree? Does not compute.  Biological Imperative Win The other thing that happened while we were there was we both fell madly in love. People don’t always bond with babies right away. For us, it was like one of those cartoon 10 ton weights dropped on our heads. It helps that she’s so dang cute. Not much of a narrative, I know, but hold on to your hats. Next up, postpartum depression/anxiety/craziness and extra extra sleep deprivation!
I’ve got some new insomnia rocking (check the time on this post). Mostly it’s because I’m waking up with hip pain again, and it’s become a bad idea to sleep on my back any more (last night I woke up with my hands going numb). Even though my hands and feet swell intermittently, I’ve been hanging onto my engagement and wedding rings. Until last night when I burnt the crap out of my ring finger on the stove. Oops. I’m still amazed by how I seem to have a different body every day. How it reacts to food, movement, temperature, etc. still changes all the time. The main problem I’m having is the baby is sitting really low lately, so I need to remember to wear a support thingy when I’m out and about to avoid a whole lot of uncomfortable pelvic pressure and pummeling. We met with our doula this week and talked about birth. That was trippy. We’re now working on a birth plan and also a list of crap to bring to the hospital. It’s not like David can’t run home at certain points after the fun part is over, but we’re delivering at a hospital about 10 miles north of us, so it’s a bit of a haul (especially during rush hour). Today I’m managing to get a massage and David is taking me to the Alamo Drafthouse for dinner and a movie. On the less glamorous side, I’m also going to the dentist and waiting around the house for pest control. Still, not a bad day. Also, yoga. So the room is progressing. A few weeks ago David and his father started on the painting. The wall color is a lavender-tinged grey; neutral, but a little girly. The carpet is made of tiles from Flor. They’re great because you can mix them up, switch them out, and replace them piece by piece if they’re damaged. If you have a bad spill you just pull up the offending tile, wash it, let it dry, and lay it back down. The only issue is if you’re doing wall to wall carpet and you have an irregularly shaped room, you have to do some interesting cutting to make everything fit. And if your husband and father in law are engineers, this becomes a task of epic proportions:  Look closely and you'll see all sorts of measuring devices, graph paper, and much seriousness. You will never see a puzzle that fits together better than the irregular tiles in this carpet. Anyway, it looks great in the room:  This is as close as I could get to true color, but it's still a little off. The inset carpet matches the walls pretty closely. The outer layer is dark gray (we used a really cool post-consumer tile called Fedora that we also use in the rest of the house), the inner border is a plummy purple, and the center is a gray-lavender. It’s really cool. Now we start layering in the furniture, some of which we’ve painted complimentary colors. Then the fun decorating! My 29 week appointment went just fine. All systems seem to continue to be normal. I’m back in three weeks, and then down to two, and then every week until TMQ makes her appearance. I can’t believe how fast it’s going now! I thought the first trimester would last FOREVER. But boy does it pick up speed towards the end. I still haven’t totally shaken the round ligament pain and I’ve got a little mid back strain, but it’s all pretty tolerable. Starting to get some heartburn which is ick. Tums is my new friend. One of my regular yoga teachers is on vacation this week, so I guess I’m going to have to venture out and try some new ones. Our main holiday activity is going to see movies at the Alamo, an activity that will be seriously curtailed after the baby gets here. We saw Avatar last night which was pretty cool. Very imaginative, great use of CGI, but rather clunky in the Good vs. Evil department. Still, it’s so nice to just chill out and eat dinner and watch a movie. I also finally tried Gourdoughs, which may signal the end of my relatively healthy eating habits. We had this amazing, fresh fried huge doughnut covered in caramelized bananas and brown sugar. I’m already craving another one. But hey, at least I had milk with it…
Friends:  Elender
Roxanna and Maxine  My friends Jen and Scott from LA and family friend Venky Food:  Lemon Rosemary Shortbread Cookies  Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes  A whole lotta goodies Family:  My cousin Evan
 My mom working her kitchen magic (and David missing the top of his head) Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes
I had my prenatal appointment this morning and everything is looking good. Strong heartbeat, right sized belly, doctor is happy with the minimal weight gain. I had my glucose screening as well. Bleah. I hope I don’t have to take the 3 hour test because yuck. I had to go upstairs to get my blood drawn in another clinic. Even though I told them it was a timed test, they fubared it and I had to wander into the back to find someone to stick me. Then she failed to find a vein (which has never happened on me before) and chose to dig around in my arm rather than withdrawing the needle and trying again. I’m predicting a large, ugly bruise. Here’s the progress in the belly department:
Sorry for the overexposed. Shining a flash in the mirror has unpredictable effects. People keep saying I don’t look all that big yet, but man do I feel huge. TMQ is very active at times, and pummels various bits of me repeatedly. Not quite so much pummeling to the bladder this week, though it still happens. Yoga continues to be a back-saver, along with my new shall-not-be-named pregnancy support pillow. Where has that thing been all my life? Sleep is a beautiful thing. I’ve definitely also hit the weepy phase. I melt down a lot for very lame reasons. We’re headed to California next week for a family Thanksgiving and a baby shower. Looking forward to good company and good grub!
At first I could mitigate it by using the dreaded foam roller before bed, but now it doesn’t seem to make a dent in the pain. Luckily, I have yoga tonight and a visit to the chiropractor tomorrow (which includes a blessed massage). However, I’m going to have to resort to buying yet another horribly named pregnancy aid, the Snoogle. Who the fuck comes up with these names? Preggie Pops? Snoogle? Could they be any more annoying? I think not. Yes, pregnant women are kind of cute. I revel in my pregnant cuteness. But please do some market research on your audience and recognize that some of us still have two brain cells to rub together. /end rant Next week we’re flying to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving, baby shower #1 and other assorted revelry. I’m not looking forward to the flight, but hopefully it will go smoothly. And there will be much tasty food on hand that I can enjoy. Bonus! |
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