Our Shower

So, our shower was two weeks ago at this point. And I never got around to posting about it. This is in part because my father was the one taking pictures, which means I will probably never actually see the pictures (or, if I do, it will be at this child's wedding), and I wanted to post said pictures with the post. Not wanting to wait any longer, I'm just going to post with pictures taken after the fact at home, such as the one on the right, which is the contents of the toy box. We didn't get all those things at the shower (we got some at my work shower and some at a yard sale and the stuffed animals were already ours), but we did get quite a few.

Needless to say, the shower was lovely -- not at all a disaster, as I had feared. (The one thing that bothered others but just struck me as par for the course related to the food. My mother and stepmother were put in charge of bringing some of the food -- namely the sandwiches. The only sandwiches they brought were crabmeat. I don't eat seafood. They are well aware of this. So I couldn't eat any sandwiches. But this was very unsurprising to me. I thought my brother was going to blow a gasket, though. Oh, and they just bought the bread and crabmeat and mayo and arrived right before the party started and then complained that they had to spend time in the kitchen putting sandwiches together while guests were there.)

As I think I mentioned before, my brother is an event planner and florist (to those who commented on our wedding photos, he did the flowers -- he's quite talented), so it should have occurred to me that he would end up doing the bulk of the work for this affair.

He apparently asked P to find the Paddington at the Seaside book that I loved as a child and that he thought was at my dad's house but was in fact at ours. Unbeknownst to me, P brought it on vacation and gave it to him. The book became the theme of the shower. I really wish I had pictures. It was very sweet. When/if my dad ever gets them to me, I'll post them.

The shower was a decidedly unstructured affair, which worked well for me and especially for P (it was coed). No ridiculous games. We mingled, we ate, we opened presents, we went home. A ton of people came (about 50) -- it's amazing to know that our baby is so well-loved already. There were also a bunch of kids there, which I thought was great. Our friends' 19-month old daughter kept bringing P goldfish while we were opening presents :)

I'm not sure if this is everyone's experience, but every shower I've ever been to (and many weddings) has ended up with a gift-of-the-shower -- the thing that the bride/parent-to-be ends up getting a ton of, as if every attendee was on the same wavelength. For my wedding shower, it was placemat/napkin sets. All in sets of 4. Evidently we are only allowed to have two other people over at a time. For our wedding, it was salad tongs. Who needs 4 sets of salad tongs? We didn't register for any, since we didn't need any, but we got 4 sets anyway. A good friend received 5 pie plates at her shower. It just seems to happen. Well, for our baby shower, the gift-of-the-shower was blankets. I was amazed by how many we received. To give a sense, here is a photo of eleven of them:

And that's not all of them. I forgot one was in the basement for washing (and this doesn't include the ones we already had). Our child will never be cold.

Oh, and new belly shots too -- I posted one last week but forgot to mention it, and I figure I'll do them weekly now. I'm not sure if this one is just closer up or what but I look much, much bigger than last week.

Um, that's not a dog

So, Wednesday night P and I walked out our front door to head out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. As I looked down the street, I saw what I thought was our neighbors' basset hound, who is regularly spotted wandering down the street all by her lonesome even though we live close to the highway. A second quick glance revealed the error of my initial impression. That was no dog. That was a pig. In a harness. Trotting down the street, all footloose and fancy-free.*

(Please note that I did not take this picture -- it came from an article about said pot-bellied pig. That is why the pig is on a deck rather than in the middle of the road.)

The pig -- Lily, evidently -- sauntered right on up to us, wagging her piggy tail and rubbing her snout on my leg. Within a few minutes, our entire neighborhood was in the street. One neighbor got an old dog leash to keep the pig safe while we awaited the police, who could contact animal control, who knew where the owner lived (see article above). There were about seven little girls (ages two to six) standing in the street, each begging to be allowed to pet the pig while all the parents said no, that they didn't know if the pig was friendly (P and I pet away, since we had done so before there were kids out there -- she sure seemed friendly). We saw neighbors we haven't seen in ages, which seems crazy since the houses in our neighborhood are on .1-.15 acre lots -- not a lot of hiding room. P videotaped segments of the affair. It was a riot.

Needless to say, by the time P ordered dinner that night, the incident had slipped his mind. But when his pork came, he had a tough time enjoying it.

*Let me just note that we don't live out in the sticks. We live a five minute drive from the city. We see raccoons and skunks pretty regularly (the skunks seem to be daily these days, much to Buddy's delight), but pigs are, well, not typical.

Here's to the Rest

Six years, two months, and one day ago, on the rocky island in the lake by our cottage in Canada, P asked me to marry him. Three years ago today, we got married.



We have been through far more ups than downs over the eight and a half years we've been together. And I can't imagine anyone I'd rather share my life with.

Here's to the rest of our lives.


Happy anniversary, P!

36w2d

I had my 36 week appointment, and it was thoroughly uneventful. Basically, the usual plus the GBS swab. The office doesn't do an internal unless you've experienced significant contractions or are at 39 weeks or so, which is consistent with their general non-interventionist philosophy, with which I am comfortable. I feel very fortunate that everything has gone well thus far (knock on wood -- seriously little creatures you didn't hear me say that). The fact that the only issues have been a) the near-fainting episodes, b) basic aches and pains while sleeping/trying to sleep/upon waking, and c) the pain and tingling/numbness in my hands makes it that much easier to work with a hands-off approach. If I had had complications, I suspect I'd be freaked out at this point, though they would probably be less hands-off.

As for knocking things off the list, I met with HR today. The process seems pretty simple. Prepare a vacation memo but call it a maternity leave memo and make sure there's coverage on all my cases. No paperwork or anything. Tonight we are heading to the police department to have the car seat base that P installed inspected and the other one installed, then we'll come home and hang the remaining shelves. We had our baby care class last night, which was pretty helpful. I'm glad I now know how to properly bathe an infant, how to wake a sleepy baby to feed, how to soothe a baby when nothing else seems to work, and when to call a pediatrician.

On that note, they asked at the class who didn't have a pediatrician yet, and we were one of three couples who didn't, and the others were due a month or more after us. So P and I set up appointments with a few pediatricians today to try to figure that whole thing out. One (the one my OB recommended) didn't have any availability until 9/11, which a) may be too late for a pre-baby appointment and b) makes me apprehensive about our ability to get an appointment as needed for the baby anyway. The other two (one at the practice most of the people I know use, one at the other major practice in our town that, oddly, no one I know uses) will be next week. Hopefully we'll get a particularly good feel from one or the other so we can decide. We can always switch later if we don't like them, right?

Finally, I made a little addition to the sidebar -- What Is Lou? Anyone care to place a guess? I'm curious as to what anyone else thinks.

Eek: 27 Days to Go and Major Life Changes

27 days to go. And that's assuming no early arrival. That said, I was born on my due date, and P was four weeks late, but I have no sense as to whether our mothers' experiences are at all predictive.

I am feeling somewhat better about how much there is to do. Between last week and last night, we made some progress on the list. We sorted stuff last week and put all things requiring washing into the hamper. We also started the laundry last night. I know you're supposed to wash baby things before use -- how many times? We're going with two, but I'm starting to wonder if we should just do one for clothes/blankets and only do more for cloth diapers. We have our Taking Care of Your Newborn class tonight, so maybe we'll find out then. The corner shelves were a pain in the ass for P to install given that our walls aren't square, but they got done last night and look awesome. We'll probably tackle the wall shelves tomorrow. And we ordered a quilt hanger -- thanks Nicki!

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On an unrelated-to-baby note, this weekend, my dad got remarried. It's weird to be 31 and get a whole bunch of new family members. I went from having one brother to four, plus a new sister in law and niece. I'm not sure to what extent I'm supposed to think of them as brothers, etc. -- if I was a kid and we all lived together, then sure, of course they're siblings, but as adults it's different, or at least it feels that way.

And there's also the significant change that it represents to all of our lives. For us (me, my dad, and my brother), getting through my parents' divorce involved the repetition of a lot of traditions and the creation of new ones. It gave us a sense of stability in a time that was seriously lacking in it. I definitely came to rely on that repetition and sense of constancy, probably too much so. It was just the three of us for so long. Now, with each passing year, we seem to add new family (first P and his family, then my SIL and hers, and now my dad's wife and her family), and while each addition is a blessing, it requires a change in "what we've always done." Thus far, the changes we've made have been relatively limited -- my dad and brother/SIL have joined P and I with Ps family for Thanksgiving for 8+ years; P and I cut the time with each of our families short at Christmas in order to fit everyone in, resulting in a lot of time in the car; P and I only do vacation with my famly every other year to allow us some travel time on our own -- but my dad's routine throughout this time has stayed largely the same or accommodated us, so it's only been our routines that have changed.

But it won't stay that way. My dad will be moving further away (from an hour away to three hours away), and, I assume, will be spending at least some holidays with his wife's family. He's very nonconfrontational (and rather passive-aggressive), and I fear that will result in us seeing very little of him, except when it doesn't much matter to her (such as Christmas (she is Jewish), which is the holiday that is the most difficult for P and I as it is, given the number of people that expect to see us and given Ps (and my) reluctance to do all the driving with a baby and my family's unwillingness to accommodate our needs). And I'm not sure where any of it leaves me, other than with feelings of abandonment and terror. For so long, my brother and I accommodated my dad's wishes around holidays because he was sad and lonely and it was what he needed. But now it's what I need and I feel like no one gives a shit. Several years in a row we didn't even see my dad for Father's Day because he made other plans, and it broke my heart, but it felt selfish to say so.

Bottom line: As much as I know I'm gaining a lot of new family, I feel like I'm losing the one I had, and it makes me incredibly sad and afraid at a time when I'm already feeling overwhelmed. I wish I could grab hold of my family and force them to stay close and keep things the way they always were, but I know I can't. I know things change and the world doesn't revolve around me and my needs but sometimes I wish it did.

Paralysis: Time to Make Lists

I feel a tremendous paralysis with respect to the things that I need to get done. In short, when I have a lot to do, I feel overwhelmed by it and therefore do nothing. As a result, I live in a constant state of stress and anxiety -- and I have the ability to do something about it but don't. And this is bad. In an effort to give myself a kick in the pants (and feeling inspired by Katie's lists), I am making lists.

These are the things that are currently on my baby-related to do list (many of which are thankfully non-urgent) -- I reserve the right to add to it and/or cross things off as I accomplish them (green=in progress):

• Hang clock in nursery
• Hang corner shelves in nursery
• Hang wall shelves in nursery
• Hang quilt in nursery (figure out how to do so beforehand -- suggestions?)
• Sort through all the presents we got at our shower, putting away what we can and putting all things requiring washing into the baby hamper -- can't put anything away, though, until the shelves are up
• Wash everything in the baby hamper, numerous times ideally
• Wash all cloth diapers
• Call electrician to get new outlet put into the basement so we can get a freezer for down there for storing meals for after baby comes. (Also have them get a permit for basement work that P did and have it inspected so we can put the ceiling back up.) Need to get estimates first.
• Alternatively clean out freezer upstairs
• Make meals for freezing.
• Clean (as in straighten up -- thankfully we have a cleaning service that does that actual cleaning) our entire house -- it is a sty with crap everywhere. It's seriously embarassing. Anyone have any advice on clutter? I have a serious problem with it. I hate throwing things away, especially if we might eventually need them, but we don't have room for stuff. I think I may have some sort of serious problem. I can't bring myself to get rid of old cassette tapes, or Walkmen/Discmen (the latter is probably 15 years old), or faded color paper, or fabric scraps, or picture frames we haven't used (or hung, in the case of those that have pictures in them) since we moved 3.5 years ago.
• Clean out the cube storage unit in the family room and put baby toys in it
• Clear off coffee table and move to basement to make room for the baby in the family room
• Get car seat installation in new car inspected and base installed in old car (thankfully P installed the car seat in the new car last weekend -- I set up the Pack N Play, which was, I guess, another thing I did this past weekend and forgot about)
• Buy rechargeable batteries (a ton of Ds and some AAs) and a charger
• Decide whether MIL will be present for delivery
• Set up an appointment with HR to get things squared away for maternity leave
• Pick a pediatrician -- this will require scheduling interview appointments with at least a few, and I have no idea how to do this when I have to go to work every day
• Start thinking more seriously about day care -- I'm feeling very behind on this, even though we don't need it until March
• Get the stuff we didn't get through showers and have not yet bought ourselves -- definitely need: nursing pads, Lanisoh, outlet covers, crib pads, second changing pad cover (and possibly first -- it disappeared off our registry, but we haven't received it from anyone), additional layette items. I ordered most of the cloth diapering supplies we didn't get and will need right away yesterday. And I made us an appointment for a training session at a local cloth diapering store for next weekend; I assume we can pick up anything else we need then.
• Acquire some sort of nursing tank or gown (or anything at all appropriate as sleepwear) to wear in hospital (though I'm happy to say I finally ordered a couple of nursing bras)
• Pack hospital bags
• Finish picking names, or at least have another conversation about them
• Shower thank you notes

P has his own list of (non-baby-related) projects he has started but not finished, and this also stresses me out to no end. Here are some of them:

• Finish rebuilding the patio that he tore up almost 2 years ago -- it's going to be a safety hazard for a baby, and I don't know when it will ever get done since it's been two years and it's less than half done as far as the finishing work goes
• Put ceiling back up in basement so I can get the stuff that belongs in the finished section out of the unfinished section and begin organizing both areas (wow -- P did it all this weekend, even though there's still no ceiling
• Sort through the giant pile of stuff he brought over from his mother's attic that is currently cluttering up the unfinished section of the basement -- some of the stuff (like old fireworks) is dangerous!
• Finish weed-killing/grass-growing project begun in May -- stage 2 was supposed to be done in June, and it's August
• Start taking some of the necessary steps to find a new job, since he hopes to get one while on parental leave

I fear that P too is paralyzed by his list. Even if he just made ten minutes of progress a day on any one thing, he would be making progress. But some projects have necessary precursor steps (like the basement ceiling, which requires getting the electric work he did permitted and approved, which requires an electrician) and others are ones he says he can't do ten minutes of at a time since he has to change into dirty clothes to do them and shower after, which hardly seem worth it for only ten minutes of productivity and others still require that we have a day or two when rain isn't in the forecast, which hasn't really happened much this summer. P is super-ambitious when it comes to taking things on -- and very handy as well, but has a tendency not to finish projects he starts (some projects for the reasons noted). And I am just not in a position to be of much help on many of these things right now (and I've been on him about the job stuff since the fall of 2004 and have clearly made no progress). And I feel like a bitch nagging him at all since he does a ton of stuff around the house at this point, including all lawn mowing, more than his share of taking the dog outside, more than his share of grocery shopping, etc. And while he never puts clothes away, resulting in most of the clutter in our room, he otherwise contributes far less to the clutter in the house than I do (which I think drives him nuts). (See above for more on my clutter issues (though I did successfully freecycle our old TV and two old radiators that were taking up space in our basement).)

So, even though I am exhausted and my hands barely seem to function these days (this is rapidly becoming the worst thing about pregnancy -- I can barely open and close my hands, and if I use them for more than a couple of minutes, especially to grip anything, they tingle until they become numb), I think tonight when I get home I'm just going to start tackling the list. As much as I'd prefer to have dinner and/or watch TV, we really have to get this stuff done, and the stress of having all of this looming is way worse than dealing with being hungry or the desire to know what happened on the Olympics would be. We are running out of time, or we will if we don't get moving.

Relaxation

For my birthday in June, P gave me a certificate entitling me to a pre-baby spa day and a post-baby spa day. Saturday, I redeemed the former and had a maternity massage, manicure, and pedicure. That night, we went to a friend's place and sat on her deck and ate chips and grilled veggies and other foods. Then Sunday, we had our family and friends baby shower.* When I thought only of those things, I concluded I had had a very relaxing weekend and couldn't understand why I felt so wiped out on Monday morning. Which I did. Not just that I-should-go-to-bed-earlier kind of tired but the I-can't-believe-I-have-to-be-awake-ever-again kind of tired. And I still feel that way.

Then I remembered that we went out to dinner and to see the new Batman movie at the Imax on Friday night with good friends of ours.** (I highly recommend seeing it on Imax.) It wasn't an incredibly late night, but we don't usually go out both nights in a weekend these days. And late on Saturday night (post-BBQ) I also cleaned out the closet in the nursery when P was at a friend's place playing video games with the boys. I got all the junk out, moving most of it to the attic, but some to other places. I swept decades of dust off the top shelf and off the top of the built in dresser. I cleaned the nasty crap out of all the drawers. I cleaned the floor. And it finally looked like a place we could actually put things, for the first time in the three and a half years we've owned our house. Oh, and I watched some Olympics. Then Sunday, before the shower, I went to church. And we went to the hardware store to get a rod for the closet in the nursery, since there wasn't one. Then the shower, the first half of which involved a lot of standing around and talking to people and the second half of which involved sitting and being stared at (while opening wonderful gifts). I am not a big fan of being the center of attention, and having to sit in front of a room full of people while they all stare at you is exhausting. Then my dad, his fiancee, my brother, and SIL all came over to our place: my dad and his fiancee for a tutorial on using an iPod, since that's how they plan to play music at their wedding this weekend; my brother and SIL just to hang out. It was between 8 and 9 by the time everyone had left, and we still had to unload the car from the shower since it had been pouring when we got home. And then I stayed up late watching the Olympics. Oh, and I continue to do my best to gestate a person.

Perhaps this week's exhaustion is less inexplicable than I thought.

*More on that in a separate post -- I want to include a few pictures, but don't have them yet.

**Our friends started Lupron in preparation for their first IVF cycle early the next morning. I hope you will join me in sending good thoughts their way.

34w3d

I stayed home from work today to deal with the insurance problem and avoid the bus. After far too many phone calls and an hour and 45 minutes on hold with the RMV (seriously?? An hour and 45 minutes??), the situation was resolved, and someone else had paid whatever costs were to be associated with fixing it. And I felt like a huge weight was lifted. But I got very little done work-wise, and I have a lot to do, which added a new weight.

We then had our meet the doctors session, followed by the hospital tour. No doctor rubbed me the wrong way, so I suppose I'll survive no matter who is on call when we go in, but I'd really prefer to have my own and I'd really prefer not to have the guy who performed the D&E last September, no matter how many times my MIL tells me that he's a great doctor and that in the moment I'll be happier with a great doctor capable of making great decisions than a less good one with whom I don't have bad associations (she knows all these people and was trying to be reassuring since she knows there's a chance we could end up with him). The structure was basically a Q&A, which wasn't that helpful since I knew the answers to most of the questions already (have these other people done NO research into labor generally or into the hospital's practices or into how this practice is structured???), but it was good to get to see the other docs and know that none made me totally uncomfortable.

The tour was okay. Nothing really noteworthy. Even though the L&D unit was redone within the last few years, it still has a totally 80s feel to it. It's not the most upscale hospital in the area, but it's fine and not hard to get to (unless I got into active labor during a Sox game -- and the Sox are playing at home 12 of the 17 days leading up to my due date) and is where my MIL worked so we know some of the docs and nurses. The labor and post-partum rooms are all private. And they have birthing balls, bars, and showers available, though you have to request the first two and the latter are on the end of the hall, none of which I was thrilled with but can understand.

By the time the tour ended and we got back to the car, it was 8:45 and we hadn't had dinner and I was so hungry my belly ached. We picked up Thai food, but didn't end up eating until 9:30, which has left me feeling ill, though I'm not sure if it is the hour or the cuisine. My abdomen is making some seriously strange sounds. There are long, hollow groans from deep within. And there are weird puffs of air -- like the sound of gas escaping, but the sound is on the inside. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's freaking me out a bit. I hope everything is okay in there. Note to self: next time, bring snacks.

F*cking Insurance Agency

I desperately need to vent or I might just run off screaming into the woods.

When we got home from work yesterday, we finally got our semi-held mail from our vacation ("semi-held" because three days of it was delivered while we were away for no discernible reason) and found within it two notices from the RMV alerting us to the fact that our car registrations would be cancelled two weeks from the date of the notice because our (as-far-as-we-knew fully-insured) cars were not insured. The notices came the day after we left. So the two week grace period ended before we got the notices. Apparently, when we added the new car to our insurance policy last month, the grossly incompetent insurance agent decided to cancel the insurance on both cars instead. And failed to notice or do anything about it. So the entire time we were away we were driving an uninsured vehicle. Had we been in an accident and hurt someone, we could have lost everything we have (and in turn would have sued the insurance agency for everything they have).

I spent my morning (post-my 34 week appointment, which was thoroughly uneventful -- urine sample, weight check, bp check, heartbeat check, fundal height measurement, position check (head down)) on the phone (read: on hold) at various points with the insurance agency, the RMV, and the insurer. I'd like to put it out there that I think the woman I spoke to at the insurance agency is a gigantic lying bitch-whore-wench. She said she spoke to the insurer, who said it was their fault, that they had sent the wrong thing to the RMV and would be correctly immediately. I knew this couldn't be true, since the insurance payment we made shortly before we left was refunded into my bank account while we were away, making clear that our insurance had in fact been cancelled (though of course I didn't discover this until we got home and got our awesome notice from the RMV). This was confirmed when the RMV said no correction had been made. Furthermore, the insurer said they hadn't spoken to anyone at the insurance agency and that the only person who could figure out what happened was at lunch and that they'd call me back. When it started to become apparent that no one from the insurer was planning to do so before the close of business, I called them and was told that she had gone home. Evidently the underwriting department closes at 4:30. I then called the insurance agency again, but no one answered, even though they are supposedly open until 6. No one has called me back. And finally I burst into tears.

Honestly, this wouldn't be such a huge f*cking problem were it not for the fact that I'm 8 months pregnant and tend to pass out when riding the bus in the morning. And now I have to take the bus to work since we don't have a registered, insured car in which P can drop me off on his way to his office, as he has for the past couple of months (I take the bus home -- I mainly seem to have fainting issues in the morning). And I can't even switch insurance companies (as I have every intention of doing, especially since I got a lower rate quote today) until this gets resolved since it will look as though I had a gap in coverage, raising the rate. If it isn't resolved by close of business tomorrow, we have to rent a car, since we have our hospital tour and meet the doctors extravaganza tomorrow night and I can't bear the thought of spending my evening on public transit trying to get there and back, especially since the only buses that run to our house start going to once an hour at 7:30.

I have felt tremendously on edge ever since the bad thing that happened on the way home from vacation on Sunday and this is seriously not helping. NOT HELPING AT ALL.

Back from Vacation

I feel like I have a lot to say, but I don't have a ton of time to say much of anything right now. So I'll keep it brief.

1. New belly shot, from this morning (34w1d). I have definitely gotten much bigger. Eek.
2. We got back from vacation last night. The weather wasn't the best we've ever had. This was especially frustrating since we were away for two weeks, in two different places, and had cloudy and/or rainy weather for chunks of each week. That said, we also had sunny, nice days each week, which was great. I sailed, swam, read a lot, ate too much. All in all, a fantastic two weeks off.
3. While away, the swelling in my feet went way down. My hands started to swell again over the last couple of days of the trip, but my feet stayed normally proportioned until today. Apparently it's work that's doing it. I feel very swollen again already, which sucks.
4. Baby shower is this weekend. I hope people come. And I hope it doesn't suck. Not much has been bought off our registries (yes, we have two -- BRU and a cloth diaper one), which makes me a little nervous that maybe no one is coming.
5. I failed to mention it before I left, but when I went to schedule what should be my last doctor's appointments while at the office for my most recent one, a bit of confusion arose. They scheduled appointments for September 2 and 9, then stopped (I had already been scheduled through August). I asked what would happen if I went late. She gave me an odd look. I gave her an odd look. She looked at my chart again. Then her eyes widened. Apparently, my chart had three different due dates on it. I've been proceeding along with the 9/14 date that corresponds with my LMP and ovulation dates, as well as with my 6 and 9 week ultrasounds. Normally, when you measure ahead at a later ultrasound, they usually just note the measurement, but in my case someone actually added an additional due date to my record, one after the baby measured 6 days ahead at the NT scan, and one after the baby measured 9 days ahead at my 18 week ultrasound. (I hadn't even been aware the baby was measuring so far ahead at either.) My chart showed me as due 9/5, using the soonest date in the record. Yikes. I asked her to change it back to 9/14. She complied. It's the more accurate date anyway, plus if anything went awry (like, say, labor) at my dad's wedding in 2 weeks, my insurance would not cover any medical care out of state if I was past 37 weeks (according to the terms of my policy), which I would be with a 9/5 due date, but not with a 9/14 due date. It seems a bit silly, but I am not taking any chances.

More later on such exciting topics as: breastfeeding "class", additional rude comments made by people regarding my apparently grotestque size, and the horrible (but not pregnancy-related) thing that happened on our drive home.