Tag Archives: lizard

State of the Lizard

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What, you thought these posts would end with delivery? Psh.

She’s awesome. Of course. 🙂 She has gained ten ounces in the past seven days which means that apparently my milk supply is quite sufficient. 🙂 She is at 8 lbs 6 oz. She has already changed appearance fairly dramatically in my opinion. She’s plumping out all over the place. Her hands/fingers no longer remind me of Gollum. She is getting a double chin. Sleep is still going fairly well. She’s getting in at least one 3-4 hour sleep cycle a night and she gets a second every other night so I’m feeling alright. Because I do actually listen to people every so often I stopped trying to orient her towards my preference for day/night…. for now. We will come back to that after it is no longer biologically necessary for her to eat so often. 🙂

She does fuss a bit, but it is pretty clear that it is mostly because she’s a pre-verbal infant. Overall she seems to be pretty cheerful. She is starting to interact more and it’s really interesting. If you talk to her about stuff she reacts, sometimes by grinning sometimes with funny faces. I really wonder how much she understands. We have continued good luck with asking her to respond to specific things in specific ways.

At 16 days I must say that I’m still convinced this was absolutely the right thing for me to do. We’ll see how long that lasts. 🙂

And on for my body healing tmi…

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Post-partum vists

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A number of people have asked? informed? me about visiting once the baby comes. Based on the advice I have gotten from women who have been through this before me (see–I do actually listen to advice sometimes) I am going to structure how this works formally and in advance so that I don’t have to negotiate with everyone individually.

-You must set up a time in advance and be punctual. No dropping in because you are “in the neighborhood.”
-During the first two weeks visits will probably be restricted to 30 minutes. After that an hour, maybe an hour and a half until I’m feeling better.
-If you want to come over you need to do something helpful. Bring food. Start/fold a load of laundry. Do dishes.
-I will not be up for being a host and I’m going to be less than thrilled about Noah doing it.
-Soft voices. I’m actually pretty sensitive to noise in general and I’m willing to bet that when I’m adjusting to listening to a baby crying a lot of the time I’m going to be extra fussy on this one. If you see me cringe when you boom out the start of a sentence, please self regulate to a softer volume.
-Leave your drama outside my house for at least the first month. I love you. I will return to listening to other people’s issues after about a month. I will be sleep deprived and probably anxious as I try to figure out what a parent is supposed to do with an infant and I’m always over-sensitive to other people’s emotions.
-Please don’t tell me what I “should do” with the baby. If I know you have parenting experience or even a bunch of siblings there is the possibility I will ask for advice–don’t offer it unasked though. 🙂
-If you have been sick in the past week don’t ask to come visit. The kid will be around for years to come and I promise that you will have lots of chances to bond later. 🙂

See. I’m not rejecting *you*. I’m not being mean to *you*. 🙂

I’m thinking about printing this and putting up on the front door as a reminder.

Holy moly

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Noah’s aunt sent us a baby stuff care package. Receiving blankets, clothes, hats, burping cloths, bibs, bath care items, a rather nice diaper bag, an incredibly sweet home made baby book, and a pile of Thank You cards. It is a rather impressive spread of stuff actually.

🙂 I can take a hint. I will never neglect sending her a thank you card again. 🙂 There was no snark or hostility in the present at all so I feel like this was actually a really awesome way for her to express her preferences. 🙂

Maybe I should meet this relative. She lives in Davis.

State of the Lizard

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Cause I saw my midwife last night. 🙂

Measuring exactly on target for the week I am in. My baby is more than big enough, which points to a high likelihood of excellent lung development. I’m still doing everything I should be doing as far as not having gestational diabetes/protein issues. I’ve gained 19 lbs. I’m off bedrest officially even though I have been off bedrest for about a week due to my own impatience unofficially. 🙂 The baby is head down and ready to rock and roll. We have everything we need in the house already. I’m having Braxton Hicks contractions more often than not. I feel like I have a bowling ball in my belly because it is so rock hard most of the time. (It almost makes me wish I could have such a rock hard belly when it’s smaller. 🙂 It’s not very comfortable when the kid rolls around and shoves his/her knees into the rock hard belly. I whine about that sometimes. Relaxen has flooded my body like nobody’s business and all of my joints are getting sore. Sometimes when I walk there is a sharp stabbing pain in my pelvis that is sucky enough to make me catch my breath in pain. Not my favorite part of pregnancy.

All in all I would say other than aches and pains and having trouble sleeping this is the easiest part of pregnancy so far. I like the third trimester. 🙂 I am eating a lot (and things taste good!!) and I very very rarely have heartburn. I’m a little angsty from feeling isolated, but getting massages helps with that. I’m ready to have the kid and also feeling like this is not sucky so I’m ok with waiting a while longer. I’m becoming a little less set on the idea of having the baby really early. 🙂 Even though I still keep in the back of my mind that almost everyone in my family goes early… But if we go later than the due date then we get to go to Dana and Anton’s wedding and we will get a Gemini. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

State of the Lizard

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So as might be guessed by my low weight gain–I don’t have an extremely large kid. At this point the kid is pretty certainly under 6 lbs and is probably closer to 5 lbs. (Guessing these things is really just a guess–but midwives are generally within 1/2 a lb, which is better than stupid ultrasounds.) I have two due dates because the standard due date is based on your LMP (date of your last period) and assumes a 28 day cycle. I don’t have a 28 day cycle. The ultrasound due date is 9 days later than the LMP due date. It’s looking like the ultrasound due date is probably more accurate which means that honestly I shouldn’t try to give birth at home until May 4th. That’s another twelve days. 🙁 If the Lizard was really large the midwife would be fine with anytime after this Saturday, but the Lizard really isn’t that large. For a variety of reasons it is best if the baby is over 6 lbs for a home birth. (Much lower likely need of interventions.) In normal pregnancy by this point the fetus is gaining around 1/2 a pound per week. This means that I really do probably need another two weeks of growth so that the Lizard can be more than 6 lbs.

This means I need to suck it up and get used to bedrest for at least 12 more days. Given the size of the kid sucking it up and being mostly on bedrest longer than that is a good idea. She’s happy that I have been mostly good so far but told me that the flu-like symptoms I have when I push things are pretty common during early labor so I am probably pushing things a little too hard. Damnit.

At this point my uterus has hit my ribs; it’s a little bit annoying but not too bad. This means that the rest of the growth is going to be straight out. All the people who have excitedly told me how huge I am and that I look like I’m about to pop are going to have a field day.

Not my favorite day ever.

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I’ve been having contractions since last night. Not “Oh look, my abdomen is strangely tight” contractions, but rather grab Noah and complete the cycle of pain as I screech out in pain contractions. This is less exciting than it could be because it’s too soon. And it’s too soon so I’m scared and freaking out and that makes it hurt more. Awesome.

I went and saw an acupuncturist today. My midwife came up. I’m not dilated by my cervix has softened in a way that usually indicates–hey! Here comes a baby! I’m up to 22 pills a day with all of the different herbal stuff I’m taking to try and stop the contractions.

I’m on bed rest for certain until the contractions stop and probably for a lot longer than that. No more lifting *anything*. No exercise of any kind. Of course no sex. No spicy food. No excitement.

I’m probably going to be less responsive on IM and no I don’t really want to go into all the details over and over.

Lizard updating

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Saw my midwife for my 31 week appointment today. We got to talk about a lot of different things. Have I mentioned that having a midwife is far superior to having a doctor? We sit around and chat about all the things I have been obsessing about and she is completely relaxed about everything. She gives me gentle coaxing about stuff that I should still work on (eating more vegetables [but they taste bad!] and exercising) but if I tell her that I really believe I am doing the best I can do she doesn’t pressure me or make me feel bad. Go midwife!

We talked about the possibility of laboring in our hot tub but reached the conclusion that the actual birth should probably happen in the birthing tub because you push lots of gross stuff out during birth and that’s not so awesome for the hot tub. It’s also harder to catch the baby in deep water and it’s harder to get out before the placenta comes. (She strongly recommends getting out before the placenta comes.) Seems reasonable and prudent so we will probably treat that as Plan A. 🙂

I’m up four pounds in the last two weeks. She thinks this is fabulous. I have a teeny tiny smidgin of societal guilt over gaining four pounds in two weeks, but mostly I think it is awesome. Maybe I will make it to 20 lbs after all. 🙂 All of my blood work came back as ridiculously healthy. Go me. Not even close to being diabetic. I’m still sorta barely close to being anemic, but when you are pregnant you technically move over on the spectrum and for a pregnant chick I’m doing great. w00t.

I’m still measuring a week big which is completely consistent for me. We talked about the fact that ultrasound due dates aren’t necessarily accurate, but neither are last period date due dates. So we looked at the calendar and decided that as long as the kid is still feeling big (which it is) it will be ok for me to do a homebirth anytime after April 25th. Because of due date wackiness that is a full month earlier than the ultrasound due date. That’s uhh 4 1/2 weeks away. Holy shit. That’s like, fucking soon. Given that the head is engaged in the pelvis already it’s kind of nerve wracking to think about–but in that ecstatically excited sort of nerve wracking way. 🙂 I’M GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!! It’s kind of funny that it is only really hitting me in stages.

Wow. This is so cool.

Random thought

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I sing songs that I learned in church pretty often. Pretty much only when I’m alone though. I wonder if my kids will want to learn them/sing them with me and I wonder what message they will actually get from them. I wonder if my kids will turn into devout atheists like Noah or if they will have a weird, hard to quantify but definite belief in the Divine the way I do. Or… weirder still… will my kids become actual Honest-to-Gawd Christians?

News from my midwife.

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My uterus hasn’t really gotten bigger since the last appointment and yup the Lizard has shifted around noticeably. This is neutral to good. She thinks dropping the irritating birthing class is a great plan and she also thinks my attitude about pain in birth is a really awesome thing.

She told me that 3% of births in this country happen completely naturally. This is pretty interesting because most of the studies I have seen have indicated that around 95% of births can/should happen completely naturally. Awesome. We have passed Brazil as the C-section leader of the world.

No wonder I feel like generic people are telling me that I *have* to have an interfered with labor. It really is the norm. (I’m not saying that anyone reading this qualifies as “generic people” in my life.)

Feelings about birth.

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Since this keeps coming up. 🙂

I am not feeling any conflict about birth internally–it’s all coming from the messages people are giving me repeatedly. I think it’ll be an amazing experience unlike anything I have been through before. My research indicates that birth doesn’t have to hurt. It’s possible to breathe and relax and go with your body’s rhythm enough to let it be about intense sensation and pressure, but not pain. Does this mean that I believe it will not ever hurt me at all? Well… I don’t know. I’m working on the assumption at this point that birth doesn’t have to hurt so I’m trying to go with that idea. I don’t appreciate being told over and over that the process will hurt because if you believe something in your head you will create that reality. Right now the reality I’m working with tells me that my body is built and designed to do this, the women in my family tend to have a rather easy time of doing this, and if I keep calm and chill that this is probably going to be not painful.

I would really like it if other people helped reaffirm my position instead of arguing with it. Arguing with it will not help me or anyone else. Pain comes from fear, tension, fighting the process, etc. In our society in general we are told to be afraid of birth and I understand that the vast majority of women in America have totally bought into that mindset. I haven’t. I’m not saying anything about the experience of other people in terms of what they should/shouldn’t do/have done. I’m saying that if you think I am bat shit crazy and you totally disagree with my overly optimistic view of birth given what you went through it would still be nice if I got a pat on the head and a “I hope that works out for you.” 🙂

It’s not like I have a choice about going through birth at this point. Right now I think good and positive things about the experience. I want to keep this mindset for the next three months. Maybe after the Lizard is born I will post saying, “Wow. I’m a naive motherfucker and that shit hurt.” I’m not saying it is impossible. I’m saying that I believe that is not the only possible outcome and that I am just as likely to say, “That was really intense. I’m not sure I need to experience that again in the next year or so.” Or maybe I will say, “That was fucking awesome. Yeah, some parts were not great, but I feel like that enriched my view of the universe and I’m really happy I did it.” I’m hoping that the vote ends up in column C. 🙂

fuss

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This morning my back hurts. Many mornings my back isn’t happy, but this morning it really hurts. As a result I want to be massively snippy and nasty. I think I am refraining, but I feel miserable. Sleeping is the main thing that makes my back hurt the most so it is negating a lot of the value of sleep.

However, given the list of potential pregnancy side effects:

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Less volatile

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I’m tired. Bone weary. I am actually passing out in the middle of the day because I can’t stay awake. This Lizard-hatching business is bloody exhausting. Every day I am grateful that I quit my job. The ability to sleep through the afternoon is a priceless gift.

On good days I read, sleep, and eat. I’m really digging my life right now. (On bad days I have to run around and do a bunch of errands, luckily I don’t have to do that much.) My appointment with my midwife was canceled for this week cause her kidlet is sick. I doubt the next visit will be all earth-shattering anyway. Still trying to gain some weight. 🙂 It’s a nice job to have.

(The tree icon amuses me because I’ve been reading about different critics and their views of signifier/signified and what words actually *mean*. They all use tree as an example.)

In other news I was told to start doing kick counts to see if the babies activity level is going up or down at different points. The thing is–I’m supposed to count how long it takes to 10 kicks. When the kid is going nuts that takes 5-10 minutes. Then there will be nothing for hours. So if I look at a clock early in a tap-dancing session it’s over almost instantly. Or it might take hours. I’m not sure how helpful this metric actually is.

Baby Shower

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Bump–I think that there are a few people who would like to go to this who haven’t noticed. Maybe Monday morning is a better time. 🙂

My friend Sarah wants to host a baby shower for me. We are looking at April 12th. This post exists because I have no idea who would be interested in attending. This is one of those weird cultural right of passage things that I don’t think I understand the rules of. (Yeah yeah, dangling preposition.)

So basically–do you want to go? Sarah wants to do formal invitations (cause she’s that kind of girl) so this is one of those gasp mandatory RSVP events. I know–this will be tough for people. 🙂 You won’t even know where the event is unless you consciously opt-in. No evite and maybe/maybe not for you! 😛

I would love it if you told me that you want to come. It is more important that you tell Sarah. You need to email her your snail mail address (Sarah at techbrat dot com) by March 25th in order to receive an invitation. You then need to get off your butt and do the final RSVP thing by April 1st because Sarah is going through a lot of trouble and I don’t want her to be negatively impacted by flakeyness. Otay? 🙂

Dude. I’m not-so-secretly massively excited about this. I haven’t had one of these right-of-passage things before. yay!

(Oh, and don’t take being on this filter as pressure to go. If you don’t want to go that’s ok. I promise I won’t hate you forever.)

The Lizard

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Went to the midwife today. Uhm, only two weeks late. I’m measuring at 30 weeks. Uhm, I’m only 26 weeks. Looks like I may be getting another ultrasound cause this kidlet may be bigger than earlier believed. It’s important to have as accurate as possible of a due date because if the kid comes more than two weeks early then it is a mandatory hospital birth. 🙁 So! If my due date is really a week or so earlier than I think right now then I should hurry the freak up and get stuff done at school.

The head is down. Heartbeat is still way fast (girl?). She wants me to start eating food 4-5 times a day. She’s not thrilled that I’m not eating much. But I’m not hungry. I’m up about 7 pounds. I’m three days away from the third trimester.

Have I mentioned that the Lizard has/had the hiccups? It feels neat. I was wondering what that feeling was…

Ye olde intarweb tells me that at 26 weeks:
By this week, your baby’s crown-to-rump length is approximately 9.2 inches. Remember, that is only from the top of his head to his bottom and does not include his leg measurements! Your baby weighs almost 2 pounds and is beginning to put on weight. Your uterus is about 2.5 inches above your bellybutton and you will continue to grow approximately 1 cm each week. If you have been eating a well-balanced diet, you probably have gained about 16-22 pounds so far. Because your baby has moved further up, you may get occasional pain underneath your ribs.
After a month of having his eyelids sealed shut, your baby begins to open his eyes again this week. Your baby’s eyes are almost completely developed. Your baby’s eyes are blue in the womb and may change colors later in life. This is true for all races because the pupils do not have their final color until a few months after birth. However, some babies are born with darker or lighter shades of blue. Your growing baby will continue to put on layers of fat until he is born. He is still lean at this point of the pregnancy though. By the time your baby is born, he will assume the typical newborn’s plumpness. Your baby’s skin will still be wrinkled and red, but the fat continues to fill the skin out.

Finger and toe nails continue to grow.

Blood vessels start to develop in the lungs to prepare the baby for life outside the uterus.

Your baby’s blood circulation is completely functional. The umbilical cord system continues to grow and thicken as blood travels with considerable force through the body to nurture the baby. The placenta is now almost equal in size to the baby.

Even though it is still way too soon for your baby to be born yet, the chance of survival without severe abnormalities is now 70% provided it is born in a hospital.

Progress

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Cause I may be working on less shy, but I’m not *that* forward. Mr. Chris has been taking pictures of me. I’m going to share some of them because I think they are neat!

Apparently people no longer assume that my journal is NSFW. I wonder when that happened. (I must be getting boring.)

So uhm yeah–warning, NSFW nekkid pictures ahead!

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