Good news and bad news

Let's start with the good news! Locke is 4 days shy of 5 months old, and today we finally hit one of the biggest, most important milestones there is: he slept through the night. Now, I grant you, it was only 6 hours, which I think is the minimum to be considered sleeping through the night, but I'm still pretty stoked. He went down at 9:30 last night, was back up at 10:30, and it took me half an hour to get the little guy back to sleep. Then I went to bed myself, and the first time he woke me up was 5:00 am. I got up and nursed him, and put him back in bed (it's 7:30 and he's still asleep), and tried to go back to sleep myself...only to realize that I can't sleep anymore. 6 straight hours of sleep and I feel as if I slept a week! This is the most consecutive sleep I've gotten since he was born. Heck, since probably the second trimester. I had a steady 3 am date with a full bladder every day of my third trimester, as I recall.

Do I think this will suddenly become a regular thing? No, especially not since just yesterday he was up every hour and a half. But he has shown me that he *can* sleep through the night, which gives me hope that someday, he will. You know, consistently.

I have to say, more than anything else, his inability to fall asleep and stay asleep has really made me second guess myself as a parent. I know most parents (especially new ones) have constant feelings of doubt or inadequecy, and I try to remind myself of that to talk myself out of being down on my fitness as a parent. But I know kids 3 months younger than Locke who sleep 7 hours a night or more. I've read 3 books on baby sleep, and the sleep sections of several general baby guides, and I'm still tearing my hair out trying to figure out what it is I'm doing wrong. Maybe it's nothing, and Locke just isn't a sleeper (I don't know any other kids like that, but I keep reading that they exist). Hopefully today is the light at the end of this tunnel. We shall see.

And now for the bad news. I'm also waiting for Locke to wake up so I can change his diaper and call his pediatrician. Last night, when we changed his diaper right before bed, he had what looked like a blood spot in an otherwise wet diaper. After initially feeling quite disturbed (I wouldn't quite say panicked, because this is the only sign we have had that anything might be wrong with him), we did a bit of research online and suspect that either a)he threw some uric acid crystals in with his urine, which could be a random, normal occurence (though this usually happens with younger babies), or could indicate some messed up body chemistry (dehydration? kidney trouble?) OR b) could actually be blood, which would probably point to a urinary tract infection. I suspect it was uric acid and not blood, because as the diaper has dried, the spot has stayed red-orange, rather than turning brown like you'd expect blood to do. Either way I'm worried, and I'm looking forward to the pediatrician's phone lines opening up, so I can find out more (and see if they want to see him today).

In other news! Matthew had his 30th birthday. It was a damned good one as these things go...a few days prior to the big day, we traded in the Corolla he's been driving for a shiny (almost) new 2009 Honda Fit. He loves this car. It's a manual transmission, which he really prefers (though it means I'm going to have to learn to drive a stick), and it's a little subcompact thing, that still has 4 doors, space for the baby, and adequate cargo room in the trunk. Matthew really prefers small cars, but of course we had to have something that would be baby-friendly. It really fit the bill, and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that it was about as close as a perfect car for Matthew as we could ever hope to find.

For his actual birthday, we drove out to Virginia Beach and stayed at a hotel on the boardwalk. Neither of us had been before, and we found that we really liked it, though it was a bit weird. Weirdness 1: half the resort strip was closed. Gift shops, tourist trappy places (like haunted houses and stuff like that), restaurants, and even a couple of hotels were shut down until the spring. I gather November is an off time for beaches, but I didn't expect these places to be closed completely (don't they have rents to pay either way?). It made for kind of a ghost town, though if you go a mile inland, all of a sudden everything is alive and functioning normally. In fact, the rest of Va. Beach/Norfolk (or at least the parts we saw) reminded me a lot of parts of Louisville. Weirdness 2: HUGE military presence. We accidentally turned into an army base while looking for an IHOP (damn you for your bad directions, TomTom!), and I believe there are also an Air Force base and a Navy base closeby. Since we, you know, saw a bunch of fighter planes flying around, and a few destroyers out on the ocean, I figured those were pretty safe bets. Weirdness 3: No swearing signs. Seriously, all over Atlantic Avenue, every block or so, they have these no swearing allowed signs. I googled them later and found that they used to have a law on the books that if you were caught swearing, you were subject to a $250 fine. Not surprisingly, somebody challenged the constitutionality of that law, and it was struck down. Weirdly puritanical. We cussed every time we saw one of those signs.

Ok, cutting this short (well, not short, but ending before I was gonna) because the baby is finally awake! Wish me luck with his pediatrician today. :)

Just a quick note

Locke had his 4 month visit with the pediatrician yesterday. He weighed in at 12lbs 8oz, almost 4.5 lbs heavier than he was 2 months ago. He was 24 inches long (2.25 inch increase) and his head circumference went up to 40.5 cm from 37. On the growth chart my pediatrician uses, he was in the 15th, 4oth, and 15th percentiles, respectively. (I have to specify that he only hits those marks on my pediatrician's growth chart...apparently there's more than one chart out there, because I plotted him on another chart with these stats and got <5, 10-15, and <5.)

He also got 2 shots, and I'm happy to say he took them like a champ. He just looked startled after the first one. After the second one he got all red and started shrieking, but as soon as I was able to scoop him up off the table and hold him, he quieted right down. He was totally chill by the time we were back in the waiting room to set up our 6 month appointment, and other than sleeping longer during his naps, they really didn't seem to affect him at all. Go Locke!!

Also, it's too early to say whether this is a permanent change, but the last 2 nights he dropped his 1-2am feeding. He has slept about 5 straight hours before waking up to be fed both nights. Very cautiously optimistic. :)

Four months already??

Locke is going to be four months old tomorrow.

Everyone told me that the first few months of his life were going to go by so fast, but the individual days seemed so long. When we were fighting the breastmilk colitis, and awake equalled crying, and every single diaper had blood flecks and I felt like the worst mother alive...yeah, those days didn't exactly fly. 1 AM feedings never did seem to pass quickly enough (and since sleeping through the night is a distant dream for us, I'll go ahead and say that they still don't go by quickly enough. Heh). And still...looking back on the last 4 months...

Yeah. I guess they did go by fast, after all.

Locke is pushing 12 lbs now. This seems huge to me, though I've looked at the growth charts and am prepared for Locke to still be in that 3rd percentile that he's been winging along since his birthday when we go to his doctor's appointment on Monday. He's almost too big for his 0-3 month clothes, though I think the diaper is the problem more than his size. I tried him in a couple of 3-6 months and they were still quite a bit too long. That's one thing I don't like about his all in one cloth diapers...they are bulky and make his clothes fit him weird. Still, I do love my clothies.

This month has been a pretty huge one in terms of Locke's development. He rolled over for the first time a week ago, tummy to back. He's done it exactly 4 times now, though naturally never when Daddy is home, and never when Mommy has the video camera out. In fact, I have made about 12 videos of tummy time since then, all with him kicking and flailing and wailing fruitlessly, because this is a kid who hates, hates, hates being on his stomach, and always has. I'm going to edit them together into a bad mommy montage that he can enjoy when he's a little older. Ha.

Other milestones include passing toys from one hand to another, holding his head up 90 degrees while on his stomach, oh, and learning to suck his thumb.

As far as sleeping is concerned...I tried weaning him off of nursing to sleep, but after a week and a half of 2+ hour scream battles I have decided to wait and try him again on it after we get back from vacation. In 2 weeks we are going to Virginia Beach for a 30th birthday getaway for Matthew. I thought 8 hours in the car with a 3 month old was bad, just can't wait for 13 hours with a 4 month old...

Still making progress on my 101 in 1001. I finished a scarf, started Locke's scrapbook, and signed up for NaNoWriMo for this November (that will be...interesting). Tried a few new recipes (including 2 I made up myself), had another Locke-free date, read a couple of adult books.

First blood in the 101 in 1001

So I've gotten started on my 101 in 1001. I've actually crossed one item off the list: take Locke on his first carousel ride. We visited Matthew's parents in Detroit for a few days, and we went to the Henry Ford museum. The carousel there is really old, and has some pretty interesting looking animals for the kids to ride (my favorite were the frogs). Matthew had Locke in the Baby Bjorn, so he got up in one of those stationary sled things carousels always have for the really tiny kids, while I stayed off to take pictures. Well, the guy who was running the carousel saw me standing there and practically insisted that I ride too, and even got us to move to a different sled (this one rocked a bit instead of being entirely stationary, so that was kind of cool). Not exactly how I envisioned Locke's first carousel (I sort of pictured him being more like 2 years old, and me holding him on a horse that didn't look like it moved too awfully much), but hey, at least I accomplished something, right? :)

Detroit is a 6.5 hour drive from us under the best of circumstances, and it ended up taking us actually 8 when we figured in stopping for Locke time. Mostly this involved stopping at rest stops to nurse...and let me tell you, after that particular visit, I am OVER nursing in public places, especially parking lots. My in-laws have either forgotten what it was like to care for a 3 month old infant, or they just didn't particularly care. Both days of our visit, we went places that were over an hour from their home, which was particularly bad for my baby because those days were bookended by full days in the car. I realized, halfway through the second day, that I'd made a major mistake by not standing up for what was best for my baby and telling them we really would rather have stayed somewhere within easy reach of their house and our hotel. I have to brag a little, though, and say in spite of all that running around, Locke was a really well behaved baby. I mean, sure, he was a little fussy from time to time; but he is 3 months old, after all. It wasn't until dinner the second night that he had a true meltdown, and by that time I'd grown a bit of a mommy backbone. ;) Which is to say, Matthew and I didn't wait it out at the restaurant with my poor overstimulated baby...we went back to the hotel and gave him some much needed down time instead.

That's all I'll say about that particular visit, because who really wants to hear me complain about my inlaws? Yeah, that's what I thought. :)

Next challenge: getting Locke weaned from nursing to sleep. This is going to be a huge undertaking, and one I need to stop putting off. When he was tiny, nursing was the only reliable way I could get him to sleep at all, and I took comfort from the fact that every baby book I've ever read says you can't spoil a newborn. Well, you could totally have fooled me, because now I have a son who wails, flat-out, high-pitched, mommy-why-do-you-hate-me top-of-the-lungs screams, if I try to make him sleep without nursing down first. Tonight was the first night I tried it, and it took me about an hour and a half to get him to sleep. This is going to be a loooooong week, I'm thinking. Sigh...

Checking in--3 months

So I haven't really gotten very far with my 101 just yet. I have read a few books to Locke, and I tried a new recipe, and I've been on some walks. I've also started a book that I hope to finish in the next couple of days, and I'm working on that Penny Press magazine. So at least I'm underway.

Locke is almost 3 months old now! He's learning some new tricks that are kind of fun to watch. For example, he is starting to play with toys now, so when we lay him on his playmat, he has a heck of a time. I thought I'd be getting tired of the constant bells and chimes of his toys once he started playing with them, and especially things like the monkey and flower he has that light up and sing when he hits them just right, but so far I just get all goofy and proud that my little boy is figuring out his world, and don't give two poopies about the noise. That is one hell of a long and rambling sentence I just wrote, and I've decided to leave it because it perfectly illustrates my mental and physical state these days: cluttered and overworked. Yup, that's me.

I'm very jealous of all the moms whose babies are the same age as mine, but are sleeping through the night. Right now that looks like a distant and unattainable dream. Locke is still up at least 2 times a night, sometimes more, and because he's so little for his age, I am loathe to try and soothe him back down without feeding him. Little guy is still playing catch up, you know? I am happy to report that he's into his 0-3 sized clothing now. It was slightly nostalgic, putting away all his newborn sized threads, but mostly I was excited to have solid evidence that he is actually growing and putting on weight.

Up next--in 2 weekends we are headed north for Matthew's mom's 50th birthday party. That's going to be a 6 hour drive minimum, and probably much longer because of the baby. That could be interesting...

101 in 1001

I was reading some posts on the June babies forum on babycenter.com when someone mentioned the 101 in 1001 challenge. The basic idea is that you make a list of 101 goals you have for yourself, large or small, and give yourself 1001 days to complete them. The goals have to be measurable and specific, and 1001 days is almost 3 years, so you give yourself a pretty significant amount of time to complete them.

I turned 31 yesterday, and decided that I could give myself no better birthday present than to give this 101 in 1001 thing a try. So without further ado, here is the list of 101 goals I have made for myself (any comments about said goals in parenthesis).

I. Locke

1. Join some kind of mom's club or playgroup.
2. Toilet train Locke
3. Read 100 different kids' books to Locke (0/100)
4. Teach Locke the alphabet
5. Teach Locke to read (both Matthew and I could read small words before we were 3, so this is ambitious, but possible).
6. Breastfeed until Locke's first birthday
7. Get Locke into a swim class
8. Teach Locke to count to 10
9. Build a snowman with Locke
10. Take Locke kite flying with Uncle Drew (a tradition for my family)
11. Get Locke baptized
12. Ride a merry-go-round with Locke

II. Going places

13. Go to Disney World (love it myself, but this is more for Locke)
14. Go to the beach (my favorite vacation)
15. Go to the mountains (Matthew's favorite vacation)
16. Go to at least 6 different zoos or museums (0/6)
17. Go to at least 6 state parks (not necessarily KY parks; 0/6)
18. Go to an opera
19. Take a weekend away with Matthew without the baby
20. Take Locke to his first Bats game
21. Go to Holiday World
22. Go on 25 kid-free dates with Matthew (1/25)
23. Go to a play
24. Visit our friends in Indianapolis at least 4 times (0/4)
25. Visit Matthew at work 10 times (0/10)
26. Go to 5 local festivals (0/5)
27. Go to a lake or river, and go swimming there
28. Go fishing

III. For my health

29. Get a flu shot
30. Drink 2 cups of tea every day for a month
31. Go to the eye doctor and if necessary get new glasses
32. Run a 5k race
33. Run a 10k race
34. Jog 1.5 miles in 15 minutes or less
35. Go a month without soda
36. Go a month without caffeine
37. Go a month without desserts
38. Do an unassisted pull-up
39. Find a new dentist, and actually go
40. Do Yoga 2x a week for a month
41. Go swimming 2x a week for a month
42. Do pilates 2x a week for a month
43. Go on 500 walks (hikes count; 0/500)
44. Get a pedometer. Walk 10,000 steps a day for a month
45. Lose 10 lbs
46. Lose 20 lbs
47. Lose 30 lbs
48. Take a day entirely to myself

IV. Crafty mama

49. Learn to knit and complete 1 project
50. Learn to sew--complete 3 projects (one each for Matthew, Locke, and me)
51. Crochet Harry Potter scarves for me, Matthew, Ricky, and Christy
52. Plant a garden, and grow at least one edible plant from seed to full maturity. Eat it.
53. Finish the cross stitch for Locke's room
54. Learn to quilt--complete 1 quilting project
55. Complete Locke's year one scrapbook

V. The writing life

56. Complete the first draft of my novel
57. Write a short story
58. Start a pen-and-paper journal. Write in it at least once a week for a year (0/52)
59. Update the status of this challenge at least once a week for the duration.
60. Win at NaNoWriMo

VI. Financial goals

61. Buy a house
62. Replace the Corolla
63. Avoid carrying any credit card debt from month to month for the duration of this challenge
64. Buy new bedroom furniture
65. Buy new wall decorations for every room of our apartment/house

VII Yummy yummy (food goals)

66. Start using my recipe binder. Record at least 50 recipes (0/50)
67. Find the best burger in Louisville
68. Find the best pizza in Louisville
69. Try 20 different beers (0/20)
70. Try 20 different wines (0/20)
71. Try 20 different cocktails (0/20)
72. Try 20 different cheeses (0/20)
73. Try 100 new recipes (0/100)
74. Win the cookie contest
75. Try 25 new restaurants (0/25)
76. Successfully bake a loaf of sourdough bread
77. Learn to make bread pudding

VIII. Holidays and other family related goals

78. Do something special for our 10th anniversary
79. Establish a Hawthorne family Easter tradition
80. Establish 3 distinct Hawthorne family Christmas traditions (0/3)
81. Carve a pumpkin
82. Furminate the cats once a week for an entire season (0/13)
83. Get pregnant with baby #2
84. Finish playthroughs of FF games with Locke
85. Finish Xenosaga playthroughs with Matthew

IX. Brain boosting

86. Read 100 fiction books, 50 of which must be things I haven't read before (0/100)
87. Read 10 non-fiction books (0/10)
88. Take a ballroom dancing class
89. See 100 movies I haven't seen before (o/100)
90. Finish a Penny Press puzzle magazine, beginning to end, without skipping any puzzles
91. Try 20 new games (0/20)
92. Buy and complete some kind of self study foreign language course

X. Beauty

93. Wear makeup every day for a week
94. Get a pedicure
95. Get a haircut I actually like
96. Go through my wardrobe, and donate or throw away any article of clothing I have owned for 10 years or more

XI. Spiritual
97. Go to church every Sunday for a month without missing. No excuses.
98. Get involved in at least one group/service at church
99. Finish reading through the New Testament with Matthew

XII. Social

100. Meet 5 new people (0/5)
101. Throw a party

There we go. Wish me luck!!

Well, we survived the first two months. I am happy to report that I'm all but completely sure that I've solved the mystery of what I was eating that was causing Locke's GI issues. Unfortunately, in addition to milk and soy, I had to give up wheat, too. Between those three things, basically all of my favorite vices (ice cream, cookies, chocolate, etc) are off limits. I had hoped that would make losing my pregnancy weight easier, and perhaps in a few months I'll look back and realize that it did, but I suspect I may be one of those women whose bodies try to cling to those last 10 pregnancy pounds as backup breastfeeding fuel. I know a lot of people who said those last 10 pounds were extremely hard to coax off, and so far, I appear to be one of them as well. We'll see.


As far as developmental milestones go, we've really only hit one: first smile. He doesn't smile often, but we finally started seeing honest to goodness non-gassiness smiles around 7 weeks. I'm stunting his head/neck control development by not insisting upon tummy time as often as I should, but he hates, hates, hates to be put on his belly. I need to suck it up and do it anyway, and I know it, but it's hard for me to intentionally make him miserable, you know? Yeah, that's practically part of the 'being a parent' job description, but when they're this small...okay, okay, enough excuses. I'll start giving him more tummy time. Sheez.



He remains a teeny tiny little peanut, barely making the growth charts. At his two month checkup he was only 8lbs, 2.5oz, 21 3/4 in, 37cm head circumference, in the 3rd, 15th, and 8th percentiles, respectively. I was a little bit surprised that his doctor didn't tell me to start supplementing him with formula, to try to beef him up a bit. As long as he stays in the 3rd percentile, they're not worried. Wish I could say the same. It's weird to me that two months in, he's still smaller than quite a few newborns. Hell, when I was born I was 7lbs 15oz, so he's barely bigger than I was when I was born. Still, other than the whole colitis thing, he seems healthy enough. I suppose I shouldn't worry...but then, that, too, is part of the parenting job description.



Here's a more recent picture of my little guy. His eyes are exactly, and I do mean exactly, like mine. I really underestimated how weird it would be to see my eyes in someone else's face.

Well, things are starting to get a little easier. We've almost cornered the breastmilk colitis beast (unfortunately I am off dairy and soy for now, which basically means no prepackaged food because seriously, everything has dairy or soy in it). Locke is finally starting to sleep during normal people hours, most nights (though sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time is still a distant dream, I'm thinking). And Locke is finally putting on some weight. I haven't had him weighed on a baby scale since his last trip to the doctor, but on my scale at home he's 7.4 lbs. This is a huge big deal to me, because if it's anywhere close to accurate, it means the milk production issues I thought I was having maybe aren't as bad as I'd worried, and even better, he's close to big enough to use the cloth diapers I bought for him. We have a pack and a half of size newborn left, and when we're through those, I'm going to try him out on the bumgenius diapers. I've never been so excited to do tons of laundry before. ;)

My poor husband injured his shoulder over the weekend. We think he tore a muscle in his rotator cuff. He took a bad fall while chasing a neighbor's runaway dog (let the record show he caught said dog), and we spent some of the oh-dark early am hours on Saturday in the ER. It completely threw off Locke's sleeping schedule since he was up till 4 am that night (just couldn't get him to sleep with all the noise and flourescent lights, even in the more dimly lit kids play area in the waiting room), but he has had two good nights in a row since then so I'm hoping we haven't lost all the progress we've made as far as fixing his sleeping schedule is concerned. I did learn a valuable parenting skill: breastfeeding in public. I'm not a whip it out and let er rip kinda gal, and truth be told I had the entirely unrealistic expectation of being able to avoid public breastfeeding entirely, but 3 hours in the ER waiting room and I didn't have a choice in the matter. My son needed to eat, whether I liked it or not. ;)

I was surprised that it wasn't as difficult as I expected. I had had the foresight to grab one of our larger receiving blankets to act as a nursing cover, and I holed up in the kids' play area to give myself the merest semblance of privacy (entirely mental, as there weren't any barriers between the kids play area and the main waiting room). Locke got his grub on, and he was happy, and I attracted very little attention from any of the other people in the waiting room. I'm not saying I'd rush out to BF in public, but if the situation required it, I think I could manage to do it again.

Mommyhood: Month 1

It's hard to believe how quickly the past month has flown by. Now, some individual moments seemed interminable (pretty much any feeding that happened between 1 and 6 am, anytime he was crying and I couldn't get him to stop, etc), but by and large I find myself surprised to already be the mommy to a one month old.

Like every other new mom, I pretty much get the same questions from everybody (even once from my 6 year old niece, who no doubt was imitating the adults she's heard asking me these questions. She's a precocious little one.) So I'll just answer all of those questions, in no particular order.

1. How is Locke sleeping?

Well, we still don't have the hang of the difference between night and day, but it has improved from the beginning. His first couple of weeks, he slept the most in the morning and afternoon, and was wide awake from about midnight to 6 am. Now, most nights his bedtime is around 3 am, and he is mostly asleep (except for feeding times) until around noon. The longest stretch of sleep we've gotten so far was 5 hours, and that was only once. Most of the time we only sleep for 3 hours at a time at best.


2. How is he eating?


All the time, and not very efficiently. As of his one month doctor appointment, he had only gained 1 lb, 1 oz...so at that point (6 lbs, 9 oz) he was almost the size of a just-born-today newborn. At a month, that put him in the 3rd percentile. He was in the 3rd percentile at his 1 week appointment too, so at least he's consistent. The pediatrician surmises that his tininess is explained, in part, by his breastmilk colitis. As near as I can tell, breastmilk colitis is fancy physician speak for a cow's milk allergy...so if I eat cow's milk in pretty much any form, my poor little guy gets bloody poopy. (Yes, yes, that's TMI. After one month of motherhood, however, it seems that the most normal thing in the world to talk about is poopy. So deal ;) )

The milk prohibition sucks, and what's worse is that I believe I need to extend it to include soy (he was getting better after I cut out milk, but suffered a relapse when I had some soymilk ice cream). It does have one silver lining, though: maybe all these dietary restrictions will mean that I'll be able to lose the rest of my excess baby weight faster? Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but a girl can hope. :D Meanwhile, the pint of limited edition, possibly never to be made again ice cream of the most delicious flavor I've ever encountered in my life (Graeter's Blackberry White Chocolate Chip, if you're interested) sits in my freezer and taunts me. Curse you, breastmilk colitis!!!


3. How am I feeling?

Tired. Overwhelmed, also, but that feeling is gradually going away as I'm finding my mommy groove. I was convinced in the first few weeks that I was the worst mother ever. Some people seem to have a natural, nurturing mommy instinct, and I seem to lack that entirely. This is not to say that I don't have a great attachment for my son, because I do...but, for example, breastfeeding is not a bonding experience for me the way a lot of mothers say it is for them. For me, breastfeeding is work, and often a hassle (come and get me, Leche League police!) and if exclusively pumping and bottlefeeding was an option for me, I'd have switched already.

Mommyhood: week 1

Locke is a week and a day old now. Everything is different and new now, and in the best of ways. Everything we do now is a first for the baby, and I find myself scrambling for the camera quite a bit to try and capture everything I can. He had his first walk around the neighborhood in the stroller (the weather finally cut us a break and we've had a few 80 degree days!). He's had his first bath (mildly traumatic for all involved, since he screamed the whole time). He's gone for his first doctor's appointment (he was already an ounce heavier than his birthweight...I knew he'd be a champion eater!). He's had his first trip to Grandma's (and spent the whole time over there fussy. Luckily Grandma doesn't mind). He played his first Dungeons and Dragons mission with his daddy and Trevor (should I even admit this?). And on and on.

Matthew and I have slipped into a pretty good routine that has worked for us so far. Locke doesn't seem to want to sleep much at night (being pretty ravenously hungry from the hours of 1 to 7 am almost constantly), so I am up with him pretty much all night long. But after a late am feeding (sometime between 7 and 9 am), Matthew gets out of bed and takes the baby with him, and tries to keep Locke for me for a couple hours to let me get a solid block of sleep. He wakes me up when Locke needs to be fed again, and brings me breakfast. Later in the day I might take one or two short naps when Locke does. I figure we're each managing about 5 hours of sleep a day, which is probably pretty good for new parents. I'm tired, but not out of my mind exhausted.
It's hard to articulate just how I feel about my little guy. I love him, of course, but there's something more elemental and fiercer beneath that love that just doesn't translate properly into words. He is a miracle and a wonder. My favorite thing to do these days is just to sit and look at him, and touch his little hands or feet or face or (probably my favorite) rub the back of his head. I talk to him all the time, and tell him about all the places we want to take him, and the things we want to show him, and the type of parent I hope I'll be for him.

Ha. I'm a sentimental softie ;).

The cats are doing pretty well, considering. Sansa (my cat) is more or less completely normal. She doesn't approach the baby, and will get up and move if we bring the baby too close (within a foot, say), but otherwise she seems to be unaffected. Arya (Matthew's mean hissy territorial kitty) is doing far better than we expected. The first two days she hid most of the time, and when she was in the same room as the baby, she hissed and growled. But now she's calmed down quite a bit, even to the point where she will approach the adult carrying the baby sometimes if she wants to be petted. We let her back into the bedroom to sleep with us for the first time last night, and she made it all the way to 7:30 am before she approached the bassinet and started hissing at it. I ejected her from the bedroom at that point, but we'll give her another chance tomorrow. She spent most of the night in her usual sleeping spot, between our legs at the end of the bed, only about 3 feet from the baby in the bassinet, so I think she did well, all things considering. Matthew always predicted she'd be back to normal (well as normal as cats get anyway) by the time Locke was 2 weeks old, and I'm starting to think he may actually have been right.

Ok, now, because I can't resist, a few more pictures of my son before I sign off here.

Locke's Birth Story!

Wednesday, June 23rd started out a pretty normal 3rd trimester pregnancy day...that is, at 3 am, with an urgent need to pee ;). When I stood up to head in the direction of my bathroom, I felt the tiniest little trickle of what I suspected could be amniotic fluid. Wide awake all of a sudden, I went to the bathroom, but there was no tell-tale gush, or wet undies, or any other indication that my water may actually have broken. I ruefully concluded that I'd imagined it in the first place, so I decided to try to go back to sleep.

Sleep was, of course, elusive; it's amazing how much excitement a tiny little squirt of liquid, real or imagined, can generate in a 39 weeks pregnant woman. I laid there in bed next to my husband, mind blazing with the possibility that I could have been right, trying to decide whether to call my doctor just in case. I rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position to get back to sleep, and I felt it again. Just a few more drops, I'm sure, but it felt like a fountain.

I got back up at this point, and decided to conduct myself as if I were sure it was time, even though I was still debating with myself fiercely about whether or not I was imagining things. I took a shower first. Then I heated up a couple of packets of instant oatmeal for breakfast...probably not what the doctor would have wanted me to do, but I knew all about the no food except for ice chips policy at my hospital, so I wasn't about to go in there with a completely empty stomach. I'd just thrown the dishes from Tuesday night's dinner in the sink, so I washed those next...by hand, so I wouldn't even have dirty dishes sitting around in the dishwasher for a couple of days. Just in case.

By the time I'd finished the dishes, I decided I was calling the doctor for sure, even though I'd more than half convinced myself that I was overreacting to a little normal discharge. At 5:20 am I woke up my husband, and in my distracted state, I believe the first words out of my mouth were, "I don't think you should go running this morning, because I think my water might have broken." In retrospect, not the most politic way to drag a dude into consciousness, you know? ;)

While Matthew was drinking his morning coffee, I called my obsetrician's answering service, and explained what had happened. I have to admit I couched this conversation with a lot of "maybe's" and "I'm not sure's," but when the doctor called me back less than five minutes later, she told me to get to the hospital to get checked out. When I apologized in advance for possibly wasting her time, I believe her response was "oh, hush," or some similar, which made me feel a lot better. I do like my doctor quite a bit. :)

I spent the next half an hour putting a few last minute things in my hospital bag, while Matthew got his shower, and we were at the labor & delivery ward by 6:15 am. I was put into a triage room, and hooked up to the blood pressure cuff, baby heartbeat monitor, and contractions monitor, and a nurse came in to check me for amniotic fluid. The surface check was negative, which didn't surprise me. In fact, before we'd left our apartment, I told Matthew that I thought there was a better than even chance that I'd blown all of this up in my head, and we'd be sent back home (full disclosure: he predicted the opposite).

But then, the nurse performed an internal check. I was 3 cm dialated, and the amniotic fluid test paper came out bright blue, which was positive. It was official; I was having my baby today.

Let me tell you, having your water break but not actually having contractions start is the only way to start out a labor. They brought me tons of paperwork to sign, and asked lots of questions for their computer database, and I didn't have a haze of pain to try and concentrate through in the process. I called my parents, and my brothers and sister, and was able to have coherent conversations with them to tell them it was go time. Matthew brought in our hospital bags, and I even managed to read peacefully for awhile. It was a lovely and exciting morning.

At about 9:30, they started me on pitocin, because I still wasn't having any contractions. Apparently my uterus only needed a little kick to get things rolling, because they only upped my dosage once. My contractions came on quickly, and they came on strong. I needed my epidural by 11:00, and once it had kicked in, labor was once again a peaceful and lovely experience.

They started turning my pitocin down when they saw how quickly I was progressing. By 2:00, I was 10 cm, and they turned it off completely. For the next hour and a half they let me labor down, mostly because the doctor was in the middle of delivering another patient, and wanted me to wait to push if possible.

At about 3:00, my room started filling with the medical team that would be helping me deliver my baby. The stirrups came out, and they got me into position. They found a mirror for me, so I could watch my son coming into the world. At 3:25, everything was in place, and it was time to push.

Matthew held the back of my neck when I curled up to push with my contractions, so I was able to see everything that was happening. I am amazed to say that with the very first set of pushes, I was able to see the top of Locke's head...definitely something to be said for that laboring down stuff. ;) It all happened so fast...his head was out completely, and then they were sucking his mouth and nose clear, and finally without any help at all from me, the rest of his body slipped right out. They put him on my belly and let me hold him for a second, and I started crying. I barely caught Matthew cutting the umbilical cord out of the corner of my eye, and then they whisked Locke away from me to get him cleaned up and to check his vitals. He was born at 3:38 pm...it only took thirteen minutes.

Apgars were great (8, 9), but I started worrying when I heard that he was only 5 lbs, 8 oz. At my last ob appointment, the doctor said that she thought he'd be kind of a little guy, but 5 1/2 lbs sounded ridiculously small to me. At 39 weeks, he was full term, and I had measured perfectly at all of my ob appointments leading up to the main event. I still don't know how it is that I came to have made such a little baby, but to my great joy and relief, he appears to be perfectly healthy. He may be the size of a preemie (certainly he only fits into preemie clothes at the moment), but he doesn't have any of the potential health issues that you sometimes see in premature babies.

One thing I will say for having a little baby...recovery hasn't been so bad. I only needed one stitch, and I'm feeling a lot better at 4 days post partum than I expected. I'm kind of feeling guilty about other people taking care of me right now...I could be doing my own laundry and cooking my own dinners and all that stuff. It's nice to have help, though. :)

So there you go, that's the story of how Locke Thomas came into the world. His father and I are still in awe of how beautiful and wonderful and perfect he is. Here are a few pictures of our new little guy!

38 weeks

Yesterday's appointment was back to normal. Good blood pressure, good measurements, Locke sounded good...makes me kind of wonder what was up with me last week. I kept being asked, were you not feeling very well that day? Or, were you nervous? And the answer to those two questions, respectively, are I felt fine, and I was a lot more nervous after the high blood pressure reading than I was before. In fact, I was worried that my anxiety over what had happened last week was going to skew my numbers this week, but clearly this was not the case.

So I'm very grateful for that. Now it's back to the waiting game. I think that in the absence of this insane heat, I wouldn't be all that anxious to evict my little copilot. But I'll be honest, I'm ready to roll whenever he is...and I'm starting to root for sooner rather than later. At yesterday's appointment the doctor told me she'd see me next week (for my next appointment), so I think they've come off their prediction that I may not make it to the 30th. Slightly depressing, but if he doesn't want to come, he doesn't want to come, ya know?

Not really much more to add to that...I mean, at this point, what little I have to do to get ready is just tweaking here and there. Oh, and convincing my husband that he really does need to pack a hospital bag for himself. :) And even that isn't very pressing, as we live more or less across the street from the hospital.

Wish me luck...

First trip to Labor & Delivery

Well, yesterday was interesting.

I went in for my 37 week appointment (which, for the record, folks, is currently what is considered full term by the majority of the medical community, and though I still read 38 weeks in some places, I'm going to go ahead and claim it). It was actually better than most have been lately, time-wise...I only had to wait in the exam room for about 15 minutes to actually see the doctor, which made me think, gosh, I didn't need to bring my Kindle after all!

Everything looked and sounded good, as usual...except for one leetle detail. My blood pressure was up. Now, we're not talking insane numbers, here...they checked me twice, and got 130/90 and 128/90. Up to now I've always been under the 120/80 threshold, so I knew that it would raise the doctor's eyebrows a bit that I was high, but I figured in the absence of any other symptoms of anything bad going on with the baby, I'd be told to rest, watch my sodium, and be sent home.

Instead, I got sent to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital to be given the full battery of tests that they'd need to decide whether I have pre-eclampsia.

The last words that the doctor said to me on my way to check out were, "well, you're full term now, so if your test results come back bad, we're going to have a baby today."

O.o!!

It's hard to describe how I felt in that moment. Unprepared, nervous, a little bit numb...distracted. Luckily, the L&D ward in the hospital is just downstairs from my obsetricians' office, so I didn't have time to stress much betweentimes, though I did have time to stop off at a restroom on the way and leave my Kindle on the toilet paper holder in the bathroom stall. (I had already changed into the sexy sexy hospital gown when I realized it was missing, and had to throw my clothes back on and dash out there to reclaim it. The nurse tried to find it for me, and came back empty-handed, but she was looking for a white or silver gadget; mine has a black cover on it and it blended right in with the tp. Luckily, she didn't check my blood pressure for another 15 minutes after that, because I think it might have skyrocketed there for a minute ;).)

So I was hooked up to a bunch of monitors, just like I'd have been if I was there to deliver Locke. There's one for his heart, to make sure he's doing okay, and one to measure the contractions I wasn't having (she said it was hospital policy to hook me up to that one...needless to say, the line on that graph stayed nice and level), and a blood pressure cuff that took a reading every 15 minutes. She took some blood for lab tests, and mostly left me alone for 2 1/2 hours to read my Kindle and watch Mythbusters.

Getting to listen to Locke for all that time was definitely the highlight of this adventure. Every time he made a movement, I could hear it on the ultrasound thing they use to simulate his heartbeat, which was really kind of cute. Little boy was extremely active the whole time, and his heart rate fluxuated between about 140 and 160 bpm, hovering mostly in the 150s. I take that to mean he's a stout, healthy boy, regardless of what mommy's stupid blood pressure was reading. :)

The longer I laid on the bed, the lower my blood pressure readings got, which is more or less what they seemed to expect. I got down to a respectable 114/73. But when I got out of bed to give them a urine sample, and she checked me again as soon as I was laid back down and cuffed back up, it was up to 127/86. The nurse didn't seem concerned at all about that reading, but given that my doctor was unhappy with 128/90, I figured that wouldn't have passed muster upstairs...

But every other test, I am happy to say, came back good. They discharged me at about 3:00, and given that I hadn't eaten since a small snack at 10:00 that morning, I came home and inhaled about half of the contents of my fridge. ;)

Poor Matthew was stuck at work for all of this, getting updates on my situation from time to time when I was texting him. I found out later that I'd stressed him out quite a bit...in fact, I think he was sweating it more than I was. Good thing daddy's blood pressure wasn't being monitored or they'd have admitted him for sure. ;)

What does this mean for the rest of my pregnancy? Well, the official diagnosis, in the absence of pre-eclampsia, is pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). That often turns into Pre-e, which would be very bad. I imagine next week's blood pressure reading will be examined very closely by the doctors. If it's back to normal, they'll assume this was a one-time fluke, and it could have been anything from nerves to what I'd eaten in the past few days that gave me the bad measurements yesterday. If it's not...well, I don't actually know for sure what they'll do. Maybe send me back for another round of testing (just because I don't have pre-e this week, doesn't mean it can't or won't develop before next Wednesday). Or they might decide that at 38 weeks, I'm far enough along to go ahead and induce, just to negate the chance of PIH turning into Pre-e. (Note that I don't think they'll just ignore it and say, oh, your levels were all fine last week, they'll probably be fine again this week. I have 3 nurses in my family and all 3 completely blew off the notion that any of the testing I'd received was a waste of time, in spite of the negative results, lack of any other physical symptoms, and not-all-that-high blood pressure reading. Blood pressure is serious business in pregnancy, I have come to learn.)

I'm hoping that it was a fluke...not that I don't want to meet my son, but being induced because of a complication is not exactly how I wanted it to happen. Besides, the closer to my due date I get, the better it is for Matthew's school and work schedule, and my brother and his wife will be in Vegas next week. All very good reasons for me to chill out and hope the blood pressure goes down.

So now I'm torn. Should I engage in a tizzy of last minute cleaning and preparation, just in case they tell me next week that they want to induce me, so I'm as ready as possible for the baby? Or should I relax and take it easy, which would probably help keep my blood pressure down? Errm...maybe I'll tizzy first and rest later in the week. We'll see.

Belly pic!

So here I am, in all my huge-bellied glory. Actually, this picture is about two weeks old as of this writing (it was taken at 34 weeks and a couple days). I'm not a big fan of how I look pregnant, so I haven't allowed all that many pictures to be taken of me (not like people are queueing up to get pictures of me, I'm just saying).

I think a lot of pregnant women get comments that annoy them about how they look. You know, the "do you have twins in there?" type of thing, or "you look like you're about to pop!" My personal annoyance has been "gosh, you don't look that big for (insert number of weeks here)."

Yes, there are a lot of advantages in this pregnancy experience for us long-torsoed women. I get less acid reflux, I never had breathing problems (except my normal seasonal allergies and a bout of bronchitis--sucky, but not pregnancy related), I probably even had less baby on the bladder issues than most (though, since my little man dropped, I'm catching up on that one, at least). So I'm not saying I'd trade it away. But one thing I'll never have is that cute, perfectly rounded baby silhouette some people get. Shoot, I never even looked actually pregnant until about 7 months along.

Hence the photo avoidance. But I did take this shot for Locke's baby book, so I thought I'd share. It's probably the last one I'll (willingly) take before go time. And afterwards, they'll all be pictures of the baby and not of me, so I think I'm safe for the duration. :D

It's June at last!

Well, my son is due this month. He's due the very end of the month, which means that if I'm like the average first time mom, he'll actually be born in the first week of July or so (I keep reading that the average gestation for first timers is 41 weeks, 1 day, which I think would put his debut on July 8th). But his due date is on the current calendar page, so it counts! And I'm allowed to be excited. :)

This week, I had my first exam where I was checked to see if I'm getting ready for labor, and without going into any gory details at all (you're welcome), I'll say that the doctor guesses I may not make it until my due date at all. This seems a little odd to me, because I haven't been plagued with the Braxton-Hicks contractions I keep hearing other mothers complain about...in fact, to my knowledge, I've only had one, and it was more of an, "oh so *that's* what they feel like!" experience than a "dear God in heaven, how will I live through 20+ hours of these?!?" one. I always just assumed that those contractions would be obvious, but I learned in labor and delivery class yesterday that many moms never feel them at all. I appear to be in the lucky not feeling them subgroup, and let me tell ya, I'm not complaining. Nope nope. ;)

The idea of possibly going early does have me a little freaked out, though, for a few reasons. One, I've got this magic 38 weeks number stuck in my head. At 38 weeks (June 16th or later), he's full term, should be fully developed, and should be completely ready for his debut. Right now I'm 36 weeks, 2 days. Little buddy needs at least 12 more days of cooking time, and if laying in traction for all that time would help that along, I'd do it!

Secondly, there are more days in June that it would be inconvenient for my family and friends for me to give birth than there are good days, and the bad days are clustered at the beginning of the month.

Let's see if I can figure this out. Well, first off, Matthew is in MBA school, which meets every Saturday, so all Saturdays in June are out. (5th, 12th, 19th, 26th). The 12th is out twice over, because I am supposed to be babysitting my 7 month old niece all day that day. On the 7th, my husband has his expectant fathers class to attend at the hospital. On the 8th I have the baby shower his workplace is throwing for me and another lady who is married to one of his colleagues. On the 9th, Matthew is helping teach a CLE credit (one of those classes that lawyers have to take to keep their licenses active). And I may as well throw today, the 6th, the 10th, and the 11th in there because the guy who is coming to stay with us after I give birth has work to finish in his lab before he can drive down for the big event.

Skipping to the next week, my brother and his wife are going to Las Vegas the 15th-18th, and on the 15th I have an appointment with the pediatrician I'd like to use for our son. The 19th-21st are bad, because my sister's new clinic (she's a nurse practitioner) is opening on the 21st, and she'll need the days running up to it to get everything ready. And anyway, the 20th is bad, because it's a) Father's Day, and b) my dad is holding a big family cookout at his house that day.

By my count that leaves me with the 13th, the 14th, the 22nd-25th, and the 27th-30th. Ten days out of 30.

I suspect that if Locke comes in June, he will be disobliging to at least one of his relatives, eh? ;)

There are days in the beginning of July that are likewise bad (a poker party and a 4th of July party to start with) but I'm not even going to think about those times unless I'm overdue. Screw July. ;)

Labor and delivery class was another good one. I expected a lot of gory videos, and while, yes, we did watch a video of a lady giving birth, I reacted to it differently than I expected. I thought I'd get a bit grossed out, to be honest...never been a big fan of the TMI ;). But actually watching it made me teary eyed. Pregnancy hormones are ever unpredictable, eh? All I could think about was giving birth to Locke, and how special that was going to be. So now I've had a sneak preview into what I'm going to be like, five seconds post partum...I'm gonna be a weeper. ;) Good thing Matthew was with me...he has been warned. ;)

Kicking into high gear!

I'm definitely not the only person of my acquaintance who is pregnant right now. In fact, it seems as if half the people I know are pregnant (or, if male, married to someone who is pregnant). In what, for lack of better term, I'll call the current baby batch, I'm one of the first people due...but I'm not the first. The first was my good buddy Myra, who was due June 18th.

Notice I said "was"? Yeah, because her little boy decided to make his debut juuust a little early. To the tune of May 20th early. (That was a day shy of 36 weeks, if you don't want to do the math yourself). Mom and baby are doing great, by all accounts. Unfortunately she lives 2 hours away and I may not get to see them in person for awhile, but he's a handsome little devil from the pictures I've seen.

The news that Myra was in labor had two effects on me. First and foremost, of course, was a bit of anxiety-tinged excitement. I was thrilled for them that their lil guy was coming, but until I heard everything had gone well and everyone was healthy, I worried a bit. (Full disclosure: I'm a worrier by nature, so he could have come exactly on his due date and I still would have been a bit anxious.)

The second effect was that I had one of those mind-bending, gut-churning epiphanies that completely throws you off your equilibrium. It all of a sudden dawned on me that in spite of the fact that Locke's due date isn't even on the current calendar page (yet), he could come any day now.

Maybe that's one of those things that I knew in the back of my mind without really ever fully acknowledging it. But it hit me like a ton of bricks on the 20th, and all of a sudden I realized just how much stuff I still have to do to be ready for him.

All of a sudden my nesting instinct kicked into overdrive. In the last 3 days, I did tons of Locke prep-work. I did all the prewashing my cloth diapers required (my washing machine ran constantly for 8+ solid hours...6 prewashes per color family seemed excessive, but I followed the directions, dang it). I hung the decorations on the walls of his nursery. I installed the pad on the changing table (you have to screw those things down. Who knew?). I washed the most recent round of baby clothes that I've acquired (Locke won't have to wear the same thing twice until he's six months, at least). I caught up on all the thank you notes that I've needed to write to all the generous souls who have given us gifts for our baby. I went shopping for all the things I could think of that I have to have in my house before Locke arrives (newborn and size 1 disposable diapers [because I reserve the right not to start on my clothies until I feel like doing laundry again, dangit], wipes, formula in case my milk takes awhile to come in, nursing pads in case my milk comes in too fast, etc etc). But the biggest and most time-consuming project of all? I started and finished his crocheted baby blanket. Hey, that may not look like a lot of work to you, but I basically did nothing else for two of those three days. I was feeling especially guilty about it, because I've made blankets for two other expectant mamas since I've been gestating...I would have felt like a lousy mommy if I'd finished blankets for other kids without making one for my own. I'm pretty proud of how Locke's blanket came out, especially since I'm still a crochet beginner. :) (In the picture there, the blanket is draped over Locke's crib. Can you see the balloons in the crib itself? We're trying to train the cats not to jump in there. Since we put the balloons in, Arya has tried it...twice. She doesn't like the sound of them popping underneath her, though, so I hope she gives up on the crib soon...)

I gave myself today off, but Monday, I'm back at it. The next task is cleaning out and reorganizing the kitchen, top to bottom. This probably doesn't seem like a necessary baby prep project, but in a way, it is. If I'm not the one doing the cooking for the first few weeks after Locke is here (and I won't be), I need to make my kitchen as user-friendly for other people as possible. Not just for Matthew (whose culinary prowess is limited to peanut butter and jelly or anything that can be stuck into a toaster), but for a dear friend of ours who is planning to come stay with us for a little while after the baby comes, and has generously offered to keep me fed for those first few days. :)

So, after all that, do I feel more ready now? You know, I do...a little. I may be weird here, and I may change my mind about this in a couple of weeks, but I'd like for my little guy to give me another 5 weeks-ish before he makes his debut. But if he gets antsy and decides to jump ship early? Well, bring it on. ;)

6 weeks to go!

Well, I'm getting down to the homestretch. I'm 34 weeks today! 6 more to go. I had an appointment with the obsetrician today, and everything looked and sounded good. Really the only part of these things I look forward to anymore is the listening to the baby's heartbeat bit...that never gets old. :) What does eventually wear upon a gal is the hour and a half of waiting room time for less than 5 minutes of doctor time. Granted, I'm terribly grateful I only need that 5 minutes...if Locke were having any problems they'd make more time for me. But still! I'm 8 months pregnant and therefore allowed to be slightly whiny, right? So that hour and a half? It suuuuucks. ;)

I'm starting to get cautiously optimistic about the cats and the baby, thanks to all of the time I've spent watching my sister's six month old at my house. Sansa (my cat) is doing a lot better than Arya (Matthew's cat), but I think they have both made some progress. Sansa no longer hisses at the baby, and doesn't even leave the room when the baby is in it, even if the baby is crying or being noisy. She'll even approach me while I'm holding the baby now, and she is developing an inconvenient habit of wanting me to pet her right when I've started giving the baby a bottle (and therefore both hands are occupied, as Lexi can't hold the bottle on her own yet).

Arya still hisses at the baby whenever she gets close to her, and she still climbs into my bed and sulks the whole time the baby is in the house, so I guess I can't claim that she's made all that much progress. But the other day she did something that was kind of interesting. I'd just gotten Lexi to sleep for a nap, and had left her in the swing (turning the swing off after she drifted off, of course). I guess at that point Arya decided it was safe to come out, because she walked into my living room, and walked right up to the baby. She started sniffing the back of her head from the back side of the swing. Now, as you can imagine, Aunt Kim was poised to tackle the kitty. I didn't believe Arya would actually hurt the baby, but I wasn't taking any chances, particularly with a baby who is not my own and a baby-hating, front-claw-possessing cat who has shown nothing but defensive/antisocial behaviors towards all babies it's ever encountered. But all she did after getting a good sniff in was hiss twice, very quietly, and strut into the kitchen, where I gave her a treat. This may not sound like progress to you, but it seemed like it to me. She approached the baby on her own. Gotta celebrate the little victories, right?

Oh, the basic baby care class that I mentioned in my last post? Well, basic was the right word, for sure. We're talking the don't shake the baby type of advice...the sort of stuff that just about anybody who has ever spent any time with an infant already knows. I was hoping for pictures or a video...like, here is what a normally healing belly button looks like, and here's what it looks like when it's gotten infected and you need to call your pediatrician. That would have been useful, right? Instead we got a stack of handouts and a long, boring lecture that put Matthew to sleep. Three times, because I was ruthless and evil and kept waking him up. Ah, well. Next up is the labor & delivery class, in two weeks. I have a feeling pictures and video are inevitable in that one. ;) We'll see how it goes...

So I had a sobering realization today. Both my mother and Matthew's mother went into labor about a month early on their firstborn children. Now, there's probably nothing genetic in this...hell, my sister was induced just past 41 weeks, and her husband was a preemie, but it's enough to make me worry a little bit.

Oh, and yesterday was our anniversary! We've been married now for 8 years. Kinda sucked that we didn't get to pop open the bottle of wine we'd been saving for it, but we had diet ginger ale in champagne flutes, which was fun in a dorky sentimental kinda way. I guess we'll just have to save that wine for Locke's homecoming, eh? Six weeks....yikes!

The nursery and sundry

Locke finally has a nursery! I'm pretty excited about how it came together. There are still some things I need to do to finish it off (there are no decorations on the walls, for example), and a few more things I need to buy (pad for the changing table, clothes hamper, etc), but for the most part, it's done. I could bring him home today and make due without any other changes, I think. Especially since he'll actually be sleeping in the bassinet next to my bed, and will be unlikely to actually spend much time in here for, oh, the first four months or so. ;)

I'm 32 weeks now. Just when I had gotten used to the idea of being 7 months along, all of a sudden I'm 8! Yeah, yeah, lunar months don't exactly equal calendar months, but it's going to take me long enough to get used to the 8 months idea that I may as well get started now. I have it on good authority that the obsetrician group that I'm seeing pushes pretty hard for induction if I've reached/passed my due date, so it's pretty much a guarantee that Locke will be here sometime during the next 8 weeks. Another 8 to try and get my head around.

Daunted? Errr....yes. Yes, I am.

The hospital where I'm delivering offers free classes on various topics for us deer-in-the-headlights type moms (oh, and I guess those who just want to be informed, too ;)), and I had the first of those this week. The topic: breastfeeding. I tried to go into this with an open mind. Like every pregnant woman I know, I've received all kinds of conflicting advice and anecdotes on the subject, ranging from breastfeeding being an onerous, painful, difficult pain in the patoot to its being pretty much the closest a woman can aspire to achieving earthly goddess-hood, and just about every shade in between. It seems like the scales tip slightly towards the people who hated it, though, but I can't say whether that's a function of numbers, or just of the fact that people who are miserable about stuff tend to be more vocal about it than people who are happy. (Work in retail for as long as I did, and you accept this basic tenet of life.)

So, while I was trying to be open-minded, I was aware that there is a part of me that was flatly unconvinced that I can manage it at all.

After enduring two hours of slides and a no-holds-barred video (I lost track of the nipple count in the first 2 minutes), I can admit to having felt a bit shellshocked when I left the class. It took a day or two afterwards (and re-reading the handouts) for everything to sink in. Even knowing as little as I did about breastfeeding when I went in, I was surprised by how much I didn't know. The evils of pacifiers? The best shape/design of a nipple on a bottle if I plan to pump and let daddy have a turn feeding? How much alcohol I can drink before the dreaded pump-and-dump? When to start an exclusively breastfed baby on food other than breastmilk? Even how to properly hold the baby while breastfeeding? All news to me. But I feel more informed, and as GI Joe taught us long ago, knowing is half the battle. ;) Now, of course the woman who taught the class fell into the earth goddess school of thought on breastfeeding, so I'm aware that she trumpeted all the positives while minimizing any potential negatives, but the end result is that I'm feeling a bit more optimistic about my chances of success.

Though there was one glaring problem with the class, in my humble opinion. When we took a break, they had snacks available...but all they gave us to drink was orange juice. A room full of 50 or so third trimester preggos, all of whom are probably fighting acid reflux to some extent, and at 8:00 at night the only option they gave us to wash down those stale graham crackers was citrus??? Just wondering who thought that one through. ;)

The next class is next week, and this time the husband is getting dragged along. Topic: basic baby care. I almost didn't sign up for that one, but after the breastfeeding class, I'm glad I did. You never know what you'll learn, right?

The results are in!

First off, the glucose test results finally came back yesterday, and my readings were normal. I celebrated with a piece of carrot cake :)

My 3 hour glucose test experience was interesting. I'm one of those people that research everything before I do it, so I found lots of sources (some reputable, some not so much) that gave me a lot of insight into the test. What I found so interesting is how inconsistent the medical community appears to be about the administration of the test. Some doctors (and the Mayo clinic website) advise a carb load the 3 days prior to the exam, not exorbitant, but at least 150-200 carbs a day. On one obstetrics website, I even read that dessert was mandatory on those three days (now that's a doctor's order I could get behind!). Other practices (and this includes mine) gave absolutely no direction about what should be eaten in the days prior to the exam, other than that I had to fast at least 8 hours before the test had begun (this, I should say, is the only consistent thing I found...fasting for this test is standard, though the number of hours varied from 8-12). Another oddity was water...could I drink it or not? My practice was absolutely against any water at all between going to bed the night before the test, and when the test was over. That meant that I'd had absolutely nothing to drink (other than that nasty glucose drink they gave me) for over 12 hours by the time my test was done. Other practices want you to fast except for water, and some even allowed water during the exam itself. During the test, I was instructed to sit still in the waiting room between blood draws. Some obsetricians encourage (and one even required) the expectant moms to walk the hallways while they waited, to help metabolise the glucose.

In the end, I just followed my practice's instructions (and lack thereof, in the case of what to eat beforehand), and I still passed. I guess it all worked out, but is it too much to ask that the test be consistent? Maybe that's my snobby inner scientist talking. I do have a degree in biology, after all. ;)

I expected to be hungry when the test was over, and oddly, I wasn't (though I'd been without food by that time for 15 hours). What I wanted was a big, fat, tall glass of water. I had two before I even thought about food. :)

This week's focus: cleaning my house. The most important task, I'm ashamed to admit, is cleaning out my closet. From the smell, I'm pretty sure one of the cats got in there and peed the last time I had my niece over. They hate babies, and this is their way of showing it. Lesson learned: all closets stay closed, all the time, when Locke comes. Because I fear this is just a sneak preview of things to come.

Ah, well. They've had Matthew and I to themselves for over four years, I shouldn't expect them to be happy about a major life change at this point.

I'll be 31 weeks tomorrow! It seems so close (only 7 weeks and he'll be term!) and so far away (another 2 months???) at the same time. I don't know if I'm ready yet. I'm excited and ecstatic to be meeting him soon, but at the same time...as much as I think about it, as much as I prepare, as much as I organize and plan, will I ever feel really ready to be a mom? They're going to hand me this tiny, fragile, alien creature and send me home with him, and I'm not going to have a clue what to do with him. Luckily Matthew has three weeks of leave to help me...we can be clueless together :D.

SAHM: Day 1

The baby isn't here yet. He's not due for another...lemme think...10 weeks, 2 days. But as of today, I officially have one job and one job only: I'm a professional mother.

Is that too early to have quit my full time gig? Well, I admit I wondered the same thing myself a time or two over the last month or so. But due to the peculiarities of my job (heavy lifting to the tune of over 2k lbs a day + constantly on my feet=one very sore and worn out Kimberly), I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I made it as long as I did.

So...now what?

Obviously, a lot of my time will be spent getting ready for Locke. I have his room to finish setting up, more things to buy and organize, and my apartment needs a thorough top-to-bottom scouring. (nesting instincts ftw!)

But first, tomorrow...(cue doom music)...3-hour glucose test!! Aiieeeeee!!!

I failed my 1-hour test pretty badly, so I'm bracing myself to find out I have gestational diabetes. I mean, I hope I don't, but I'm afraid the odds are probably stacked against me. So much so that I've already given up white sugar in every form (well, okay, I broke down and had a piece of the going-away cake from my last day at work), I've decreased my carbs and upped my proteins, and I'm going on walks after meals to help metabolize.

Other than missing ice cream, the changes haven't been onerous so far...though, I suppose I'll have to wait until I talk to a nutritionist to make sure I've actually done all the right things. The thing I'm dreading the most is having to prick my finger all the time to check my blood sugars. I'm kind of a wuss about needles! So much so that I have a deal with Matthew...for every needle with which I get stuck during this whole pregnancy thing, I get a truffle from my favorite chocolatier (Debrand's in Fort Wayne, IN). So far I'm up to 6, and tomorrow's test will shoot me up to 10. I guess the finger pricks better not count, or we'll have to declare bankruptcy to pay for the chocolate!

Don't ask me how I'm going to handle the epidural. I'm just hoping to be in enough pain from the contractions to not give a damn how big that needle is. ;)

Regardless, I know it will all be worth it. I know it every time I feel my lil guy wiggling around in my belly. :D

Wish me luck tomorrow!

Just Polliwoggin'

Today I'm 23 weeks, 4 days pregnant.

It's our first. I can't decide whether I'm more excited or bewildered by this whole pregnancy process, and I have the strangest feeling that this ambivalence is going to extend into parenthood.

A cast of characters might be useful at this point.

This is mommy and daddy, aka Kimberly and Matthew.




I chose this picture for two reasons. One, it was taken in September of 2009, which means it was taken just a couple of weeks before we conceived.

The other reason is that it reminds me that pre-pregnancy, I wasn't just a belly with legs! I mean, all dressed up, I was even kind of cute. :)

Matthew looks very stern and serious in this picture, which is pretty much his standard pose for photographs. Don't let him fool you. He can be a serious, intense kind of guy, but he saves that for work and for martial arts. In the rest of his doings he's an irrepressable goofball, the kind of guy who wishes he had a good excuse to own a nerf gun. :)


This is our little one! It was taken at his 19 week ultrasound. It's a boy, and his name is Locke Thomas. We wanted something a little bit different, but not so far out there that he'll hate us for it one day. Locke is for the philosopher John Locke (Matthew majored in philosophy in college) and for Matthew's best friend, whose last name ends in -lock, and Thomas is for quite a few Thomases, including Thomas Merton, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas the Apostle, and Thomas Covenant (that last is a character in a series of books by Stephen Donaldson. We're fans.)



And here are our girls, Arya and Sansa. Arya's on the left, Sansa's on the right. They're both 4 years old, not littermates, but born within two weeks of one another. They've been together since they were six months old. We're a little bit concerned about how they're going to deal with Locke...after all, they hiss at and hide from every other child with whom they have come into contact, with one exception (a four year old who made such good friends with Sansa that he spent an afternoon teaching her how to be a ninja. It was pretty cute). But, as with everything else in this whole parenting adventure, we'll deal with the problems as they come, and learn as we go.

And boy, oh, boy do we have a lot to learn. :D

I'm hoping to chronicle my thoughts and experiences with this whole parenting thing with this little blog. I have a sinking premonition that someday I'm going to look back at some of what I write here and laugh at my own naivete and inexperience, but hey, that's part of the fun, right? I don't plan on shooting for any best-mom-ever accolades anyway; I'll settle for alive and healthy, with maybe a little bit of social responsibility and self reflection sprinkled in.

Anyway, nice to meet you, and if you're planning on following along with me, prepare for a bumpy ride! :D